Columbia brings together a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives by drawing people from around the city, the country, and the world. Students, teachers and researchers work at the leading edge of discovery and creativity—from basic science and medical treatments, to government, business, and the arts. Teaching, learning, and service take place not only in laboratories, classrooms, and libraries, but also on the stage, on the street, and in the field—from Battery Park to the Bronx, and from upstate New York to countries around the world. Today's challenges and opportunities are both local and global—and these are the perspectives that come together at Columbia.
A Convening Place for Global Perspectives and New York Citizenship
Around the World
We live an era of globalization that demands greater and more nuanced understanding of issues in our own communities and across the world. Changes in business and economics, health and the environment, and technology and politics create new opportunities, as well as challenges. Scholars at Columbia’s schools, research centers, and institutes are exploring new ways to help all of us live and work in an increasingly interconnected, interdependent world.
And in New York City
Faculty and students partner with community groups to help improve local health care, education, arts, entrepreneurship, and the environment. Columbia's doctors and health educators serve people with asthma, HIV/AIDS, cancer, obesity, and heart disease. Faculty and students in business, law, and architecture provide support to local businesses, tenants and immigrants, and community-planning projects.
A Place for People and Ideas
Columbia brings people together—to teach, speak, visit, seek counsel, and offer advice. The annual World Leaders Forum, DuPont Awards, and Pulitzer Prizes are just some of the more prominent occasions for leading thinkers to come to Columbia. Every day, faculty symposia and student events create new opportunities for experts, scholars, practitioners, and activists to engage with each other and the public, compare notes, challenge old ideas, and try out new ones.
Looking Toward the Future
Research and innovation at Columbia are helping to drive New York City's new knowledge-based economy and the creation of new jobs in our neighborhoods and around the city. Whether in genomics or nanotechnology, architecture or the arts, Columbia researchers are making discoveries that help create new jobs and businesses, even entire industries.
Among leading centers for teaching and research, Columbia University is one of the most constrained for space. To carry out our mission of research, teaching, and service, we project that we will need another 5 to 6 million square feet over the next 25 to 30 years for classrooms, laboratories, studios, performance space, and related facilities. Our existing campuses can provide only a fraction of the space needed, so we must look beyond them for a new campus.
Columbia's mission would complement West Harlem’s heritage of innovation and creativity. The campus we are proposing would be open and integrated into the neighborhood and improve the physical connection to the waterfront. It would add new services and opportunities to West Harlem’s already rich array of community-based organizations and cultural institutions, and generate local business opportunities and thousands of new jobs.
The proposal for a new campus benefits from open discussions and diverse perspectives. As we continue the planning process, we encourage community members to familiarize themselves with the proposed plan and to participate during the public review process.
