Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York
The board is governed by a maximum of 24 trustees, including the president of the university, who serves ex officio.
[4] They select the President, oversee all faculty and senior administrative appointments, monitor the budget, supervise the endowment, and protect university property.
[6] The board of trustees was originally established in 1754 as the board of governors of King's College with 41 members, replacing the ten-member Lottery Commission appointed by the New York Assembly to oversee lottery funds allocated to the establishment of the college.
[7] The board of governors originally included several ex officio members, including, crown officials, members of the colonial government, and ministers of various Protestant denominations:[8] A further twenty-four individuals were named in the charter, serving without terms with their successors to be selected by subsequent governors.
Of the fifty-nine men who served as governors, only three ex officio members were not from the Anglican or Dutch Reformed churches.
Academic matters such as faculty appointments, the curriculum, and admissions requirements were overseen by degree-bearing ministers, while governors drawing from the city's mercantile and legal ranks oversaw financial matters such as construction of collegiate buildings or the salary of the college steward.
The number of regents was subsequently expanded to 33 by the New York State Legislature, with 20 of them residents of New York City, including a mix of prominent politicians and clergymen such as John Jay, Samuel Provoost, Leonard Lispenard, Gershom Mendes Seixas, and John Daniel Gros.
Notably, in 1917 they fired psychologist James McKeen Cattell for his anti-war and anti-conscription views, a case significant in the history of academic freedom.
[19] In 2001, the trustees were accused of pressuring the university to water down its sexual misconduct policy, and the director of the Office of Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Education resigned in protest, claiming that the trustees had directed her not to discuss the policy changes.
[21] During the 2024 Columbia University pro-Palestinian campus occupation a group of 21 members of the United States House of Representatives suggested that the trustees resign if they were unwilling to call in the NYPD to arrest student protestors.
