History of the Culinary Institute of America

With a growing student body, the Culinary Institute purchased a former Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park in 1970, which remains its central campus.

The vocational training school, intended for returning World War II veterans,[1] held its first classes on May 22, 1946.

With assistance from Yale University, the school purchased the Davies mansion in New Haven's Prospect Hill neighborhood,[1] spending $75,000.

[3] Enrollment grew to approximately 1,000 students by 1969, beyond the capacity of its original campus, so the school sold the New Haven property to Yale[4] and purchased the St. Andrew-on-Hudson Jesuit novitiate in Hyde Park, New York in 1970.

[6]: v  The following year, the board of regents granted a charter for the college to begin awarding associate degrees.

[6]: 2 In 1973, the school opened the Epicurean Room, later named the Escoffier Restaurant, which had a three-star New York Times rating and four stars on the Mobil Travel Guide.

Early in 1988, following a $1.5 million grant, the school built the General Foods Nutrition Center, housing the student-run St. Andrew's Cafe.

In the same year, the college acquired a portion of Copia, a museum in downtown Napa, California that operated from 2001 to 2008.

In 2016, the college opened a campus, the Culinary Institute of America at Copia, which houses the CIA's new Food Business School.

The largest complaints, laid out in a thirteen-item list, included outdated technology, poorly-designed uniforms, substandard school-bland kitchen equipment, overcrowded classes, complicated schedules, and poor record-keeping.

The document described President Ryan as taking an autocratic style, ignoring staff input, and retaliating against criticism.

[11] On April 23, 2013, About 90 students left classes to protest a recent trend of less enforcement of a school policy.