Колумбийский колледж в Чикаго: история и современность

Private art college in the US

Columbia College Chicago is a private art college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1890, it has 6,493 students (as of fall 2021) pursuing degrees in more than 60 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Columbia College Chicago is the host institution of several affiliated educational, cultural, and research organizations, including the Center for Black Music Research, the Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Center for Community Arts Partnerships, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. Columbia College Chicago is not affiliated with Columbia University, Columbia College Hollywood, or any other Columbia College in the United States. However, Columbia College Hollywood was originally founded as a branch campus of Columbia College Chicago from 1952 1957.

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 (later Emerson College), in Boston, Massachusetts. Anticipating a strong need for public speaking at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Blood and Riley were inspired to open their school in the exposition city, Chicago, and adopt the exposition's name. Blood and Riley became the college's first co presidents, until Riley died in 1901; Blood served 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. The school ran as a sole proprietary business from 1890 to 1904, when the school became incorporated by the state of Illinois. On May 5, 1904, the school incorporated itself again in order to change its name to the Columbia College of Expression, adding coursework in teaching to the curriculum. When Blood died in 1927, George L. Scherger assumed the office of presidency after serving as a former member of the board of directors. Under his leadership, Scherger signed the paperwork at the board's annual meeting on April 14, 1928, to change the school's name to the Mary A. Blood School of Speech Arts. However, by April 30, 1928, the school reverted its name to the Columbia College of Expression by the board of directors, George L. Scherger, Herman H. Hegner, and Erme Rowe Hegner. During Scherger's presidency, the college became an official sister institution with the Pestalozzi Froebel Teachers College, a family run school centered on training its students for teaching kindergarten. As the president of the Pestalozzi Froebel Teachers College, Bertha Hofer Hegner assumed the role as the fourth president of Columbia College of Expression in 1929 when Scherger resigned to become an assistant pastor of St. Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church. Hegner served as the institutions' head, although due to illness, her son, Herman Hofer Hegner served as acting president of the institutions from 1930 until 1936. By 1934, college curriculum also focused on the growing field of radio broadcasting. In 1934, Herman Hofer Hegner hired Norman Alexandroff, a radio programmer, to develop a radio curriculum for the colleges as both institutions were suffering financially. When Bertha Hofer Hegner retired in 1936 due to health reasons, she was made president emeritus of the institutions and Herman Hofer Hegner became the institutions' official president. During Herman Hofner Hegner's presidency, the Columbia College of Expression was advertised under different names including, Columbia College of Speech and Drama, the Radio Institute of Columbia School of Speech and Drama, and Columbia College of Speech, Drama, and Radio. However, the college was never incorporated under any of these names by the state of Illinois. As the radio program gained prominence, Alexandroff was named as the vice president of the Columbia College of Expression and became a member on the board of directors at both institutions by 1937. The college left its partnership with the Pestalozzi Froebel Teachers College, named Norman Alexandroff as its president, and filed the Columbia College of Expression as a not for profit corporation on December 3, 1943. On February 5, 1944, the college re filed as a not for profit corporation and changed its name to Columbia College. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the college broadened its educational base to include television, journalism, marketing, and other mass communication areas. Alexandroff also oversaw the development of the extension campuses of the school, Columbia College Pan Americano in Mexico City, Mexico, and Columbia Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California. Both of these campuses became independent of their parent in the late 1950s. assumed the role of president by 1961. Mike Alexandroff had worked at the college since 1947 and as president, he 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 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 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 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. On October 28, 1997, the college changed its name to Columbia College Chicago, 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, Warrick L. Carter became the college's president. 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 a growing program of international exchanges, including associations with Dublin Institute of Technology, the University of East London, and the Lorenzo de' Medici Italian International Institute. 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 2011–12 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." 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 had 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, Kwang Wu Kim became Columbia College's 10th president. Kim holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts and an Artist Diploma from the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, where he studied with pianist and conductor Leon Fleisher and served as Fleisher's teaching associate. In February of 2024, Kim announced that he would step down as president in July of 2024, replaced by an interim president.

From October 30th to December 17th of 2023, the Columbia College Faculty Union (also known as CFAC), took part in the longest adjunct faculty strike in US labor history. The strike was for 49 days. The CFAC represents approximately 600 part time faculty members, or approximately two thirds of the total faculty. The foremost reason the strike took place was because over 50 courses from the Fall semester and over 300 courses from the Spring semester were intended to be cut. The majority of said courses were being taught by adjunct faculty. This caused alarm for both faculty and students, because the cuts would increase class sizes, despite small class sizes being a large draw for students who chose the college. The decreased number of courses offered would also potentially reduce the amount of selection and availability for students to take courses they needed to graduate. Non adjunct faculty were concerned that their increased class sizes would overload them with work and that their curriculum would have to change to accommodate a lecture size class, as opposed to the more intimate class setting they were accustomed to. On December 21st, the college also informed students that they would be refunded $500 for each class they were enrolled in that had been affected by the strike. This refund was given in the form of a deduction on their Spring tuition bill. is composed of seven departments: Art & Design; Business and Entrepreneurship; Dance; Fashion Studies; Music; Photography; and Theater. The School of Liberal Arts and Sciences is composed of four departments: American Sign Language; English and Creative Writing; Humanities, History, and Social Sciences; and Science and Mathematics. It is also home to the First Year Seminar, the LAS Core Curriculum, the college's Honors Program, the Center for Community Arts Partnerships, and the Ellen Stone Belic Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media. The School of Media Arts is composed of four departments: Audio Arts & Acoustics; Cinema & Television Arts; Interactive Arts & Media; and Communication. The School of Media Arts previously housed the department of Interdisciplinary Arts. The programs within that department have since been absorbed into other schools and departments.

Columbia has a nontraditional campus located in the South Loop and Near South Side of Chicago. The college owns sixteen academic, gallery/performance, administrative, and student residential buildings, and leases additional office and student residential space in four buildings. Most of the campus is contained in an area bounded by Ida B. Wells Drive, State Street, Roosevelt Road, and Michigan Avenue. Many of Columbia's buildings were built in the early 20th century and were acquired by the school as it expanded. The college also operates an intensive five week Semester in Los Angeles program on the premises of Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, California, for upper level (80+ credit hours completed, 3.0 GPA) Cinema Art & Science, Television, Communication and Media Innovation, Music, and Business & Entrepreneurship students.

Located at 600 S. Michigan Avenue, Columbia College's Main Building was built in 1906–07 by Christian A. Eckstorm, an architect popular for his industrial and warehouse designs, to serve as the headquarters of the International Harvester Company. 600 S. Michigan was a modern skyscraper of its era, built with a steel skeleton, high speed elevators, electric light, the most advanced mechanical systems available and a floor plan designed to maximize natural light for all of its interior office spaces. The 15 story brick clad building with classical stone detailing has an Art Deco lobby that retains much of its original marble. In 1937 the building was purchased by the Fairbanks Morse Company, makers of railroad locomotives, farm equipment and hydraulic systems. It was acquired by Columbia College in 1975. In its early years as the home of Columbia, it was adaptively reused to house classrooms, the library, darkrooms, studios, and an auditorium. When the campus expanded through the acquisition of other buildings, especially after 1990, some of these functions, such as the greatly expanded library, were moved to other locations, and the spaces were again adapted for new uses. The building continues to serve as the administrative center of the college, and houses the Museum of Contemporary Photography on its first two floors, along with the 180 seat Ferguson Memorial Theater, photography darkrooms, three professional television studios, film/video editing facilities, and classrooms.

The 33 East Ida B Wells Drive (formerly 33 East Congress) Building was built in 1925–26 by noted Chicago architect Alfred S. Alschuler, who designed the 1927 Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The seven story brick and terra cotta "Congress Wabash Building" was commissioned by Ferdinand W. Peck, Jr., a real estate developer, and initially housed a bank, offices, and recreation rooms that included dozens of pool tables. A national billiards championship was held here in 1938. By the 1940s, the building was known by the name of its major tenant, the Congress Bank. In the 1980s, it became the home of MacCormac College. Columbia leased space in the building starting in 1997 and purchased the structure in 1999. It currently houses administrative offices, classroom space and the college's radio station (WCRX 88.1 FM). The building is home to Columbia's American Sign Language English Interpretation, Audio Arts & Acoustics, Journalism and Radio departments.

623 South Wabash Avenue was built in 1895, designed by Solon S. Beman, architect of the industrial town of Pullman, one of the 19th century's largest, most complex, and globally famous planned industrial communities for the Pullman Palace Car Company. The ten story 623 South Wabash building was originally built for the Studebaker Brothers Carriage Company of South Bend, Indiana as its Chicago regional office and warehouse facility. It was later owned by the Brunswick Corporation, makers of wood furnishings and built in furniture for libraries, universities and a variety of public commercial and governmental facilities. By the late 19th century Brunswick became specialists in designing such entertainment furnishings as bars, billiards tables, and bowling alleys for drinking establishments nationwide. Subsequent owners are unknown. The building was acquired by Columbia in 1983 and now houses classrooms, academic offices, a computerized newsroom, sciences laboratories, art studios and two public gallery spaces. The building is also home to Anchor Graphics and ShopColumbia, a retail venue that sells the work of Columbia students and alumni artists, musicians, filmmakers etc. exclusively.

624 South Michigan Avenue was built by Christian A. Eckstorm

1104 South Wabash Avenue, built in 1891, is on the City of Chicago Landmarks (1996) and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1980). Built by William LeBaron Jenney, acknowledged as the inventor of the skyscraper for his fire proofed metal skeleton frame designs, the Ludington Building, as it was historically known, represents his continuing experimentation as the first entirely terra cotta clad skyscraper. The structure is also a rare survivor, being one of only two extant loft buildings in Chicago built by Jenney. This eight story, steel frame building, boasting one of the finest examples of a terra cotta clad façade, was commissioned by Mary Ludington Barnes for the American Book Company (1890), which was owned by her husband, Charles Barnes. At the time, Chicago was a national center for the publishing industry, as demonstrated by this building and many others, particularly those on Chicago's Printers Row, and including the former Lakeside Press Building owned by Columbia College. The American Book Company built the building to house its offices, printing presses, packaging and shipping operations. Its frame was built to withstand the weight and vibrations of the presses, which were originally located on the fourth through sixth floors, and to accommodate the anticipated eight story addition that was never built. Its status as a manufacturing facility determined its form as a loft building, with a practical and efficient interior that had few elegant original elements. Its location, between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Grand Central Station at Harrison and Wells Streets and the Illinois Central Railroad's Central Station at Michigan Avenue and Roosevelt Road, made it ideal for the distribution of the company's products. The Ludington Building was owned by descendants of its original owners until 1960, although it was occupied by many different tenants, including the Pepsodent toothpaste company in the 1910s and 1920s. In 1960, it was sold to Warshawsky and Company, an autoparts firm, for use as a storage facility. The college purchased the building from Warshawsky in 1999. The Ludington currently houses the school's Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Glass Curtain Gallery and the Conaway Multicultural Center. The majority of the building is used for offices, classrooms and studios of the Department of Cinema and Television Arts. The college's 260 seat state of the art Film Row Cinema theater is located on the 8th floor.

1014–16 South Michigan Avenue was built in 1912 by Christian A. Eckstorm This sleek four story Art Deco building, clad in limestone, was erected as the Paramount Publix Corporation as a film exchange, a venue for the presentation of films to the independent cinema operators throughout the Midwest who could rent them for exhibition at their theaters. The studio occupied the building up to about 1950, when it was taken over by the Equitable Life Assurance Company. In the 1970s it was known as the Seafarers International Union Building. The City of Chicago took possession of it in a tax sale in 1984, and used it for the Health Department's Environmental Health Clinic. The building was acquired by Columbia College in 1999 for use as the school's Dance Center. After extensive interior renovation and adaptation, the Dance Center opened its state of the art educational and public performance facilities in the fall of 2000. Prior to the relocation to Michigan Avenue, the Dance Center was located at 4730 North Sheridan Road in a former movie theater in the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago. The first floor housed the department office, lobby, dressing rooms, and the "main space", the primary dance studio. The second floor, accessed via a metal staircase in the back of the main space, held the ballet studio, the T'Chi room and music recording rooms.

Located at 1600 South State Street, the Media Production Center (MPC) was completed in 2010 and was the college's first new construction building in its history. Designed by Studio Gang Architects, the 35,500 square foot facility serves students in the Cinema and Television Arts and Interactive Arts & Media programs. It contains two film production soundstages, a motion capture studio, digital labs, animating suites, a fabrication shop, and classrooms. It received a 2010 Citation of Merit in the Distinguished Building category from the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects. It has also received LEED Gold certification from the U. S. Green Building Council.

Columbia College Chicago signed onto the American College & University Presidents' Climate Commitment in 2010. The college has met ACUPCC reporting deadlines that included submitting a formal Climate Action Plan and updating their Greenhouse Gas Inventory. The college has yet to set a climate neutrality date with the ACUPCC.

A Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory was completed in June 2011. The results show total equivalent emissions of 19,381.1 metric tonnes for the baseline year of 2010. The GHG Inventory was updated in May 2013. The total e emissions were 9,399 metric tonnes for the 2012 fiscal year. This reduction was due in part to the inclusion of purchased Renewable Energy Credits to offset emissions generated from purchased electricity. In conducting the GHG update, new methodologies were employed, emissions from purchased paper were used, and commuting data was collected from a streamlined transit survey. In 2011, the college hired the company Sustainametrics to complete the college's Sustainability Roadmap. This document was updated in September 2013 to reflect progress made since its initial adoption. The roadmap was submitted to the ACUPCC as the college's official Climate Action Plan. In 2012, the college decided to consolidate the Recycling Program into a sustainability based program. The position of Recycling Manager became Sustainability Manager. Other part time staff from the Recycling Program moved under the Sustainability Manager's direction into this new sustainability program. These part time positions are responsible for maintaining the campus green spaces and managing diversion efforts such as compost and atypical recycling (batteries, technotrash). Campus recycling and waste collection is coordinated by its janitorial services contractor.

Columbia College has at least $8 million invested in the oil, gas and coal industry. Ken Gotsch, the former CFO of Columbia, reported that these companies include oil and gas companies Murphy Oil Corporation and Apache Corporation.

In addition to the academic programs offered at the college, students engage in many extracurricular activities. There are several major organizations on campus run by students. They include XC3ND: Columbia College Show Choir, Producer's Guild of Columbia (PGC), the Student Government Association, the Student Organization Council, the Student Alumni Association, the Student Athletics Association (Renegades), Columbia Urban Music Association, ReachOut, Senior Class, the Student Programming Board, the Asian Student Organization, Students Supporting Israel, Hillel, the International Student Organization, the Columbia College Association of Black Journalists (CCABJ), Hispanic Journalists of Columbia (HJC) and Columbia Pride, the on campus LGBT student group. Other notable organizations are the Latino Alliance and Black Student Union, two of the oldest student groups on campus. These student organizations work together to provide leadership training and experience to Columbia students so they will be ready to take on leadership roles in their future places of employment.

The Student Government Association (SGA) consists of an executive board, the Senate, and committees. The executive board, or E Board, consists of the president, executive vice president, vice president of communications, vice president of finance, and the student representative to the college board of trustees. The Senate consists of student representatives from each of the colleges academic departments, eight senators "at large" who represent the college community as a whole, two senators who represent the college's vast commuter population, one senators from the Student Organization Council, one senator from the Student Athletics Association, and two senators from the Residence Hall Association. From those senators there are six committees, each with a different focus. SGA Senate meetings are open to the public and held on Tuesdays at 5 p. m. during the academic year.