Media Contact: Micki Leventhal, 312-369-7383; mleventhal@colum.edu
CHICAGO, IL (October 31, 2008) -- Columbia College Chicago, the country’s largest college of arts and media, has created the annual Studs Terkel Scholarships totaling $750,000 to benefit Chicago Public School students who seek to pursue a career in civic-minded communications.
“Studs Terkel was the living embodiment of all that is best about Chicago,” said Dr. Warrick L. Carter, president of Columbia College, in announcing the scholarship program. “For years we have participated in honoring his contributions through the Studs Terkel Awards of the Community Media Workshop, which is housed on our campus. This new program, to benefit specifically the young men and women of our own public schools, is our effort to translate these values into educational opportunities.”
“I have received a lot of honors in my many years on this planet. This is the best,” said Terkel two weeks before his death. “Long ago I wrote my own epitaph: Curiosity did not kill this cat.
“Kids are the most curious creatures and to know that the passions and interests and, indeed, the hearts of public school kids from all parts of this city will be nurtured by these scholarships gives me hope that Chicago will sing with new and important voices. There are so many stories that still need to be told, so many truths that need to be aired, so many wrongs that need to be righted. I say to these kids: Be curious, be strong. Take the dough and use it well.”
The college currently offers about 250 “Open Door” scholarships to deserving CPS students, valued at $6,000 each year, for a total of about $1.5 million. These four-year renewable awards enable students who also qualify for state and Federal financial aid to earn a bachelor of arts degree with most of their tuition paid.
Columbia College will initially designate 125 of these awards as Studs Terkel Scholarships, and subsequently will seek to increase the number of awards through development of a Studs Terkel Scholarship Board. The scholarships, totaling $750,000, are in addition to the prestigious annual Studs Terkel Scholarship of $1,500, given each spring to a single promising communications student by the Community Media Workshop.
“Studs Terkel was truly one of our city’s first citizen journalists,” according to Thom Clark, co-founder and president of the 20 year old Workshop, which connects community organizations with the media to promote news that matters. “I can think of no better way of extending Studs’ legacy than by encouraging Chicago public high school students to pursue degrees in communications arts.”
The Columbia College mission is “to provide a comprehensive educational opportunity in the arts, media, and communications within a context of enlightened liberal education [and] to educate students who will communicate creatively and shape the public’s perceptions of issues and events, and who will author the culture of their times.”
The mission continues, “Columbia is an urban institution whose students reflect the economic, racial, cultural, and educational diversity of contemporary America. Columbia conducts education in close relationship to a vital urban reality and serves an important civic purpose by active engagement in the life and culture of the City of Chicago.”
Dr. Carter said, “When we educate young Chicagoans consistent with our mission to shape perceptions, author our culture, celebrate diversity and promote this ‘vital urban reality’ – all that could be summed up in a phrase: ‘be like Studs.’ That’s the legacy we hope to continue to promote through the Studs Terkel Scholarships.
“We have strong departments of Journalism, Television, Radio, Interactive Arts & Media, Audio Arts and Acoustics, Film and Video, and Marketing Communication. And in our liberal arts and sciences, and our fine and performing arts departments, as well, we are committed to the development of communication arts to advance ethical civic engagement in the life of our community. All our students will benefit from helping to carry the Studs Terkel flame in the years to come.
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Media Contact: Micki Leventhal, 312-369-7383; mleventhal@colum.edu
CHICAGO, IL (October 24, 2008) – The Columbia College Chicago Journalism Department has been awarded a grant in the amount of $250,000 from the McCormick Foundation to advance and support the Columbia Links program.
The goal of the Columbia Links program, which began in 2006, is to provide high quality journalism training to Chicago high school students and their teachers. The impetus for Links grew from the need for enhancement of writing and critical thinking skills among high school students from underserved schools. The Links program will engage students in producing quality journalism; using creativity, problem-solving skills and critical thinking skills as they embark on a project.
Links, which was founded and is now run by highly regarded journalists and teachers from Columbia’s award winning journalism department, seeks to broaden the impact of youth-driven journalism, presenting their voices and point-of-view to their peers and the scope of their communities. By providing teen and teacher workshops, which will evolve into “boot camps,” Links will give high school teachers and their students the tools and knowledge they need to create relevant quality journalism that showcases thought-provoking student writing.
To learn more about the Columbia College Chicago Links program, please visit: www.columbialinks.org
The Journalism Department at Columbia College Chicago helps the student to become the best reporter, producer, editor, writer, or publisher he or she can be for the 21st century, in their chosen medium. The approach is informal, with a faculty that has broad experience and high standards. Faculty members have reported all over the world and in urban and rural areas of the nation. Professors are trained and experienced as dispassionate observers, but are passionate about the disparities in coverage in their own backyard: Chicago, Columbia’s premier reporting laboratory. The Journalism department strives to educate future journalists from underrepresented communities and those who grew up in more privileged surroundings, widening worldviews and covering underreported communities.
Columbia College Chicago, an urban institution committed to open access, opportunity and excellence in higher education, provides innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and communication arts to nearly 12,500 students in over 120 undergraduate and graduate programs, including film & video, art & design, arts management, television, radio, music, interactive multimedia – all within a liberal arts context. Founded in 1890 as a communications school, Columbia College Chicago was revisioned in 1963 as a liberal arts college with a “hands-on minds-on” approach to arts and media education and a progressive social agenda. Under the current leadership of President Warrick L. Carter, Ph.D., Columbia is aggressively pursuing this mission. Columbia is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. The college is accredited as a teacher training institution by the Illinois State Board of Education. For further information visit www.colum.edu.
The McCormick Foundation is a nonprofit organization committed to strengthening our free, democratic society by investing in children, communities and country. Through its five grantmaking programs, Cantigny Park and Golf, and three world-class museums, the Foundation helps build a more active and engaged citizenry. It was established as a charitable trust in 1955, upon the death of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the longtime editor and publisher of the Chicago Tribune. The McCormick Foundation is one of the nation’s largest charities, with $1.2 billion in assets. For more information, please visit www.McCormickFoundation.org
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Media Contact: Micki Leventhal, 312-369-7383; mleventhal@colum.edu
Chicago, IL (October 14, 2008) -- In an overwhelming show of support the Columbia College Chicago Board of Trustees unanimously approved the extension of college President Dr. Warrick L. Carter’s contract through August 2012.
“The college’s growth – both quantitatively and qualitatively – during Dr. Carter’s tenure has taken us to a position of national prominence,” said Allen M. Turner, board chairman. “We are secure and strong fiscally, our enrollment continues to grow and our academic programs receive international recognition. It is truly Columbia’s moment and it is due to Dr. Carter’s leadership that we have attained this position. We are depending on him to lead us into the next decade with the same outstanding level of vision and skill we have come to depend upon.”
Carter took the helm at Columbia in summer 2000; his inauguration into the office of President occurring during September of that year. His 4-year contract was unanimously renewed in 2003, with a further extension until 2010.
“With this extension through 2012, he will be the Dean of Chicago-area college Presidents,” notes Turner. When Henry Bienen of Northwestern University retires on August 31, 2009 Carter will stand as the longest-serving college president among peer institutions in the Chicago area. “As Columbia looks toward and beyond attaining the goals Carter set for the college in its strategic plan, Columbia 2010, the board of trustees deemed continuity of primary importance to guide us into our next phase of growth,” added Turner.
He has overseen the academic restructuring of the institution from a small college in which all 23 academic departments reported to one dean, to a professionalized academic structure in accord with best practices industry standards. Under Carter’s leadership, Columbia has attracted top-notch academic administrators and recruited highly credentialed faculty, working with them, along with the college’s long-term, dedicated and gifted faculty, to expand academic offerings and build the rigor of the core liberal arts and sciences curriculum.
“While Columbia continues to emphasize developing the artistic voice and teaching state of the art skills geared toward success in the arts, entertainment and media industries, we are also engaged in enhancing the liberal arts and sciences curriculum,” explains Carter. “We are at a crossroads in our evolution as an institution of higher learning. How will we define our course in the years to come? Regardless, we will encounter both risks and rewards as the surface and the substance of the college changes and evolves. We are prepared for both.”
Carter’s guiding principals, reflected in the college’s mission, adhere to a firm belief in the importance of access and opportunity in higher education and the importance of a diversity of voices in the American cultural product.
As Columbia has grown in size and reputation it has attracted an increasing number of students who are enrolling at the college as a school of first choice. Since 2004, the number of out-of-state freshman enrollments has increased a whopping 94%; overall out-of-state enrollment has increased 151% since 2000. Carter has been working with academic leadership to explore ways in which Columbia can continue to serve students across a broadening spectrum of preparedness, ensuring that each individual has an optimum learning experience, including standardizing learning outcomes, providing increased in-service pedagogical training for full and part-time faculty, and planning for an honors program.
Carter has also guided Columbia into the global arena. When he came into office, the college did not participate in any foreign exchange programs or engage in relationships with institutions of higher education outside the United States. Columbia now offers over a dozen of its own programs of international study and has institutional relationships with colleges and universities in London, Dublin, Paris and Florence which provide opportunities for Columbia faculty and students to work and study overseas.
In terms of physical growth, since taking the helm, Carter has added more than 230,000 square feet of property to the college’s portfolio, and has brokered more than 64,000 square feet in long-term lease arrangement. The resident student population has grown from less than 500 to more than 2,650, with students occupying the college-owned residence hall at 731 S. Plymouth as well as leased luxury dorm residences around the South Loop and in the 1,700-bed University Center Chicago, a model residence arrangement in collaboration with Roosevelt and DePaul Universities. With its two dozen buildings totally more than 4 million square feet of space in service to the cause of higher education in the arts and media, Carter has grown the institution into a real force for economic development in the South Loop.
The next project on line is the Media Production Center (MPC). The Chicago City Council approved the sale of a parcel of land at 16th and State and Columbia will be breaking ground on its first new construction in winter of 2009 with a projected occupancy date of spring 2010. The 38,000 square foot MPC, designed by Studio Gang Architects, will includes two sound stages, a motion capture studio, animation lab, classrooms and space for production design and costumes and serve the students of the college’s school of media arts. In keeping with the college’s commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility, the MPC will aim for LEED certification at the silver level.
Fundraising for the MPC is in full swing and is a watershed in the change in development efforts at Columbia since Carter joined the college. “Giving has nearly tripled since Dr. Carter’s tenure at Columbia,” says Eric V.A. Winston, vice president of institutional advancement. “This is a sea change for Columbia because until Dr. Carter’s arrival, the college had a tradition of eschewing development efforts and depending almost entirely upon student tuition dollars.”
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