[2] The school was the first to be elected a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for International Nursing Development in Advanced Practice.

[2] After Presbyterian Hospital was established in 1872, administrators had trouble finding competent staff and recognized a need for qualified nurses.

[4] The early curriculum at the school, taught mostly by physicians, included such varied subjects as hygiene of the sickroom, bacteriology, anatomy, bandaging, symptomatology, surgical diseases, obstetrics and gynecology, contagious diseases, nervous cases, Swedish massage, and cooking for the homebound.

In 2017, the nursing school moved into a new 68,000-square-foot building designed by the architectural firms of FXFOWLE in New York and CO Architects in Los Angeles.

[7] The ACNP program was reconfigured to incorporate both theoretical and practical skills to foster an approach to clinical care geared toward older adults and persons with disabilities.

[7] Core courses and supporting sciences for all nurse practitioners include physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology, introduction to primary care, advanced physical assessment, genetics, health and social policy, and theory and research.

[7] In June 2017, the School of Nursing moved into a new seven story-building at the corner of West 168th Street and Audubon Avenue, at the east end of the Columbia University Medical Center campus in northern Manhattan.