News
This fall, the School of General Studies welcomes nearly 660 incoming students who began the week-long New Student Orientation Program (NSOP) on Monday with breakfast in Low Memorial Library.
In 1904, when Columbia created the Extension Teaching program as a vehicle for members of the community to take courses at the University, just two percent of Americans 23 years old or older held a bachelor’s degree.
The School of General Studies celebrated the Class of 2017 at its 70th anniversary Class Day ceremony on Monday, May 15. Dean Peter J. Awn, who has served as dean for 20 years and will be stepping down after this academic year, opened the ceremony by welcoming the 585 graduates, more than 1,800 guests, faculty, and administrators.
To be a student on a college campus in 1968 and consider oneself an agent of history was, if grandiose, not necessarily incorrect. The Columbia student uprising in 1968 began with a rally protesting the University’s effort to build a gym on public land in Morningside Park and its ties to military research, which then spiraled into the occupation of several buildings on campus, beginning with Hamilton Hall and Low Library.
The graduates of the Columbia Postbac Premed Program celebrated Class Day on May 12 in Low Memorial Library. Faculty, administrators, fellow students, friends, and family honored the 112 graduates for completing this important step on their journey to medical school and beyond.
This year’s annual Medical School Fair, featuring representatives from more than 50 top medical schools, was marked by a momentous surprise for one exceptional Postbac Premed student. Alexandra Naides, who completed the Program in the spring of 2016, received her acceptance to medical school in person from the Associate Dean of Admissions for Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.
On Friday, May 12, 2017 at Faculty House, the New York Delta Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society initiated more than 40 GS students at its annual Induction Ceremony.
Columbia University School of General Studies (GS) student Barret Mindell has been awarded the George Lucas Scholarship for graduate study in film at the prestigious University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.
At the foundation of the Columbia Core lay the texts of the Western canon, widely influential yet authored by a narrow coterie of dead white men. Like the student activism campaigns urging divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa—which, at Columbia, included hunger strikes and a barricade of Hamilton Hall—that spanned the decade, the discussions over the canon and its continued relevance to undergraduates at GS and Columbia’s other undergraduate schools reflected a heated national debate.
GS student Ana-Maria Szilagyi, who is committed to a career in human rights, was selected as a 2017 Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace. As one of just 100 recipients of this prestigious award, Szilagyi will pursue an intensive immersion program in German language at the Middlebury Language School this summer.
On the evening of Tuesday, May 2, the School of General Studies celebrated the academic excellence and outstanding leadership of students of the Class of 2017 at the Academic Prizes and Student Leadership Awards Ceremony. Guests of the award winners joined faculty and administrators in recognizing the achievements of more than 90 undergraduate and Postbac Premed Program students.
In 1946, Columbia was in crisis. A year earlier, President Nicholas Murray Butler had retired after nearly half a century in office, leaving no obvious successor. Enrollment had plummeted after the Great Depression and World War II, while federal funding related to the war effort was drying up. Then, following the enactment of the GI Bill and demobilization of the Armed Forces, thousands of veterans appeared on campus.
Columbia University today announced the creation of a new Center for Veteran Transition and Integration that will provide innovative educational programming and support for veterans making the transition to two- and four-year colleges, graduate and professional schools, civilian life, and the workforce.
GS students Tamta Arakhamia, Brigid Connelly, and William Scott have been chosen as 2017 Presidential Global Fellows. Funded with a seed grant by Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger, these fellowships provide first-year undergraduates with a unique opportunity to engage with critical global issues by funding each fellow’s participation in a Columbia summer study abroad program.
Dean Peter J. Awn has announced the featured speakers for the Columbia University School of General Studies Class Day ceremony and reception on Monday, May 15, as well as the receipt of a University Medal for Excellence and honorary degree by two GS alumni, respectively, to be awarded at University Commencement on Wednesday, May 17.