The university's research efforts include the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and accelerator laboratories with Big Tech firms such as Amazon and IBM.

[64][73] Under the leadership of Low's successor, Nicholas Murray Butler, who served for over four decades, Columbia rapidly became the nation's major institution for research, setting the multiversity model that later universities would adopt.

[74] In the 1940s, faculty members, including John R. Dunning, I. I. Rabi, Enrico Fermi, and Polykarp Kusch, began what became the Manhattan Project, creating the first nuclear fission reactor in the Americas and researching gaseous diffusion.

[79] In 1995, the School of General Studies was again reorganized as a full-fledged liberal arts college for non-traditional students (those who have had an academic break of one year or more, or are pursuing dual-degrees) and was fully integrated into Columbia's traditional undergraduate curriculum.

In April 2024, the suspended student sued Columbia, alleging that the school subjected him to "biased misconduct proceedings" and that he had used fart sprays such as "Liquid Ass" rather than harmful chemicals.

While Shafik was in Washington, DC, student activists began renewed protests,[101][102] leading to what CNN described as a "full-blown crisis" over tensions stemming from a pro-Palestinian campus occupation.

[104] As the protests expanded in scale and notoriety, students and faculty, including people of Jewish heritage, pushed back against the silencing of anti-Zionist voices and accusations of anti-semitism.

[112] Around 9 PM that night, NYPD officers in riot gear used a siege ladder to access the second floor of Hamilton Hall and subsequently removed the demonstrators occupying it, dozens of whom were arrested.

[120][121][122] The majority of Columbia's graduate and undergraduate studies are conducted in the Upper Manhattan neighborhood of Morningside Heights on Seth Low's late-19th century vision of a university campus where all disciplines could be taught at one location.

The statue represents a personification of the traditional image of the university as an alma mater, or "nourishing mother", draped in an academic gown and seated on a throne.

Community activist groups in West Harlem fought the expansion for reasons ranging from property protection and fair exchange for land, to residents' rights.

[157] On April 11, 2007, Columbia University announced a $400 million donation from media billionaire alumnus John Kluge to be used exclusively for undergraduate financial aid.

According to Columbia, the first four designated scholars "distinguish themselves for their remarkable academic and personal achievements, dynamism, intellectual curiosity, the originality and independence of their thinking, and the diversity that stems from their different cultures and their varied educational experiences".

[182] The university also has several Columbia Global Centers, in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Mumbai, Nairobi, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, and Tunis.

[207] Other inventions and products related to Columbia include Sequential Lateral Solidification (SLS) technology for making LCDs, System Management Arts (SMARTS), Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) (which is used for audio, video, chat, instant messaging and whiteboarding), pharmacopeia, Macromodel (software for computational chemistry), a new and better recipe for glass concrete, Blue LEDs, and Beamprop (used in photonics).

Each year CORE hosts dozens of events, including talks, #StartupColumbia, a conference and venture competition for $250,000, and Ignite@CU, a weekend for undergrads interested in design, engineering, and entrepreneurship.

The Baker Athletics Complex also includes facilities for baseball, softball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey, tennis, track, and rowing, as well as the new Campbell Sports Center, which opened in January 2013.

Founded in 1893 as a fundraiser for the university's fledgling athletic teams, the Varsity Show now draws together the entire Columbia undergraduate community for a series of performances every April.

Dedicated to producing a unique full-length musical that skewers and satirizes many dubious aspects of life at Columbia, the Varsity Show is written and performed exclusively by university undergraduates.

Various renowned playwrights, composers, authors, directors, and actors have contributed to the Varsity Show, either as writers or performers, while students at Columbia, including Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Lorenz Hart, Herman J. Mankiewicz, I.

A troop of students dressed as Continental Army soldiers carry the eponymous log from the sundial to the lounge of John Jay Hall, where it is lit amid the singing of seasonal carols.

Other political figures educated at Columbia include former U.S. President Barack Obama,[299] Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Ruth Bader Ginsburg,[300] former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,[301] former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank Alan Greenspan,[302] U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and U.S.

[316] CEO's of top Fortune 500 companies include James P. Gorman of Morgan Stanley,[317] Robert J. Stevens of Lockheed Martin,[318] Philippe Dauman of Viacom,[319] Robert Bakish of Paramount Global,[320][321] Ursula Burns of Xerox,[322] Devin Wenig of EBay,[323] Vikram Pandit of Citigroup,[324] Ralph Izzo of Public Service Enterprise Group,[325][326] Gail Koziara Boudreaux of Anthem,[327] and Frank Blake of The Home Depot.

[329] In science and technology, Columbia alumni include: founder of IBM Herman Hollerith;[330] inventor of FM radio Edwin Armstrong;[331] Francis Mechner; integral in development of the nuclear submarine Hyman Rickover;[332] founder of Google China Kai-Fu Lee;[333] scientists Stephen Jay Gould,[334] Robert Millikan,[335] Helium–neon laser inventor Ali Javan and Mihajlo Pupin;[336] chief-engineer of the New York City Subway, William Barclay Parsons;[337] philosophers Irwin Edman[338] and Robert Nozick;[339] economist Milton Friedman;[340] psychologist Harriet Babcock;[341] archaeologist Josephine Platner Shear;[342] and sociologists Lewis A. Coser and Rose Laub Coser.

Columbia alumni have made an indelible mark in the field of American poetry and literature, with such people as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, pioneers of the Beat Generation;[350] and Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, seminal figures in the Harlem Renaissance,[351][352] all having attended the university.

[295] Some notable Columbia alumni that have gone on to work in film include directors Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men)[360] and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker),[361] screenwriters Howard Koch (Casablanca)[362] and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (All About Eve),[363] and actors James Cagney,[364] Ed Harris and Timothée Chalamet.

[372] Columbia faculty and researchers, including Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Eugene T. Booth, John R. Dunning, George B. Pegram, Walter Zinn, Chien-Shiung Wu, Francis G. Slack, Harold Urey, Herbert L. Anderson, and Isidor Isaac Rabi, also played a significant role during the early phases of the Manhattan Project.

Senator from Connecticut William Samuel Johnson, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nicholas Murray Butler, and First Amendment scholar Lee Bollinger.

[24] Notable Columbia University faculty include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Sonia Sotomayor, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Lee Bollinger, Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Edward Sapir, John Dewey, Charles A.

Beard, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Orhan Pamuk, Edwin Howard Armstrong, Enrico Fermi, Chien-Shiung Wu, Tsung-Dao Lee, Jack Steinberger, Joachim Frank, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeffrey Sachs, Robert Mundell, Thomas Hunt Morgan, Eric Kandel, Richard Axel, and Andrei Okounkov.