Introducing Teachers College

Historical Timeline

1886
654 East 11th Street is leased as Annex No. 9 University Place, occupied by the Industrial Education Association.

1887
The College is founded by Grace Hoadley Dodge as the New York School for the Training of Teachers. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler is appointed as its first president.

1892
Permanent charter is granted. Name is changed to Teachers College.

1894
College moves to West 120th Street.

1898
Teachers College becomes affiliated with Columbia University as a professional school for the training of teachers while retaining its legal and financial independence.

James Earl Russell becomes Dean of the College; sets about transforming Teachers College into a center of advanced scholarship and educational training. Later that year, Teachers College and Columbia University would adopt an affiliation agreement.

1899
First Ph.D. degree is conferred on a Teachers College student.

Edward Lee Thorndike, who pioneered the field of educational psychology, joins the faculty.

1900
Teachers College record is published.

1904
John Dewey, influential proponent of the progressive education movement, joins the faculty.

Bureau of Publications, later renamed Teachers College press, is created.

1906
Mary Adelaide Nutting joins faculty to direct the Nursing Education program, the first experiment in university-based nursing education.

1914
In 1914, Georgia O'Keeffe, enrolled at Teachers College to study under Arthur Wesley Dow, whom she later credited as the strongest influence on the development of her art.

1917
Children play with marionettes they made at the Lincoln School. The school opened in 1917 as a laboratory school for experimentation with progressive education methods. Much of the curriculum integrated teaching the arts with standard subjects.

1935
First Ed.D. degree is conferred.

1939
Faculty member Frank Cyr convenes a national conference on student transportation that spawns the "Yellow School Bus.".

1954
The Afghanistan project, an educational assistance program, begins.

1961
President John F. Kennedy creates the Peace Corps; the College trains and selects the volunteers for teaching service in Africa. "Teachers for East Africa" begins.

1964
Some of the early participants in both the Teachers for East Africa and Peace Corps program leave for Africa after completing training at Teachers College. The Teachers for East Africa program recruited and trained American teachers for service in African schools. In seven years, the program supplied and supervised secondary school teachers in four countries.

Institute of International Studies is established.

1973
The Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) is established.

1974
Lawrence Cremin, renowned scholar, teacher, administrator and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning series American Education, is named President of Teachers College.

1977
The Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Center for Independent School Education is established.

1981
The Institute of Research and Service in Nursing Education (IRSNE) is established.

1981
The Hollingworth Center for the Study of the Gifted is established.

1985
The Peace Corps Fellows Program is created.

1986
The Institute for Education and Economy is established.

The Institute for Learning Technologies is established.

1990
The National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching (NCREST) is established.

1992
With the aid of the national Peace Corps office in Washington, D.C., and several private philanthropic organizations, the Peace Corps Fellows Program is replicated in American colleges and universities from coast to coast.

1997
Teachers College rated #1 graduate school of education in U.S. News and World Report. TC holds the #1 slot for three-years in a row.

Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media is established at TC. The goal of the institute-named in memory of Fred M. Hechinger, former education editor of The New York Times and Teachers College Trustee-is to improve the coverage of education in the media by helping journalists to understand the intricacies of educational policy and school leaders to comprehend the pressures of media deadlines. Gene Maeroff, who was a national education correspondent for The New York Times, was named the Institute's first director.

The Heritage School opens its doors as a laboratory school in conjunction with the NYC Board of Education, that integrates the arts into all subjects. The high school, in East Harlem, starts out with only ninth grade students.

1998
Teachers College rated #1 graduate school of education in U.S. News and World Report. TC holds the #1 slot for four-years in a row.

Alumni from the South gathered at the Governor's Mansion in Georgia for a dinner honoring Governor Zell Miller for his contributions to education. Many African-American alumni, who came to TC when universities in the South would not permit them to receive advanced degrees, were in attendance at the event.

1999
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at TC as the inaugural lecturer of the Jill and Ken Iscol Lecture series.

The Campaign for Teachers College kicks off with a goal of raising $140 million in five years. Work begins on renovating the 100-year old physical plant.

2002
Darlyne Bailey becomes the first African-American female Academic Vice-President and Dean of Teachers College.

Teachers College holds a Teach-In for Teaching and Learning in a New Global Environment in response to the attacks of 9/11. More than 500 tri-state educators, parents and graduate students attended to find answers on how to respond to the terrible events of that day.

The newly formed Grace Dodge Society met at the home of then President Arthur Levine for an inaugural luncheon honoring its founding members.

2003
Work begins on the renovation of the Milbank Memorial Library into the Gottesman Libraries. Construction also begins on a new two-building dormitory on 121 st Street.

Campaign for Teachers College ends, having raised record amount for a graduate school of education $154.6 million.

Former President Arthur Levine, traveled to Kabul during the first week of November to meet with the Afghan Minister of Education, Yunis Qanooni, came away with an agreement to develop a National Academy of Education in Kabul. TC worked with educators in Afghanistan in the 1960s to develop curriculum and teacher training before the country was subjected to the destruction of war.

2004
Teachers College begins a series of activities to celebrate the 50 th anniversary of the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that ended legal segregation in the United States. Bill Cosby speaks to ninth grade students from Harlem's Region 10 schools on February 2 nd about the importance of that decision to their lives.