The School of the Arts Celebrates 60 Years!
2025 marks the 60th anniversary of the School of the Arts. Established by the Trustees of Columbia University in 1965, we remain more dedicated than ever to being a formidable center of art-making and art-education. At Columbia, artists working across all disciplines have the unique opportunity to study and create in a vibrant community, learning alongside one another in one of the world’s greatest cultural capitals: New York City.
This year, we are celebrating the work of incredible artists and scholars from our past and present, across every medium imaginable. From welcoming back illustrious alumni like Joan Jonas ’65 to share reflections on her creative practice and extraordinary career; to seeing our artists shine on global stages, like Jocelyn Bioh ’08 at the Tony Awards and Lin King ’22 at the National Book Awards; to our yearly film festival that has launched filmmakers like Saim Sadiq ’19 to success at Cannes, Venice, and beyond, we will be celebrating this exceptional past as we build our great future.
Please be part of this year of tribute, as we honor and support the work of our talented students, faculty, and alumni, and imagine possibilities for the future. Their stories and artwork are changing the world for the better—as they have for the last 60 years—and will continue to do so in the years to come.
Artist Profiles
ALUMNI THROUGH TIME
Take a closer look at some of our '60s and '70s alums!
Alumni Weekend: October 3-4, 2025
Check out some photos from the weekend below!
Upcoming Events
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Recent Alum News
2026 marks the National Book Award's 77th year, and several Columbia writers are included in the longlist in both fiction and nonfiction. The National Book Award, founded in 1950 to celebrate the best of American writing, is considered the pinnacle of literary achievement in the United States and gives prizes in five different categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. Past recipients of the awards include writers like Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth.
Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has selected Goldie E. Patrick '23 as the 2026-2027 Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist.
Columbia Engineering hosted its first World Leaders Forum with Endeavor Greece and the School of the Arts, bringing together leaders in government, global development, technology, and art to discuss AI's impact on people and culture. Read more from Columbia Engineering.