The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York is the governing board of
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. Founded in 1754, it is also referred to as the Columbia Corporation, as distinguished from affiliates of the University that are separate legal entities, such as
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
. The board of trustees was originally composed of ''ex officio'' members including officials from the
New York colonial government, crown officials, and various protestant ministers from the city. Following the college's resuscitation following the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
, it was placed under the control of the
Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York The Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York is responsible for the general supervision of all educational activities within New York State, presiding over University of the State of New York and the New York State Education Depa ...
, and the university would finally come under the control of a private board of trustees in 1787. The board is notable for having administered the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
from the prize's establishment until 1975. It consists of 24 members and as of 2021 is co-chaired by Lisa Carnoy and
Jonathan Lavine
Jonathan Scott Lavine (born May 9, 1966) is an American business executive, co-managing partner of Bain Capital, and philanthroplist. He also serves as chief investment officer of Bain Capital Credit, which he founded in 1997 as Sankaty Advisors, ...
.
Structure and function
![Trustees room at Columbia University MG 0908](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Trustees_room_at_Columbia_University_MG_0908.JPG)
The board is governed by 24 trustees, including the
president of the university, who serves ''ex officio.'' Six of the 24 candidates are nominated from a pool of candidates selected by the Columbia Alumni Association. Another six are nominated by the board in consultation with the University Senate. The remaining 12 are nominated by the trustees through an internal process.
The board elects its own chair; the first woman to serve as chair (and the first to chair the governing board of any Ivy League university) was
Gertrude Michelson
Gertrude Geraldine Michelson, also known as G.G. Michelson (June 3, 1925January 10, 2015), was an American businesswoman. She was the first woman to head the board of trustees of an Ivy League university ( Columbia), and the first woman to sit o ...
, elected in 1989. The term of office for the trustees is six years and trustees serve for no more than two consecutive terms.
The trustees have met in room dedicated to them in
Low Memorial Library
The Low Memorial Library (nicknamed Low) is a building at the center of Columbia University's Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building, located near 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam Aven ...
since 1897.
They select the President, oversee all faculty and senior administrative appointments, monitor the budget, supervise the endowment, and protect university property.
The board of trustees holds the exclusive power to grant degrees, including to the affiliated institutions of
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
and
Teachers College
A normal school or normal college is an institution created to train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high school level, turni ...
. The trustees also oversaw the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
s until 1975, when authority over the prizes was devolved to a separate board.
Early history
![CollegeHallCornerstone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/CollegeHallCornerstone.jpg)
The board of trustees was originally established in 1754 as the board of governors of
King's College with 41 members, replacing the ten-member Lottery Commission appointed by the
New York Assembly
The New York State Assembly is the lower house of the New York State Legislature, with the New York State Senate being the upper house. There are 150 seats in the Assembly. Assembly members serve two-year terms without term limits in the United ...
to oversee lottery funds allocated to the establishment of the college. The board of governors originally included several ''ex officio'' members, including, crown officials, members of the colonial government, and ministers of various protestant denominations:
A further twenty-four individuals were named in the charter, serving without terms with their successors to be selected by subsequent governors. College faculty were not provided seats ''ex officio'' on the board of governors, at variance with contemporary practice at the Universities of
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
and
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, where the faculty was engaged in the governance of their colleges, but was very much in line with practice of other colonial colleges governed by external boards.
The charter permitted
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
to serve as governors but excluded
Roman Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
. Only three members would be
Anglicans
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
: the
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
, the rector of
Trinity Church, and the
President of Columbia University
The president of Columbia University is the chief officer of Columbia University in New York City. The position was first created in 1754 by the original royal charter for the university, issued by George II, and the power to appoint the presiden ...
, and they were offset by four ''ex officio'' members selected from
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
's
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
,
French Church
, native_name_lang = fr
, image = 060806-France-Paris-Notre Dame.jpg
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = Cathedral Notre-Dame de Paris
, abbreviation =
, type ...
,
Lutheran Church
Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...
, and
Presbyterian Church
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
. In practice, the board was dominated by
Anglicans
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
, members of the
Trinity Church, and the
Dutch Reformed Church
The Dutch Reformed Church (, abbreviated NHK) was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the original denomination of the Dutch Royal Family and ...
. Of the fifty-nine men who served as governors, only three ''ex officio'' members were not from the Anglican or Dutch Reformed churches.
More than half of the fifty-nine New Yorkers who served as governor made their livings as merchants. The next most common occupation among the governors was law (20 percent), followed by ministers (16 percent), and there was only one doctor. The governors met 102 times in 22 years and most meetings were attended by around fifteen governors. A quarter of the governors attended fewer than ten meetings, and another half were absent, leaving a core of sixteen governors. Academic matters such as faculty appointments, the curriculum, and admissions requirements were overseen by degree-bearing ministers, while governors drawing from the city's mercantile and legal ranks oversaw financial matters such as construction of collegiate buildings or the salary of the college steward. This informal division of duties survived the reorganization of the
King's College into
Columbia College and persisted into the 1960s.
In terms of politics, the ratio of Loyalists to Patriots during the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
among the governors was more than eight to one.
In 1784, it became the Board of Regents of Columbia College. It was renamed in 1787 as the trustees, and arrived at its final name of The Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York by an order from the Supreme Court of New York in 1912, 16 years after Columbia College was renamed as Columbia University.
Controversies
![Columbia University - Low Memorial Library-D](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Columbia_University_-_Low_Memorial_Library-D.JPG)
Although the trustees usually approve faculty recommendations for hiring and dismissal of Columbia faculty, in some cases they have taken a more direct role. Notably, in 1917 they fired psychologist
James McKeen Cattell
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
for his anti-war and anti-conscription views, a case with ongoing significance for
academic freedom
Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...
.
The trustees' oversight of the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
s, which ended in 1975, was not without controversy. An early example of this occurred in 1921, when the trustees overruled the jury recommendation and awarded the fiction prize to
Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...
for ''
The Age of Innocence
''The Age of Innocence'' is a 1920 novel by American author Edith Wharton. It was her twelfth novel, and was initially serialized in 1920 in four parts, in the magazine ''Pictorial Review''. Later that year, it was released as a book by D. Apple ...
'' instead of the recommendation of
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
for ''
Main Street''. A similar controversy ensued in 1962, when the trustees overruled the jury's choice of a biography of
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst Sr. (; April 29, 1863 – August 14, 1951) was an American businessman, newspaper publisher, and politician known for developing the nation's largest newspaper chain and media company, Hearst Communications. His flamboya ...
by
W. A. Swanberg, ''Citizen Hearst'', instead choosing to give no award in that category.
The trustees have been blamed for the violent suppression of protestors in the
Columbia University protests of 1968
In 1968, a series of protests at Columbia University in New York City were one among the various student demonstrations that occurred around the globe in that year. The Columbia protests erupted over the spring of that year after students disco ...
, after they instructed the university administration to call in the police against the protestors and later lauded the police for their efforts.
In 2001, the trustees were accused of pressuring the university to water down its sexual misconduct policy, and the director of the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education resigned in protest, claiming that the trustees had directed her not to discuss the policy changes.
As with most governing boards of private universities, the deliberations of the trustees are confidential, and despite any internal disagreements the trustees generally present a unified front to the public on the decisions they have taken. A notable exception to this occurred in 2012, when trustee
José A. Cabranes
José Alberto Cabranes (born December 22, 1940) is an American lawyer who serves as a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and a former presiding judge of the United States Foreign Intell ...
published a dissenting opinion on the status of Columbia College and
its core curriculum within the university, in a column in Columbia's student newspaper, the ''
Columbia Daily Spectator
The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as the ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after ''The Harvard Crimson'', and has ...
''.
Current trustees
The board consists of the following members as of September 2021, according to
Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's official website and the biographies of the trustees:
Notable past trustees
According to the University website and ''
Columbia Daily Spectator
The ''Columbia Daily Spectator'' (known colloquially as the ''Spec'') is the student newspaper of Columbia University. Founded in 1877, it is the oldest continuously operating college news daily in the nation after ''The Harvard Crimson'', and has ...
'' archives, the following people have served as trustees in the past:
References
External Links
Official website
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Columbia University
Governing bodies of universities and colleges in the United States