Senior administrators are planning to establish an endowment for the Core Curriculum to help ensure its long-term sustainability.
Alumni, faculty members, and administrators have been discussing ideas for a broad-based fundraising initiative since the fall.
University President Lee Bollinger said that the plan for the endowment is still being pieced together, but that by the end of the semester it should be “pretty well shaped-up.”
“I think that there will be a lot of people who will find this appealing to support,” he said. “We’re bringing the college, the faculty, and the curriculum much closer together, so that’s kind of the goal. The more that happens, the more people will want to give–both for what they’ve been giving and more broadly.”
As Columbia’s capital campaign has surged past its initial goal of $4 billion and toward its new goal of $5 billion, Bollinger said he is hopeful that a “sub-campaign” could be established in support of undergraduate education.
“I think that there is no question that we will have a campaign to get a greater endowment for the Core,” he said. “And I think we will expand that and include it as part of a campaign for all undergraduate teaching and faculty departments as well.”
Executive Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks said that the Core endowment would be a “wonderful opportunity” to solidify support for the curriculum, especially considering the unique logistical demands of the Core and the outsize share of Columbia College students’ educations that it takes up.
“We’re always interested in finding greater levels of support for the Core because it’s a very time-intensive mode of education,” he said. “We’re all keen to find ways to support what is an extraordinarily complicated and difficult curriculum to mount.”
The Core requires the staffing of many small sections each year, making it an expensive program. Finding enough professors and graduate students to teach every semester can be a challenge, and some have said there should be more financial incentives for tenured and tenure-track faculty to teach Core classes.
Columbia College Interim Dean James Valentini is one of several administrators who have been involved in discussions about a Core endowment. He said that although no decisions have been made about how an endowment would be allocated, some of it could go toward incentivizing senior faculty members to teach courses like Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization.
“Endow means enhance, in this case,” Valentini said. “If something is important to you, you want to establish a base of funding that guarantees its existence in perpetuity.”
Columbia College Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis added that, “since the Core is the intellectual and curricular signature of the College, one of the first issues we will want to address is the normative one ... what should be the percentage of tenure and tenure-track faculty teaching in the Core.”
Valentini explained that he is working with other administrators to develop a detailed plan for a Core endowment that would outline its goals and explore ways of achieving them. He has also spent time talking to alumni about what a Core endowment would look like.
“Endowing the Core is both establishing money for it and also getting money to make it better,” he said. “If something is a priority to you, you find a special line of funding for it.”
Dirks agreed that it is important to encourage senior faculty to participate in the Core.
“We want to make sure that we get more and more senior faculty teaching in the Core,” Dirks said. “It also makes clear the commitment of the institution as a whole to the importance of the Core.”
Dirks, who is teaching a section of Contemporary Civilization this semester, also expressed interest in establishing more support for Art Humanities and Music Humanities.
“I would like very much to include them, eventually in the ideas of endowing the Core,” he said. “The only way to really keep them going and ensure that they keep going is to get an endowment for that as well.”
As administrators work to transition the Core endowment from an idea to a formal initiative, they have been talking to many alumni, including the Columbia College Board of Visitors.
“We are working with alumni … to ensure that it [the Core] gets more support even now, but also for future generations so that it doesn’t get cut for the wrong reasons,” Dirks said.
The endowment is still in its preliminary planning stages, but Valentini said that he is looking to broaden the discussion.
“Lots of people have investment in it—emotional, psychological, intellectual, financial investments,” he said. “A lot of people are involved—we’ll keep expanding the circle of people engaged in the conversation.”
Sammy Roth contributed reporting.
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