The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University (also known as GSAS) is a graduate school of the university that grants academic degrees in the arts and sciences, including M.A.s and Ph.D.s., in fields not covered by the university's professional or other schools.
History
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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 conferred 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 PhDs 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.
List of academic departments
Notable alumni
Economists
- Arthur Burns - economist, Ph.D., 1934
- Milton Friedman - economist, Ph.D., 1946
- Kenneth Arrow - economist, Ph.D., 1951
Historians
- Nina Ansary - historian, Ph.D 2013
- Jacques Barzun - historian, Ph.D. 1932
- Charles A. Beard - historian, Ph.D. 1904
- Lawrence Cremin - historian, M.A. 1947, Ph.D. 1949
- Richard Hofstadter - historian, Ph.D. 1942
- Bruce Cumings - historian, Ph.D. 1975
- Stanley Payneâ€"historian, Ph.D. 1959
- Howard Zinnâ€"historian, Ph.D. 1958
Literature
- Jacob M. Appel - writer and bioethicist, M.A., 2000
- John Ashbery - poet, 1951
- Isaac Asimov - science fiction writer, M.A. 1941
- Paul Auster - writer, M.A., 1970
- Randolph Bourne - antiwar essayist, M.A. 1913
- Rachel Blau DuPlessis - literary critic, M.A. 1964, Ph.D. 1970
- Jason Epstein - writer, M.A., 1950
- John Erskine - literary scholar, Ph.D. 1903
- 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
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
Natural scientists
- Jacqueline Barton - chemist, 1979
- Niles Eldredge - paleontologist, Ph.D. 1969
- Stephen Jay Gould - paleontologist, Ph.D. 1967
- Neil deGrasse Tyson - astrophysicist, author, science communicator, Ph.D. 1991
Performing arts
- Kenneth Ascher, DMA â€" jazz pianist, composer â€" 1966 CC; 1968 GSAS; 1971 SOA
- Alan Heyman, traditional Korean musicologist and composer, 1959
- 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
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
- Gilberto Freyre â€" Brazilian sociologist, cultural anthropologist and historian, M.A. 1922
- Margaret Mead â€" anthropologist, Ph.D. 1929
- Lorine Livingston Pruette â€" psychologist, Ph.D. 1924
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 - US National Security Advisor, M.A. and Ph.D. in international relations, 1967
- Mark Wyland - California State Senator, M.A. in political science, 1969
Visual arts
- Mary Godfrey - art educator
- Donald Clarence Judd - sculptor, 1961
- Agnes Martin - painter, M.A. 1952
- Meyer Schapiro - art historian, Ph.D. 1929
Other fields
- Herman Hollerith - inventor, Ph.D. 1890
- Jose Franklin Jurado-Rodriguez - Moneylaunderer for the Cali Cartel kingpin Jose Santacruz Londono
- Sam Levenson - comedian, 1938
- John McCaffery - newscaster
- Richard P. Mills - former Commissioner of Education for both Vermont and New York States, M.A. 1967
- Madeleine B. Stern - rare book expert, M.A. 1934
- Judith Rodin - 7th president of the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Rockefeller Foundation, Ph.D. 1970
References
External links
- GSAS website