History of the University Senate

Historical Documents

Faculty Executive Committee Proposal for University Senate, September 12, 1968¾ Available in print at Senate office in 406 Low. Faculty Executive Committee reports on procedural steps taken to advance discussion on restructuring the University and preliminary proposal for a University Senate. [Further info: Vote on adoption of University Senate, April 9, 1969; 44% turnout; 90% of University voters adopted concept of a University Senate.]

Cox Commission Report, also known as Crisis at Columbia, published October 1, 1968¾All 21 volumes available in print at Senate office in 406 Low. The report was critical of administrative aloofness and the quality of undergraduate life. Published in paperback by Vintage in 1969. [Background: May 7, 1968¾Five-member Fact-Finding Commission convenes; Harvard law professor Archibald Cox as chair; SDS and SAS refuse to cooperate with Cox Commission; May 13, 1968¾Cox Commission begins taking testimony; July 25, 1968¾Cox Commission concludes 21 days of open sessions; heard 3,900 pages of testimony from 79 witnesses.]

“Six Weeks That Shook Morningside,” Columbia Today, editor George Keller, published November 1968¾Available in print at Senate office in 406 Low. The issue features a lengthy account of April disturbances; viewed as Administration white paper; others condemned it as being anti-Semitic.

Columbia and Barnard in 1968. Use the sidebar item Timelines to get to The Road Back, with its specific mention of the Senate in September 1968. Also see interesting sidebar items Images, Documents, Folks, and Narrratives.

Barnard Professor Robert McCaughey's home page for his Barnard spring 2001 seminar “Higher Learning in America: A History of American Colleges & Universities, 1636-2001, Barnard College¾ see sidebar for Timelines, Columbia ‘68, IV. The Eight Days of Columbia ‘68 (April 23-April 30, 1968)” and Seminar Notes, XII. April 11, 2001, Notes for 11th Meeting: Columbia ‘68”

Prof. Robert McCaughey, “Columbia ‘68: A Near Thing.” Talk delivered at University Seminar on the History of Columbia University, April 25, 1999

Christian W. Erickson, “Shock Wave: Transnational University Based New Left Revolts: March-October 1968,” written 1999¾ Up Against the Ivy Wall: United States, 1968.

"Upheavals and Transformations: Issues that Challenged American Universities"
Part 1: American Revolution
Part 2: The Move Toward Women's Colleges
Part 3: McCarthyism
Part 4: Columbia '68: The Issues, The Participants

Frank da Cruz, “Columbia University 1968,” published 1999, updated in February and July 2001. Cruz’s article is a personal reminiscence written at the request of the former Columbia University Librarian Elaine Sloan for publication in the Columbia Librarian (vol. XXVII, no. 1-2, Fall-Winter 1999).