The Columbia College curriculum and its academic policies are determined by the following faculty committees:
Committee on Instruction
The undergraduate curriculum for Columbia College, and all attendant policies, are governed by the Committee on Instruction (COI), a joint committee of Columbia College and the School of General Studies. The COI reviews and approves all new courses which CC and GS students can take for degree credit; reviews and approves all new programs of studies (majors and other formal programs of study) as well as all changes to existing programs of study; and determines academic policies that structure the undergraduate academic experience. The COI is composed of twelve faculty members (four from each of the three academic divisions), as well as school faculty representatives from Barnard, Engineering, and the School of the Arts. The COI also has four student representatives, and is supported by the academic deans and several administrators from the College and GS. Questions for the COI can be sent to cc-gs-courses@columbia.edu.
Committee on Instruction Members: 2024-2025
- Co-Chair: Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College
- Co-Chair: Lisa Rosen-Metsch, dean of School of General Studies
- Rachel Adams, Department of English and Comparative Literature
- Matthew Engelke, Department of Religion
- Stuart Firestein, Department of Biological Studies
- Dorothea Lasky, School of the Arts
- Seth Kimmel, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures
- Barclay Morrison, Department of Biomedical Engineering; vice dean of Undergraduate Programs, School of Engineering and Applied Science
- Meredith Nettles, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Caterina Pizzigoni, Department of History
- Laurie Postlewate, Barnard College
- Valerie Purdie-Greenaway, Department of Psychology
- Teresa Sharpe, Department of Sociology
- [other members TBA]
Student Representatives:
- TBA
Ex-Officio:
- Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs, Columbia College
- Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs, School of General Studies
- Andrew Plaa, dean of Advising, Columbia College and Columbia Engineering
- Marlyn Delva, dean of Students, School of General Studies
- Amy Kohn, senior associate director, Academic Affairs, Columbia College
- Mandeep Singh, assistant director, Academic Affairs, School of General Studies
Newly Approved Courses
The following new courses have been approved for Spring 2024. As new courses are added to the list frequently, please visit this site for updates. Additional courses and major/concentration requirements may be found in the Columbia College Bulletin.
Spring 2024 Last updated November 20, 2023.
DEPARTMENT/PROGRAM | COURSE NO. & DESIGNATOR | TITLE | |
African American African Diaspora Studies | AFAS UN3001 | SING A BLACK GIRL'S SONG: THE NON FICTION WRITING OF NTOZAKE SHANGE | |
African American African Diaspora Studies | AFAS GU4033 | Harlem and Haiti | |
American Studies | AMST UN3938 | AMERICAN PRAGMATISM | |
Anthropology | ANTH UN3800 | Black Death | |
Art History | AHIS UN3463 | Pastel in 18th-Century Europe | |
Art History | AHIS UN3624 | Narrative in Chinese Art | |
Art History | AHIS GU4064 | Arts of the Silk Road | |
Art History | AHIS GU4082 | Islam In the Making: An Art and Architectural History | |
Art History | AHIS GU4745 | Re/Building the American Dream | |
Astronomy | ASTR UN2910 | Introduction to Research Skills in Astrophysics | |
Classics | CLCV UN1006 | Aristotle & AI | |
Classics | CLCV GU4025 | ARISTOTLE'S POETICS AND GREEK POETRY | |
Comparative Literature and Society | CPLS GU4740 | The Narratology of “Modernity” | |
Comparative Literature and Society | CPLS GU4825 | Technology and Justice | |
Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology | EEEB GU4112 | Ichthyology | |
Economics | ECON UN3953 | Causes and Consequences of Inequality | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3269 | BRITISH LITERATURE 1900-1950 | |
English and Comparative Literature | CLEN UN3455 | Pacifism and the Apocalyptic Imagination | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3697 | "Sally Rooney": Authorship in the 21st Century | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3757 | The Lost Generation | |
English and Comparative Literature | CLEN UN3776 | A Pre-History of Science Fiction | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3777 | Geopoetics | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3873 | Troilus and Criseyde | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL UN3879 | Global Adaptations of Shakespeare | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL GU4204 | Swift and the Moderns | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL GU4458 | Young Romance | |
English and Comparative Literature | ENGL GU4554 | Victorian Faith, Form, and Poetry | |
Ethnicity and Race Studies | CSER UN3522 | War, Gender, and Migration | |
Ethnicity and Race Studies | CSER UN3821 | Archives of Possibility | |
Film | FILM GU4110 | Auteur Studies: Agnes Varda | |
French | FREN UN3245 | French Fiction Into Film | |
French | FREN GU4425 | Medieval Animals, Human and Other | |
Germanic Languages | CLGR UN3456 | Unland: Writing Utopias | |
Germanic Languages | GERM GU4446 | Berliner Topographien / Berlin Topographies | |
History | HIST UN1942 | The Year 1000: A World History | |
History | HIST UN3264 | East Central Europe in the Twentieth Century. An Intellectual and Cultural History | |
History | HIST UN3274 | Collapse: The Fall and Afterlife of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev to Putin | |
History | HIST UN3726 | The Crucible of Nations: Race, Migration, and the Modern Mediterranean | |
History | HIST UN3741 | American Commercial and Business Interests in Turkey Until the 1960s | |
History | HIST UN3798 | Fighting Inequality: Struggles for Economic Justice in the Global South | |
History | HIST GU4282 | The Legacies of Division. East-West Entanglements in Contemporary European History | |
History | HIST GU4346 | Black Sea Virtual Textbook: A Digital Research Seminar | |
History | HIST GU4356 | Montaigne and the Modern Self | |
History | HIST GU4373 | Empire and Environment in Eurasia, 1700-2024 | |
History | HIST GU4393 | Trials for history: How should Nazi crimes be judged? WWII and its legacy in Europe (1945-2024) | |
History | HIST GU4682 | Histories of the Public Sphere in Latin America: History, Justice, and Memory | |
History | HIST GU4729 | Sources and Methods in Islamic History | |
History | HIST GU4842 | The City and the Archive | |
History | HIST GU4871 | History of Asian Communism | |
History | FRHS GU4917 | French Empires: History and Historiography | |
History | HIST GU4963 | Nations and Nationalisms | |
Human Rights | HRTS UN3940 | History of Human Rights | |
Human Rights | HRTS GU4210 | Equality, Identity, and Rights | |
Human Rights | HRTS GU4940 | Human Rights and Education | |
Human Rights | HRTS GU4975 | Borders, Surveillance, Rights | |
Italian | ITAL GU4064 | INTRODUCTION TO CULTURAL HERITAGE. AN ITALIAN PERSPECTIVE | |
Jewish Studies | JWST GU4153 | U.S. Civil and Human Rights Lawyers | |
Linguistics | LING GU4174 | Linguistics: Languages of Asia | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | CLME GU4214 | Writing about Love in Arabic | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4243 | Readings in Arabic Texts | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4360 | Armenians and the Modern World | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4532 | Beyond Human in Modern Hebrew Literature | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | CLME GU4630 | Persian as a Philosophical Language | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4633 | Decolonial-Queerness & Abolition in SWANA | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4644 | Muslims and Hindus | |
Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies | MDES GU4945 | Contested Histories: A Medieval Jewish Empire? | |
Music | MUSI UN3210 | Chopin, Pianos, Revolutions | |
Music | MUSI GU4113 | Medieval Mediterranean Love Songs | |
Political Science | POLS UN3674 | China's Technological Rise | |
Political Science | POLS UN3692 | Business & Politics in Globalized World | |
Political Science | POLS UN3911 | SEMINAR IN POLITCAL THEORY (Arendt in the Twentieth Century) | |
Political Science | POLS UN3911 | SEMINAR IN POLITCAL THEORY (Political Theory Perspectives on Climate Change) | |
Political Science | POLS UN3911 | SEMINAR IN POLITCAL THEORY (The French Revolution in Political Thought) | |
Political Science | POLS UN3961 | INTERNATIONAL POLITICS SEMINAR (Peacemaking and Negotiation) | |
Political Science | POLS GU4439 | State and Society in Ukraine | |
Psychology | PSYC UN2270 | Perception and Cognition in Social Life | |
Psychology | PSYC UN2645 | Moral Psychology | |
Psychology | PSYC UN3212 | Psychology of Rewards | |
Religion | RELI UN3312 | “The Scientific Buddha”: Buddhism and Science in China and Beyond | |
Religion | RELI UN3415 | Climate, Religion, and the Anthropocene | |
Religion | RELI GU4175 | Queer Theory Meets Religion | |
Religion | RELI GU4260 | Time | |
Religion | RELI GU4345 | World Religions | |
Slavic Languages | CLSL GU4000 | Hebrew: History, Politics, Culture, Literature | |
Slavic Languages | CLRS GU4113 | Impossible Worlds in Russian and English Fiction | |
Sociology | SOCI UN3651 | GENDER AND PUBLIC HEALTH: DISPARITIES, PATHWAYS, AND POLICIES SPRING | |
Sociology | SOCI UN3661 | The Politics of Work | |
Sustainable Development | SDEV GU4670 | ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR ADVOCACY | |
Committee on the Core
The Committee on the Core (CoC) is the main consultative body for the curriculum of the Core, for the policies that govern the Core, and for certain operations involved in the mounting of the Core. The CoC is convened by the Dean of Columbia College and is composed of the faculty Chairs of each of the “shared” Core courses — i.e., those with a shared curriculum across all sections: Art Humanities, Contemporary Civilization, Frontiers of Science, Literature Humanities, and Music Humanities – as well as the Director of University Writing, the Director of Frontiers of Science, and the Chair of the Committee on the Global Core. The CoC also has three student representatives from the College and General Studies each year, and is supported by administrators from the College and General Studies. Questions for the Committee on the Core can be sent to core-curriculum@columbia.edu.
Committee on the Core Members: 2024-2025
- Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College
- Patricia Grieve, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures
- TBD, chair of the Committee on the Global Core
- Ruben Gonzalez, Department Chemistry, chair of Frontiers of Science
- Joseph Howley, Department of Classics, chair of Literature Humanities
- Ivana Nikolic Hughes, director of Frontiers of Science
- Carol Rovane, Department of Philosophy, chair of Contemporary Civilization
- Benjamin Steege, Department of Music, chair of Music Humanities
- Ioannis Mylonopoulos, Department of Art History and Archaeology, chair of Art Humanities
- Nicole Wallack, Department of English and Comparative Literature, director of the Undergraduate Writing Program
Student Representatives:
- TBA
Ex-Officio:
- Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs, Columbia College
- Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs, School of General Studies
- Larry Jackson, associate dean of Academic Affairs and director of the Center for the Core Curriculum
- Christine Butcher, associate director of the Center for the Core Curriculum
- Scott Harris, assistant director of the Center for the Core Curriculum
Committee on Science Instruction
The Committee on Science Instruction (CoSI) is responsible for all matters relating to the Science requirement and for providing leadership on matters related to undergraduate science education. CoSI is chaired by a faculty member and is composed of representative faculty members from each department in the natural sciences, as well as mathematics, statistics, and computer science. CoSI also includes two student representatives from the College and General Studies, and is supported by administrators from the College and General Studies. Questions for CoSI can be sent to cosi@columbia.edu.
Committee on Science Instruction Members: 2024-2025
- TBA, Department of Astronomy
- TBA, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology
- TBA, Department of Mathematics
- Ruben Gonzalez, Frontiers of Science, chair of the Committee on Science Instruction
- Jae Woo Lee, Department of Computer Science
- TBA, Department of Psychology
- TBA, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
- TBA, Department of Chemistry
- TBA, Department of Physics
- Carol Prives, Department of Biological Sciences
- TBA, Department of Statistics
Student Representatives:
- TBA
Ex-Officio:
- Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College
- Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs, Columbia College
- Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs, General Studies
- John Foo, senior assistant director of Center for Teaching & Learning
- Ivana Nikolic Hughes, director of Frontiers of Science
- Larry Jackson, associate dean of Academic Affairs and director of the Center for the Core Curriculum
- Amy Kohn, senior associate director, Academic Affairs, Columbia College
Committee on the Global Core
The Committee on the Global Core (CoGC) is responsible for all matters relating to the Global Core requirement, including determining the list of courses approved for the requirement. The CoGC is chaired by a faculty member and is composed of 6-10 faculty members from departments and programs across the humanities, all of whom have experience in designing courses for the specific parameters and goals of the Global Core requirement. The CoGC also includes two student representatives from the College and General Studies, and is supported by administrators from General Studies and the College. Questions for the Committee on the Global Core can be sent to globalcore@columbia.edu.
Faculty interested in proposing new courses for the Global Core requirement can view information regarding the process.
Committee on the Global Core Members: 2024-2025
- Chair: Patricia Grieve, Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures
- Courtney Bender, Department of Religion
- Kevin Fellezs, Department of Music and Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
- Frank Guridy, Department of History and Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies
- Mana Kia, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies
- Matthew McKelway, Department of Art History and Archaeology
Student Representatives:
- TBA
Ex-Officio:
- Josef Sorett, dean of Columbia College
- Lisa Hollibaugh, dean of Academic Affairs, Columbia College
- Caroline Marvin, dean of Academic Affairs, General Studies
- Shannon Marquez, dean of Undergradauate Global Engagement
- Larry Jackson, associate dean of Academic Affairs and director of the Center for the Core Curriculum
- Mandeep Singh, assistant director of Academic Affairs, General Studies
Student representatives to the undergraduate curriculum committees
Each of the undergraduate curriculum committees includes 1-2 student representatives from Columbia College who serve on the committees for a full academic year. Student representatives are current juniors or seniors of the College who can bring to bear their experiences to date of the Core Curriculum and of their major programs of study, as well as the many conversations they have had with their peers throughout their years at Columbia. While students are not voting members of the committees, they play a crucial role in advising faculty members on the student experience of the curriculum and in presenting to faculty members the typical questions and concerns of undergraduate students.
Apply to be a student representative
Columbia College students who are interested in serving as a student representative on a curriculum committee should write to cc-academic@columbia.edu with the following information:
- What is your name, your class year, your major field(s) of study, your uni, and your email address?
- Why are you interested in serving on a curriculum committee? What are you hoping to learn more about from the committee discussions? What are you hoping to share with faculty committee members?
- Which committees committees are of particular interest to you, and why? And for those committees that deal with a particular piece of the undergraduate curriculum (the Core, the Global Core requirement, the Science requirement), what have been your chief impressions of that part of the curriculum so far?
- What initial questions do you have about the work of the undergraduate curriculum committees?
- Please note: In order to serve on a particular curriculum committee in the 2024-2025 academic year, students must be available to meet in person at the scheduled meeting times (with the understanding that it might be necessary to miss an occasional meeting if there is an academic conflict):
- Committee on Instruction: every Friday morning from 10:00 to 11:30am in Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters
- Committee on the Core: Fall 2024 meetings: September 25, 10:00-11:30am; October 30, 1:30-3:00pm; November 22, 12:00-1:30pm; December 13, 12:00-1:30pm
- Committee on the Global Core: Fall 2024 meetings to be scheduled
- Committee on Science Instruction: Fall 2024 meetings to be scheduled
Interviews for student representatives are held early in the Fall semester, and students who are selected are expected to serve as a representative for the full academic year.