Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605-1996
Telephone: 312-663-1600
URL: http://www.colum.edu
Map of the campus
History of Columbia College Chicago
Columbia College today ascends in irregular line from a women's speech college founded in 1890 as the Columbia School of Oratory, an early pioneer in speech art education. The name, inspired by the upcoming World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, was later changed to the Columbia College of Expression, and in 1922, the college moved from 3358 S. Michigan Avenue to the Farwell Mansion at 120 E. Pearson Street.
In 1928, the college was incorporated into the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College. A renewed, co-educational version of the college emerged in 1936, emphasizing the growing field of radio broadcasting. In 1944, the name was changed to Columbia College of Chicago. Six years later, the college moved from 410 S. Michigan to 207 S. Wabash.
During the 1950s, the college broadened its educational base to include television and other areas of mass communications. Despite a brief time of prosperity, Columbia was a dying institution by 1962. The college had fewer than 200 students, a part-time faculty of 25, and no endowments, subsidies or visibility. Mike Alexandroff became president in 1963, intent on fashioning a new approach to liberal arts education.
Although the college teetered along for several more years, the foundations for a new Columbia were being formed. In 1967, the school began to catch on. The face of America and American education was rapidly changing. Many students had become disenchanted with the highly structured academic experience offered by most traditional universities. Instead, Columbia offered an affordable and imaginative liberal education as well as an exceptional faculty made up almost exclusively of working professionals.
Moreover, Columbia had an active presence in Chicago's neighborhoods. An old midtown hotel was turned into a dance center, a north side loft space into a poetry center. A rented church building became the theater department; the college also bought the old Swedish Athletic Club at 3257 N. Sheffield Avenue, and renamed it the Free Street Theater. Through 1974, the theater played to audiences of more than 75,000 a year.
In 1964, the college moved to rented office space in a warehouse at 540 N. Lake Shore Drive. Over the next five years, enrollment quadrupled to 700 students. Columbia continued to add new academic departments and design new programs to keep up with the educational needs and trends of contemporary America. Alexandroff was also able to attract some of the most important and creative professionals that Chicago had to offer.
In 1974, Columbia won full accreditation as a four-year, undergraduate liberal arts school by the North Central Association of Schools and Colleges.
By 1976, enrollment passed the 2,000 mark, which overwhelmed the college's rented facilities. That year, Columbia agreed to buy the old Fairbanks Morse Building at 600 S. Michigan Avenue. The 15-story, 175,000 square-foot building gave Columbia its first permanent home. Over the next three years, $3.5 million was raised to purchase and improve the building. Today the building houses the 180-seat Ferguson Memorial Theater, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, photography darkrooms, the college's 100-watt radio station, two professional television studios, film/video editing facilities, classrooms and administrative offices.
In 1977, the college purchased the Dance Center, a performance and educational facility at 4730 N. Sheridan Road, for $95,000. Over the next three years, an additional $182,000 of renovation and remodeling was put into the building. The Dance Center now includes a theater, full facilities for ballet, Tai Chi and dance rehearsal, and a well-equipped sound lab.
In 1981, the college purchased the Theater/Music Building at 72 E. 11th Street and constructed a two-story addition in a $1.8 million project. The Oscar and Emma Getz Foundation also gave the school $750,000 to renovate the 400-seat theater, lobby marquee and dressing room. The building added 83,000 square feet of space to Columbia's facilities, including space for film and photography studios.
By 1983, enrollment had grown to 4,583 undergraduates and 171 graduate students. Faculty, administrative staff, student services and instructional support all had comparable increases. The college again needed greater space.
That year, the school acquired the former Brunswick Building, a 10-story structure at 623 S. Wabash, adding 200,000 square feet to the South Loop campus. The building now houses classrooms, academic offices, a computerized newsroom, science laboratories, art studios, stage and costume design workshops and the Myron Hokin Student Center.
In 1990, the college purchased the Torco Building at 624 S. Michigan. The $12 million acquisition and remodeling added 181,000 square feet to Columbia's campus. The building now houses a five-story library, classrooms, departmental offices, student and faculty lounges, and the college's bookstore. A sculpture garden was also opened in 1990 on a converted parking lot next to the 11th Street Theater.
Mike Alexandroff retired in September 1992 after a 30-year tenure as Columbia's president. He was succeeded by John B. Duff, former commissioner of the Chicago Public Library and former chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Regents of Higher Education.
In January 1993, Columbia acquired its first residence hall, the landmark Lakeside Lofts building at 731 S. Plymouth Court in the historic Printers Row neighborhood a few blocks from the main campus. Designed in 1895 by noted architect Howard Van Doren Shaw and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the 158,000 sq. ft. building once housed the Lakeside Press. It was converted to luxury apartments in 1984, and currently houses over 300 Columbia students.
That same month, the college signed a long-term lease for a 14,000 sq. ft. recording complex at 676 N. LaSalle Street, which was renamed the Columbia College Audio Technology Center and which now is home to all sound engineering classes.
In April 1994, the college opened the 12,000 sq. ft. Columbia College Center for the Book and Paper Arts in leased space at 218 S. Wabash. It is the nation's only college or university book and paper arts center, and presents exhibits and credit courses as well as low-cost community classes.
In February 1996 the college launched Columbia 2, a continuing education division for adult students which offers noncredit and certificate courses evenings and on weekends. The curriculum concentrates on Columbia's areas of specialization, the arts, media and communications.
That same month the college announced a $1 million grant–the largest gift from a private donor in its history–from noted philanthropists Irving B. and Joan W. Harris for an undergraduate early childhood teacher education program, conducted cooperatively by Columbia and Chicago-based Erikson Institute for Advanced Study in Child Development, a leader in educating child development specialists and early childhood educators at the graduate level.
An 18,500 sq. ft. building at 1415 S. Wabash was purchased in 1996. It is used for teaching, performance and production by the college’s film/video and theater/music departments. A further 28,000 sq. ft. building at 1014 S. Michigan has been occupied by the music program since the fall of 1998. Purchase of this property brought the Columbia campus to almost one million square feet in 14 owned or leased buildings, eleven of which are in the South Loop, one in River North and two in the Uptown neighborhood.
By Fall 1998, enrollment at Columbia had mushroomed to over 8,800 students, making it the fifth largest private higher education institution in Illinois. Full- and part-time faculty currently total over 1100, and staff over 350.
In March 1999, the college purchased the landmark Ludington Building at 1104 S. Wabash, designed in 1891 by William LeBaron Jenney. The 182,000 sq. ft. terra cotta building will be used to house the Film/Video department, a student center, and other programs.
In May 1999, the college acquired a building at the corner of 8th and Wabash. It plans to demolish the building and, on its site, build a student center. That same month, the college acquired the 180,000 sq. ft. 33 E. Congress building, in which it had been a tenant since 1997.
Columbia's undergraduate programs include Art and Design, Dance, Early Childhood Teacher Education, Fiction Writing, Film/Video, Interactive Multimedia Production, Interdisciplinary Studies, Interpreter Training, Journalism, Management, Marketing Communication, Music, Photography, Radio/Sound, Television, Theater, and General Studies (Academic Computing, English, Liberal Education, and Science/Math.)
Graduate programs are offered in Architectural Studies; Arts, Entertainment and Media Management;
Creative Writing and the Teaching of Writing; Dance/Movement Therapy; Educational Studies; Film and Video; Interior Design; Interdisciplinary Arts (including Book & Paper Arts); Interior Design, Journalism and Photography.
Columbia is home to numerous educational and research entities which serve as resources for students and the Chicago community. These include the Art Gallery, Calhoun Press, Career Beginnings, the Center for Asian Arts and Media, the Center for Black Music Research, the Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Chicago Center for Arts Policy, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the Chicago Latino Cinema, the Community Media Workshop, DanceAfrica, the Dance Center, the High School Summer Institute, the Institute for Science Education and Science Communication, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, New Expression, the Office of Community Arts Partnerships, the Summer Arts Day Camp, Upward Bound, and the Windy City International Documentary Festival.
Mission of Columbia College
Columbia is an undergraduate and graduate college whose principal commitment is to provide a comprehensive educational opportunity in the arts, communications, and public information within a context of enlightened liberal education. Columbia's intent is to educate students who will communicate creatively and shape the public's perceptions of issues and events and who will author the culture of their times. Columbia is an urban institution whose students reflect the economic, racial, cultural, and educational diversity of contemporary America. Columbia conducts education in close relationship to a vital urban reality and serves important civic purpose by active engagement in the life and culture of the city of Chicago.
Columbia's purpose is:
to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of the arts and media and to encourage awareness of their aesthetic relationship and the opportunity of professional choice among them; to extend educational opportunity by admitting unreservedly (at the undergraduate level) a student population with creative ability in, or inclination to, the subjects of Columbia's interest; to provide a college climate that offers students an opportunity to try themselves out, to explore, and to discover what they can and want to do; to give educational emphasis to the work of a subject by providing a practical setting, professional facilities, and the example and guidance of an inventive faculty who work professionally at the subjects they teach; to teach students to do expertly the work they like, to master the crafts of their intended occupations, and to discover alternative opportunities to employ their talents in settings other than customary marketplaces; to help students to find out who they are and to discover their own voices, respect their own individuality, and improve their self-esteem and self-confidence; to offer specialized graduate programs which combine a strong conceptual emphasis with practical professional education, preparing students with mature interests to be both competent artists and successful professionals.
Accreditation
Columbia College is accredited at the graduate and undergraduate levels by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and by the Illinois Office of Education. The College is accredited as a teacher training institution by the Illinois State Board of Education.
For more information about Columbia's accreditation contact the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 30 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 2400, Chicago, Illinois, 60602, 312-263-0456
Columbia College is an independent and unaffiliated institution of higher education.
Financial Information
The college will make available, upon written request, a copy of the most recent audited financial report. Requests should be submitted to:
Office of the Vice President of Finance
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605-1996
Equal Opportunity
Columbia College complies with all local, state, and federal laws and regulations concerning civil rights. Admission and practices of the College are free of any discrimination based on age, race, color, creed, sex, religion, handicap, disability, sexual orientation, and national or ethnic origin.
The policies, programs, activities, course offerings, descriptions, faculty, and calendars listed in this catalog are subject to change, revision, modification, and/or deletion at any time without notice.
Excerpted from: http://www.colum.edu
This article was acquired on the "fair use" basis. We encourage you to visit the source website for more information on this subject.
|
|
|
