Columbia College Chicago was founded in 1890 as the Columbia School of Oratory by Mary A. Blood and Ida Morey Riley, both graduates of the Monroe Conservatory of Oratory (now Emerson College), in Boston, Massachusetts. Blood became the College's first president, serving in this capacity until her death in 1927. The women established a co-educational school that "should stand for high ideals, for the teaching of expression by methods truly educational, for the gospel of good cheer, and for the building of sterling good character" in the Stevens' Art Gallery Building, 24 East Adams Street.
After Riley's death in 1901, the school changed its name to the Columbia College of Expression in 1905, adding coursework in teaching to the curriculum. In 1928, the college was associated with the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, a family-run school centered on training its students for teaching kindergarten. By 1934, Columbia College curriculum also focused on the growing field of radio broadcasting.
In 1944, the college left its partnership with the Pestalozzi-Froebel school and changed its name to Columbia College with Norman Alexandroff as its president. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the college broadened its educational base to include television, journalism, marketing, and other mass-communication areas. Prosperity was short lived, however, and by 1961, the college held fewer than 200 students and a part-time faculty of 25.
In 1961, Mirron (Mike) Alexandroff, son of Norman Alexandroff, who had worked at the school since 1947, became president, and created a liberal-arts college with a "hands-on minds-on" approach to arts and media education with a progressive social agenda. He established a generous-admissions policy[9] so that qualified high school graduates could attend college courses taught by some of the most influential and creative professionals in Chicago. For the next thirty years, Alexandroff worked to build the college into an urban institution that helped to change the face of higher education.
With this renewed focus on building its academic program, the institution was awarded full accreditation in 1974 from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and in 1984, received accreditation for its graduate programs. In 1975, when the college's enrollment exceeded 2,000, it purchased its first real estate, the 175,000-square-foot (16,300 m2) building at 600 South Michigan Avenue (the building is now known as the Alexandroff Campus Center). At the time of Alexandroff's retirement in 1992, the college served 6,791 students and owned or rented more than 643,000 square feet (59,700 m2) of instructional, performance and administrative space.
From 1992 until 2000, John B. Duff, former commissioner of the Chicago Public Library and former chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Regents of Higher Education, served as the college's president. During his tenure, the college changed its name to Columbia College Chicago[when?] and the institution continued to expand its educational programs and add to its physical campus by purchasing available buildings in the South Loop. This played a significant part in its presence in the South Loop and downtown Chicago. Today, the college's campus occupies almost two dozen buildings and utilizes over 2.5 million square feet.
In 2000, Dr. Warrick L. Carter became the college's president. An educator, jazz composer and performing artist, Carter joined the college from The Walt Disney Company, where he spent four years as director of entertainment arts. Previously, he had spent 12 years at Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of the world's-largest independent schools of music, where he served as dean of faculty and then provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Through 2010, under his leadership, the college created new student-based initiatives such as Manifest,the annual urban arts festival celebrating Columbia's graduating students, and ShopColumbia a store where students can showcase and sell their work on campus; partnered with local universities to construct the University Center; purchased new campus buildings; added new curricula; and oversaw the college's first newly constructed building, the Media Production Center.
Recently, the college has continued forth with its mission of providing a strong arts and media education and has a growing program of international exchanges, including associations with Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of East London. Through the vast diversity of students and graduates, the school brings a rich vision and a multiplicity of voices to American culture, encouraging students to "author the culture of their times".
However, Columbia has not been exempt from internal and external criticism in recent years. During the 2011-2012 school year, the college administration attempted to implement a set of sweeping changes to the college's curriculum, staffing policies, and overall institutional structure, through an initiative dubbed Blueprint | Prioritization. As the specifics of the changes and cutbacks came to light over the course of the school year, students and faculty from affected departments and majors vocalized their opposition to the cutbacks by staging protests during administrative meetings, mic-checking Interim Provost Louise Love during an open hearing about the proposed cutbacks, and circulating petitions calling for certain decisions, and even the entire process, to be reversed, citing "union busting" practices, consistent tuition hikes, and frequent, unexplained personnel changes across the college.
Press coverage and local awareness of the college's troubles surrounding Prioritization increased rapidly after Deanna Issacs, a reporter for the Chicago Reader, was shut out of President Warrick Carter's annual State of the College Address to the student body, which had been advertised as "open to the public." [18] During the meeting, at which the President had been questioned extensively by students about cutbacks and tuition hikes, Carter appeared to lose his temper at one point, aggressively telling a student to "shut up," in his response to a question about his salary, which exceeds $400,000 per year. In addition to the Reader, the grievances voiced over the Blueprint | Prioritization cutbacks received coverage in the Chicago Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Time Out Chicago.
As of September 2012, most of the proposed changes from Prioritization have yet to be implemented. Programs and departments that were at one point or another slated for cuts include the Center for Black Music Research, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media the Fiction Writing Department (whose Chair was let go without explanation after 20+ years of service in April 2011, only to be reinstated just months later after a student uproar over the firing), the college's recycling program, which employed student workers to collect refuse, and the top-10 ranked Cultural Studies program,one of the few standalone undergraduate programs of its kind in the nation.
On May 9, 2012, President Warrick Carter announced he would retire a year earlier than expected, stepping down at the end of the 2012-13 academic year.
On July 1, 2013, Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim became Columbia College's 10th president.
After Riley's death in 1901, the school changed its name to the Columbia College of Expression in 1905, adding coursework in teaching to the curriculum. In 1928, the college was associated with the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, a family-run school centered on training its students for teaching kindergarten. By 1934, Columbia College curriculum also focused on the growing field of radio broadcasting.
In 1944, the college left its partnership with the Pestalozzi-Froebel school and changed its name to Columbia College with Norman Alexandroff as its president. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the college broadened its educational base to include television, journalism, marketing, and other mass-communication areas. Prosperity was short lived, however, and by 1961, the college held fewer than 200 students and a part-time faculty of 25.
In 1961, Mirron (Mike) Alexandroff, son of Norman Alexandroff, who had worked at the school since 1947, became president, and created a liberal-arts college with a "hands-on minds-on" approach to arts and media education with a progressive social agenda. He established a generous-admissions policy[9] so that qualified high school graduates could attend college courses taught by some of the most influential and creative professionals in Chicago. For the next thirty years, Alexandroff worked to build the college into an urban institution that helped to change the face of higher education.
With this renewed focus on building its academic program, the institution was awarded full accreditation in 1974 from the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and in 1984, received accreditation for its graduate programs. In 1975, when the college's enrollment exceeded 2,000, it purchased its first real estate, the 175,000-square-foot (16,300 m2) building at 600 South Michigan Avenue (the building is now known as the Alexandroff Campus Center). At the time of Alexandroff's retirement in 1992, the college served 6,791 students and owned or rented more than 643,000 square feet (59,700 m2) of instructional, performance and administrative space.
From 1992 until 2000, John B. Duff, former commissioner of the Chicago Public Library and former chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Regents of Higher Education, served as the college's president. During his tenure, the college changed its name to Columbia College Chicago[when?] and the institution continued to expand its educational programs and add to its physical campus by purchasing available buildings in the South Loop. This played a significant part in its presence in the South Loop and downtown Chicago. Today, the college's campus occupies almost two dozen buildings and utilizes over 2.5 million square feet.
In 2000, Dr. Warrick L. Carter became the college's president. An educator, jazz composer and performing artist, Carter joined the college from The Walt Disney Company, where he spent four years as director of entertainment arts. Previously, he had spent 12 years at Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of the world's-largest independent schools of music, where he served as dean of faculty and then provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Through 2010, under his leadership, the college created new student-based initiatives such as Manifest,the annual urban arts festival celebrating Columbia's graduating students, and ShopColumbia a store where students can showcase and sell their work on campus; partnered with local universities to construct the University Center; purchased new campus buildings; added new curricula; and oversaw the college's first newly constructed building, the Media Production Center.
Recently, the college has continued forth with its mission of providing a strong arts and media education and has a growing program of international exchanges, including associations with Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of East London. Through the vast diversity of students and graduates, the school brings a rich vision and a multiplicity of voices to American culture, encouraging students to "author the culture of their times".
However, Columbia has not been exempt from internal and external criticism in recent years. During the 2011-2012 school year, the college administration attempted to implement a set of sweeping changes to the college's curriculum, staffing policies, and overall institutional structure, through an initiative dubbed Blueprint | Prioritization. As the specifics of the changes and cutbacks came to light over the course of the school year, students and faculty from affected departments and majors vocalized their opposition to the cutbacks by staging protests during administrative meetings, mic-checking Interim Provost Louise Love during an open hearing about the proposed cutbacks, and circulating petitions calling for certain decisions, and even the entire process, to be reversed, citing "union busting" practices, consistent tuition hikes, and frequent, unexplained personnel changes across the college.
Press coverage and local awareness of the college's troubles surrounding Prioritization increased rapidly after Deanna Issacs, a reporter for the Chicago Reader, was shut out of President Warrick Carter's annual State of the College Address to the student body, which had been advertised as "open to the public." [18] During the meeting, at which the President had been questioned extensively by students about cutbacks and tuition hikes, Carter appeared to lose his temper at one point, aggressively telling a student to "shut up," in his response to a question about his salary, which exceeds $400,000 per year. In addition to the Reader, the grievances voiced over the Blueprint | Prioritization cutbacks received coverage in the Chicago Tribune, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and Time Out Chicago.
As of September 2012, most of the proposed changes from Prioritization have yet to be implemented. Programs and departments that were at one point or another slated for cuts include the Center for Black Music Research, the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media the Fiction Writing Department (whose Chair was let go without explanation after 20+ years of service in April 2011, only to be reinstated just months later after a student uproar over the firing), the college's recycling program, which employed student workers to collect refuse, and the top-10 ranked Cultural Studies program,one of the few standalone undergraduate programs of its kind in the nation.
On May 9, 2012, President Warrick Carter announced he would retire a year earlier than expected, stepping down at the end of the 2012-13 academic year.
On July 1, 2013, Dr. Kwang-Wu Kim became Columbia College's 10th president.
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