Mission, Vision & Community

Students outside Hamilton Hall
Through a distinctive liberal arts and sciences education — grounded in the Core Curriculum, the resources of a world class research University, and the City of New York — Columbia College prepares students who, as alumni, are life-long learners, civic-minded leaders and globally-informed members of society.

Mission

Our mission is to equip every Columbia College student with habits of mind necessary for a life of civic engagement, meaningful achievement and professional success.

Vision

The highest aim of Columbia College is to provide a transformative undergraduate student experience where academic excellence, community stewardship and personal well-being are mutually enriching and integrally connected in the pursuit of our mission.

Our Community Commitment

Columbia College’s distinctive education is rooted in the belief that scholarship and learning are strengthened through robust and respectful conversation, critical inquiry and unprejudiced examination of the world. For true learning, the educational experience must involve engagement with a diversity of experience, ideas and perspectives, and a willingness to reflect on, reconsider and possibly change one’s beliefs.

The College is deeply committed to creating and maintaining a residential community in which every one of its students is both welcomed and actively supported in investigating and addressing the difficult questions that naturally arise when students representing every kind of difference — from across the nation and all around the globe — are invited to learn and live together.

Moreover, Columbia College is committed to proactive self-assessment and action to ensure that every student is effectively supported in taking full advantage of our unique array of curricular and co-curricular offerings, from matriculation through graduation and beyond. The College pursues this priority in an holistic and integrative fashion: in how we bring students to Columbia, in the ways we encourage their intellectual and social flourishing, and in how we build an academic community that facilitates each student’s development toward reaching their full potential.