Columbia University

Columbia University (Columbia University or just "Columbia") is a private University located in Manhattan, New York City (United States). Founded in 1754, it is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the United States and is part of the Group of eight prestigious universities of the Ivy League. With more than 80 laureates among its alumni and academic, she arrived in head the list of holders of the Nobel Prize from American universities.

Columbia University was founded in 1754 as King's College by a Charter from the King of England, George II. It is the oldest institution of higher education in the State of New York. At its Foundation, a controversy opposed Presbyterians Anglicans. For Anglicans, the University should be clearly linked to the colonial church. The Presidency should be attributed to an Anglican and church services to comply with the Anglican liturgy. Presbyterians refused this institutional linkage fearing that it will become a place of Anglican proselytism.

In July 1754, Samuel Johnson (1696-1772), philosopher and educator, gives his first lessons in the new school next to Trinity Church, located on the current Broadway Manhattan. It was then those eight students in the class. En1767, King's College ("College of the King") established the first school of medicine in the United States. The war of American independence causes the interruption of education for eight years.

In 1784, after the war of independence, the institution found its activity and was renamed Columbia College in honor of independence. During its first years of existence, students as prestigious as Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Governor Morris, and Robert R. Livingston attended the schools of Columbia.

In 1849, the college moved from Park Place to 49th Street and Madison Avenue, where it remained for 50 years. The Law Department is based en1858. The first school of mines of the country, ancestor of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science was established in 1864. School of Medicine (1891) and the masters (1893) followed.

In 1896, the campus changed again name to "Columbia University in the City of New York ' in order to differentiate the institution undergraduate (dating from the Foundation) of the University as a whole. Indeed, it included at the time, in addition to Columbia College, an undergraduate school (short cycle of studies) engineering and graduate courses (long course) in science, engineering, medicine, law, education, commerce, political science and philosophy. At the same time, the campus changes location and attaches in the Morningside Heights neighborhood.

In 1893 the Columbia University Press are based and its most prestigious publications include the Columbia Encyclopedia (1935), and laColumbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World (1952).

In 1902, New York press magnate Joseph Pulitzer is don a large sum of money at the University that is based a journalism school, which was founded in 1912 (Graduate School of Journalism). The school of journalism has since the Pulitzer Prize.

From 1948 to 1953, Dwight Eisenhower was president of the University before becoming president of the United States.

Columbia University is today internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious universities and its integration by students is one of the most selective in the country. The campus occupies six blocks and covers environ132 m2 in Morningside Heights, a Northern District of Manhattan. There is another campus of the University more in the North, for medicine, in the island of Washington Heights. Columbia is the third largest landowner in New York after the municipality and the Roman Catholic Church. She is also one of the largest employers in Manhattan.

Today, the official name of the University is always Columbia University in the City of New York, administered by The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. Its undergraduate courses are Columbia College (CC), the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS), and the School of General Studies (GS). Columbia has a very large number of graduate courses (accessible after a cycle studies undergraduate), the most famous being the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (training of physicians and Surgeons), the Graduate School of Journalism (School of journalism), the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (School of architecture), the Graduate School of Business or Columbia Business School (business school)the School of International and Public Affairs or SIPA (School of political science and international relations), and Columbia Law School (law school that ranked in the top five universities of law in the United States).