Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

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Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Image:Gsas.jpg
Established	First discipline created 1880
School type	Private
Dean	Henry C. Pinkham
Location	New York, New York, USA
Enrollment	~6,000 students
Homepage	www.columbia.edu/cu/gsas

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University (also known as GSAS) is the branch of the university that grants academic degrees, including M.A.s and Ph.D.s., in fields not covered by the university's professional or other schools.

1 History
2 Notable alumni
3 External links

[edit] History

GSAS began to take shape in the late 19th century, when Columbia, until then a primarily undergraduate institution with a few professional attachments, began to establish graduate faculties in several fields: Political Science (1880), Philosophy (1890), and Pure Science (1892). The graduate faculties, notably, were open to women at a time when many other Columbia schools were not; Columbia College did not become a coeducational institution until 1983. The first Ph.D. awarded by Columbia was handed out in 1882; the first woman to receive one did so in 1886.

The increasing professionalization of the university brought with it an emphasis on the graduate schools, as presidents such as Seth Low and Nicholas Murray Butler sought to emulate the success of German universities during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Indeed, in the effort to produce as many graduate degree-holders as possible, attempts were made to streamline undergraduate life and center academic life in the graduate-focused departments. Such efforts led to resistance among Columbia College administrators and undergraduates, arguably one of the contributing factors in the 1968 protests. Nevertheless, graduate research has flourished at Columbia as a result, and the university has been among the top producers of Ph. Ds in the United States from the inception of the graduate disciplines. In the early 1990s, GSAS and Columbia College faculty were all absorbed into a consolidated Faculty of Arts and Sciences, with familiar complaints among undergraduates and their advocates.

[edit] Notable alumni

[edit] Economists

Arthur Burns - economist, 1934
Milton Friedman - Ph.D. in economics, 1946

[edit] Historians

Jacques Barzun - historian, Ph.D. 1932
Charles Beard - historian, Ph.D. 1904
Lawrence Cremin - historian, M.A. 1947, Ph.D. 1949
Richard Hofstadter - historian, Ph.D. 1942
James Shenton - historian, Ph.D. 1954

[edit] Literature

John Ashberry - poet, 1951
Isaac Asimov - science fiction writer, M.A. 1941
Paul Auster - writer, M.A., 1970
Samuel Behrman - playwright, 1918
Randolph Bourne - antiwar essayist, M.A. 1913
Rosemary Casey - playwright, 1929
Vicki Cobb - children's writer, 1960
Rachel Blau DuPlessis - literary critic, M.A. 1964, Ph.D. 1970
Jason Epstein - writer, M.A., 1950
John Erskine - literary scholar, Ph.D. 1903
John Gassner - drama critic, 1925
James Goldman - writer, 1952
William Goldman - screenwriter, 1956
Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal - screenwriter
Carolyn Heilbrun - writer, M.A. 1951, Ph.D. 1959
Joseph Heller - writer, 1949
Zora Neale Hurston - writer, 1935
Alfred Kazin - literary critic, 1958
Kenneth Koch - poet, M.A. 1953, Ph.D. 1959
Joseph Wood Krutch - writer, M.A. 1916, Ph.D. 1929
David Lehman - poet, Ph.D. 1978
Peter Straub - writer, 1966
Lionel Trilling - literary critic, M.A. 1926, Ph.D. 1938
Anne Tyler - novelist, 1962
Mark Van Doren - writer, Ph.D. 1920
Stark Young - critic and writer, 1902

[edit] Philosophers

Mortimer Adler - Ph.D. in psychology, 1928
Arthur Danto - M.A. 1949, Ph.D. in philosophy, 1952
Irwin Edman - Ph.D. in philosophy, 1919
Hu Shih - public intellectual in China, Ph.D. 1917

[edit] Natural scientists

Jacqueline Barton - chemist, 1979
Niles Eldredge - paleontologist, Ph.D. 1969
Stephen Jay Gould - paleontologist, Ph.D. 1967

[edit] Performing arts

Art Garfunkel - musician, 1967
Will Geer - actor
Edward Everett Horton - actor, 1909
John Kander - composer, 1954
Bernard Malamud - writer, 1942
Thomas Merton - Catholic writer, 1939
Anne Paolucci - writer, M.A. 1950, Ph.D. 1963

[edit] Social scientists

Ruth Benedict - anthropologist, Ph.D. 1923
Theos Casimir Bernard - explorer and religionist, M.A. 1936, Ph.D. 1943
Kenneth B. Clark - educational psychologist, Ph.D. 1940
Mamie Phipps Clark - educational psychologist, Ph.D. 1943
Erica Mann Jong - writer, 1965
Margaret Mead - anthropologist, Ph.D. 1929

[edit] Statesmen

B. R. Ambedkar - a founding father of India, M.A. 1915, Ph.D. 1928
Nicholas Murray Butler - diplomat and President of Columbia University, Ph.D. 1884
Benjamin Cardozo - jurist, M.A. 1890
Wellington Koo - Chinese diplomat, Ph.D. 1912
Robert Moses urban planner, Ph.D. 1914
Frances Perkins, US Secretary of Labor, M.A. 1910
Brent Scowcroft - M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations, 1967