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Around the QuadsThe School at CU OpensThe School at Columbia University opened its doors on 110th Street and Broadway this month. The School occupies about half of a 12-story building constructed during the past two years. Faculty apartments are being finished on the upper floors, and a D’Agostino grocery store will be on the ground floor. About 200 students from kindergarten through 4th grade entered the School this fall. One grade will be added every year through 2007, when the school will be K–8 and enroll about 650 students. Half of the students are children of Columbia faculty and staff, and half are from the surrounding community, a mix the school aims to maintain. The school is promoting itself as a very different private school experience for New York. “This is low-stress, low-anxiety; inclusive rather than exclusive,” says Head of School Gardner Dunnan, assistant provost, special projects. No standardized test scores are used for admission, which is basically automatic for children of faculty and staff and by lottery for children from the community. “We’re deliberately trying to demonstrate that you can have a great school without the usual craziness of the New York City independent school,” Dunnan says. Tuition is $22,000 per year, with faculty receiving a 50 percent discount. Nearly every student is receiving some financial aid, with the average award topping $15,000, according to Dunnan. Right now, the school’s operations and financial aid are being fully funded by the University, and in the future will be partially supported by private fund raising. The school, spearheaded by former Provost Jonathan Cole ’64, is the fourth grade school opened by the University, but is the only one currently affiliated. In 1890, the University opened the Speyer School for nursery and kindergarten students. It was unusual for the time in that it employed two social workers and its teachers lived in the building, which also provided community center services. Shortly thereafter, the Lincoln School was started, which, like the Speyer School, used a progressive curriculum. In the 1930s, members of the faculty requested a classical education for their children, according to Dunnan, and the Horace Mann school was opened on Amsterdam at 123rd Street. That school later moved to the Bronx and still operates but is no longer related to Columbia. Curriculum for today’s School at Columbia University is being developed by the related Center for Integrated Learning and Teaching, which works with two existing campus entities, Teachers College’s Institute for Learning Technologies, and the Columbia University Center for New Media Teaching and Learning. “There will be pervasive use of new media and pervasive use of Columbia’s resources,” Dunnan says, including intellectual and physical resources, such as the Dodge Physical Fitness Center and Butler Library. Part of the school’s mission is to develop pedagogic techniques and tools that can be used by other schools, both public and independent. S.J.B.
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