1754

King’s College begins instruction by male faculty to male students; arrangement persists until instruction halted  in 1776

1767

King’s College Medical School begins instruction  by male faculty to male students; arrangement persists until instruction halted in 1776.

1784

King’s College rechartered at Columbia College; remains all-male in faculty and student body.

1786

Medical instruction renewed under all-male circumstances

1858

Columbia Law School opens under all-male circumstances

1864

Columbia School of Mines opens under all-male circumstances

1876

Petition by New York City women’s group, Soriosis, to admit women to Columbia College.

1879

Columbia President F.A.P. Barnard calls on Trustees to consider the admission of women to Columbia’s schools; proposal ignored by Columbia Trustees

1880

President Barnard renews his call on trustees to admit women to Columbia

1881

Barnard makes his third appeal to Trustees to admit women; prompts student and faculty opposition

1881

Faculty of Political Science inaugurates graduate instruction in the social sciences; its prime mover, political scientist John w. Burgess, opposed admission of women

1882

Petition signed by 1500 New Yorkers calling upon  Board of Trustees to admit women; Board forms Select Committee

1882

President Barnard, in an address to the Regents of the State of New York, favors coeducation.

1883

Trustees  adopt “Collegiate Course for Women,” which permit women to take exams but not take classes with men

1886

Columbia awards its first degree to a woman, a PhD in astronomy Smith College graduate Winifred Edgerton; Trustees state it “established no precedent for others.”

1886

Trustees agree to award BA to women who successfully complete the Collegiate Course.

1887

Columbia awards degree to Mary Hankey upon her completion of the Collegiate Course

1888

Columbia awards AB to three other women upon their completion of the Collegiate Course.

1889

Columbia Trustees approve the establishment of Barnard College,  which opened in a townhouse at 343 Madison Avenue; to  offer undergraduate instruction to women as provided by Columbia faculty. Annie Nathan Meyer, a dropout from the Collegiate Program, a prime mover. .

1891

College of Physicians & Surgeons merges with Columbia University; retains its males-only policy for medical edcation

1892

Columbia trustees allow Barnard College to hire a female botanist, Emily Gregory,  to instruct  Barnard students.

1895

Faculty of Philosophy admits women to classes, with instructor permission; authorizes the awarding of PhDs to women

1896

Flora Harpham becomes the first woman to join Columbia teaching staff,  in Astronomy.

1897

Faculty of Philosophy admits women to classes, with instructor permission; authorizes the awarding of PhDs to women.

1898

Faculty of Political Science admits women to classes, with permission of instructor; authorizes the awarding of  PhDs to women, despite Dean Burgess’s opposition

1900

Columbia agreement with Barnard College permits Barnard trustees to hire faculty of their choosing; results in  substantial increase of women faculty at Barnard

1900

Columbia agreement with Teachers College similar to that with Barnard; TC faculty soon thereafter acquires a substantial female presence

1900

Columbia hires 7 women instructors, including, in English, Virginia Gildersleeve (CU PhD 1900), later the 3^rd president of Barnard College

1910

Faculty of Architecture modifies its rules to admit women students

1912

School of the Arts modifies its rules to admit women  

1912

School of Library Service opens; admits women from its outset

1912

School of Journalism opens; admits women from its outset

1914

Christine Ladd-Franklin secured appointment as an unpaid lecturer in the Psychology Department; stayed as such until she retired in 1930

1916

School of Business opens; admits women from its outset

1917

College of Physicians & Surgeons modifies its rules to admit women students

1928

Law School modifies its rules to admit women

1929

Lucy Hayner,  appointed instructor in the Columbia Physics Department; in 1946, assistant professor.

1937

Ruth Benedict, a member of the Anthropology Department since 1925, was promoted to associate professor, to become the first tenured  woman faculty member at Columbia.

1940

 Marjorie Hope Nicholson, a scholar of the English Renaissance and professor at Smith, becomes Columbia’s first female full professor.

1942

School of Engineering modifies its rules to admit women; the last of the Columbia professional schools to do so.

1944

Physicist Chien Sheung Wu joins  Manhattan Project at Columbia;  becomes a member of the Physics Department

1955

Barnard students allowed to take some upper-level Columbia undergraduate courses with instructor’s permission; not allowed to take courses in the Columbia Core.

1960

Marjorie Hope Nicholson, in English, becomes the first woman to chair a Columbia department

1968

Columbia women organize the Women’s Equity Action League

1968

April 30 -- Police clearing of  xxxx protesters from five Columbia campus buildings result in the arrest of  xxx women students, xxx of whom were from Barnard.

1969

Medical School called upon by Department of Health, Education and Welfare to provide employment data on women in anticipation of a compliance review

1970

Newly organized Columbia Women’s Liberation (CWL) group calls upon University to provide employment statistics; issues its own report charging discrimination against hiring women as faculty.

1970

March 11 -- Newly organized University Senate opens hearings on the status of women at Columbia ;  creates Commission on the Status of Women

1971

November 4 -- Columbia threatened by HEW with the withholding of $33,000,000 in federal contracts if it does not produce employment data on women

1972

April – University submits to HEW a 300-page Affirmative Action Plan that included employment data sorted by race and gender

1972

Legal scholar Ruth Bader Ginsburg becomes the first female full professor at the Law School

1973

New Columbia-Barnard agreement opens most Columbia classes to Barnard students, and vice versa ; agreement also call for more substantive Columbia role in Barnard faculty tenure appointments

1975

University Senate recommends creation of an Ad Hoc Committee on Salaries to investigate allegations of  gender-based inequities; Committee’s report prompts President McGill to effect salary adjustments where evidence of  disparities existed

1975

Columbia College Dean Peter Pouncey and Columbia College faculty  call for the admission of women to the College; President McGill rejects the call, citing its likely fatal impact on Barnard

1981

December 7 -- Columbia Trustees decide to admit women into Columbia College,  the last of the heretofore all-male Ivies to do so..

1982

January 26 – Columbia and Barnard sign new agreement, whereby Barnard retained its women-only admissions policy, while Columbia College became coeducational.

1983

September -- The first entering coeducational class of Columbia College (1987) consisted of 45% women, 55 % men.  

Barbara A. Black appointed Dean of the Law School; the first women to be appointed dean of a Morningside-based professional school.

1993

Columbia adopts a Sexual Harassment Policy

1993

Columbia adopts a Parental Workload Relief Policy