1880
The Kitchen Garden Association is founded by Grace Hoadley Dodge.
1886
The Kitchen Garden Association, now called the Industrial Education Association, leases 654 East 11th St. as its new home.
1887
George W. Vanderbilt
gives Grace Dodge $10,000 to create and staff a library and find the “brains” to teach people how to use it.
1887
Columbia professor Nicholas Murray Butler becomes President of the Industrial Education Association—which changes its name to the New York College for the Training of Teachers.
1891
TC’s first student scholarship
is established.
1892
The New York College for the Training of Teachers changes its name to Teachers College and receives a permanent charter.
1898
TC affiliates with Columbia University but retains legal and financial independence.
1898
1st
TC First
James Earl Russell teaches the first course in foreign school systems, launching the field of comparative and international education.
1898
1st
TC First
Mary Adelaide Nutting—later the world’s first nurse to become a professor—creates the first instructional program for prospective nursing administrators and educators.
1899
1st
TC First
Edward Lee Thorndike begins studying learning and mental testing, launching the field of education psychology.
1900
The Teachers College Record debuts.
1902
1st
TC First
TC founds Speyer School, a prototype “community school” with a neighborhood library.
1904
Philosopher and progressive educator John Dewey joins TC’s faculty.
1905
1st
TC First
TC’s Patty Smith Hill, subsequent co-founder of the National Association of Nursery Education, teaches the first class in early childhood education. With her sister Mildred, Hill later composes the song that becomes “Happy Birthday to You.”
1909
1st
TC First
Mary Swartz Rose develops the first nutrition education laboratory.
1909
The Bureau of Publications(later renamed Teachers College Press) is created.
1913
1st
TC First
TC launches the first dance education program. TC alumnae include Margaret H’Doubler and Martha Hill.
1914
Georgia O’Keeffe enrolls at Teachers College to study under Arthur Wesley Dow, whom she later credits as the strongest influence on the development of her art.
1915
1st
TC First
Elizabeth Farrell and Leta Hollingworth of TC establish the first program in special education.
1917
The Lincoln School opens as a laboratory for experimentation with progressive education methods and curricula.
1920
1st
TC First
Harold Rugg joins TC’s faculty. He later co-founds the National Council for the Social Studies and establishes the series model in textbook publication.
1924
1st
TC First
Teachers College awards the first doctorate in physical education, now called movement sciences/kinesiology.
1929
1st
TC First
Esther Lloyd Jones founds the first graduate program in College Student Personnel.
1933
Segregated southern states begin providing out-of-state scholarships for black college graduates seeking advanced study or professional degrees. TC becomes the nation’s primary destination for aspiring black teachers from the South.
1939
1st
TC First
TC professor Frank W. Cyr holds a conference at which the idea for a universal yellow school bus is born. Cyr becomes known as the "Father of the Yellow School Bus."
1940
TC student and future historian Marion Thompson Wright becomes the first African-American woman in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in history.
1952
1st
TC First
Shirley Chisholm graduates. She becomes the first African-American woman elected to Congress and the first to seek a major-party Presidential nomination.
1954
Teachers College founds the Afghanistan Project, funded by the U.S. Foreign Aid Program, which over the next 25 years helps Afghanistan to build a modern education system.
1955
1st
TC First
A. Harry Passow publishes “Are We Short-Changing the Gifted?”, launching the field of gifted education
1961
TC launches Teachers for East Africa (TEA), a forerunner of the Peace Corps, to recruit and train American teachers for African schools.
1962
1st
TC First
A. Harry Passow chairs a two-week conference at TC that launches the field of urban education.
1965
Education philosopher Maxine Greene joins TC’s faculty. In 2004, the Teachers College Trustees create the Maxine Greene Chair for Distinguished Contributions to Education.
1973
1st
TC First
Morton Deutsch’s The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes empirically grounds the conflict resolution field.
1973
With funds secured by Len Blackman, TC dedicates Thorndike Hall with the first comprehensive Research & Demonstration Center for the Handicapped.
1973
Professor Edmund W. Gordon founds the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME).
1977
The Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership is established.
1979
1st
TC First
TC’s new neuroscience program probes educational implications of brain-behavior relationships.
1979
1st
TC First
Nahas Angula (Ed.M., 1979; M.A., 1978) interrupts his Ph.D. studies at Teachers College to become the first Minister of Education in independent Namibia.
Angula later becomes Prime Minister.
1981
The Hollingworth Center for the Study of the Gifted is established.
1985
TC’s Peace Corps Fellows program is created to fast-track returning Peace Corps veterans into teaching in high-need New York City Schools.
1986
The Institute for Learning Technologies launches.
1990
The National Center for Restructuring Education, Schools, and Teaching is established.
1997
Teachers College is ranked the #1 graduate school of education by U.S. News & World Report. The College will receive the #1 ranking frequently in subsequent years.
1997
The Heritage School, founded by TC Art and Art Education Professor Judith Burton, with support from TC Trustee Joyce Berger Cowin, opens in East Harlem.
1999
A TC Presidential task force recommends creation of the Office of Community and Diversity, since headed by Janice Robinson.
2000
The Schools of Education Research Project, the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education, the Community College Research Center, the Center on Chinese Education, and the New Teacher Institute are all established.
2001
The Art and Art Education Program establishes the Center for International Art Education, designed to serve the growing need for art educators across the globe
2003
Teachers College reestablishes a presence in Afghanistan to aid in reconstructing the country’s educational system.
2004
The College cuts the ribbon for its new, state-of-the-art Gottesman Libraries, home to the world’s largest and richest collection of materials on the educating professions. The new facility was made possible by TC Trustee Ruth Gottesman and her husband, David “Sandy“ Gottesman.
2005
Teachers College launches the Campaign for Educational Equity with the mission of overcoming the gap in educational access and achievement between America’s most and least advantaged students.
2006
A bequest from the estate of the late Arthur Zankel, Vice Chair of TC’s Board, creates the Zankel Urban Fellowships for students who help underserved New York City schoolchildren. TC renames Main Hall as the Arthur Zankel Building.
2007
2007 TC helps Jordan improve its public schools and also hosts Jordanian teachers in its summer certificate program for the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages.
2008
The College establishes its Office of School and Community Partnerships, providing a single point of access to its resources for public schools and other New York City organizations.
2008
Trustee John Klingenstein endows TC’s Klingenstein Center for Independent School Leadership with a $20 million gift—the largest in TC history. John Klingenstein receives a lifetime achievement award from the College.
2009
Backed by a grant from the GE Foundation, TC collaborates with Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science to turn 10 Harlem public schools into models of teaching and learning.
2010
1st
TC First
TC launches its new medical residency-style Teaching Residents@Teachers College program, funded by a $9.75 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
2011
Teachers College and the New York City Department of Education open the Teachers College Community School, serving pre-K through eighth-grade students in West Harlem.
2011
The College establishes its new Education Policy and Social Analysis (EPSA) department, as a hub for policy work across educational and human development.
2012
1st
TC First
TC creates the first master’s degree concentration in spirituality and psychology
at an Ivy League institution.
