Graduate school of Columbia University From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (also known as GSAS) is the graduate school of Columbia University. Founded in 1880, GSAS is responsible for most of Columbia's graduate degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. The school offers MA and PhD degrees in approximately 78 disciplines.
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.
In addition, before 1880, the Master of Arts degree was awarded in the style of Cambridge and Oxford, that is three years after graduation and without further examination. This changed after June 1880, when the trustees implemented an examination for the award of the Master of Arts degree.[1]
The Ph.D was first proposed as a degree in 1873 to be awarded under the auspices of the School of Mines.[2] It was first awarded in 1877.[3] The ability of granting the PhD later expanded to the Faculty of Political Science. 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. 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.
African-American Studies
African Studies Certificate
American Studies (Liberal Studies M.A.)
Anatomy and Cell Biology
Anthropology (Ph.D in Anthropology & Education - joint degree with Teachers College[4])
Applied Mathematics
Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics
Architecture (History and Theory)
Art History and Archaeology
Astronomy
Atmospheric and Planetary Science
Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics
Biological Sciences
Biomedical Engineering
Biomedical Informatics
Biostatistics
Biotechnology
Buddhist Studies
Business
Cell Biology and Pathobiology
Cellular, Molecular, and Biophysical Studies
Chemical Biology
Chemical Engineering
Chemical Physics
Chemistry
Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
Classical Studies
Classics
Climate and Society
Communications
Comparative Literature and Society
Computer Science
Conservation Biology
Dental Sciences
Earth and Environmental Engineering (Henry Krumb School of Mines)
