Diplomas
Diplomas are the physical manifestation of your degrees. They typically bear your name, the degree you received, the Columbia Seal, and the signatures of the university president and the dean of your school. You get them during Commencement week.
Columbia's standard diploma size isn't actually standard at all, which means you have to pay for the overpriced frames sold in the bookstore or get a frame custom made.
Law School diplomas are distinct from the standard diploma in that they're significantly larger, though they otherwise look the same. Barnard College degrees/diplomas are conferred by the trustees of Columbia University (as part of the Columbia-Barnard Intercorporate Agreement) , and include the seals of both schools.
If your diploma gets damaged or lost and you want to get it replaced, you need to send $100 along with a notarized application to the Registrar. [1] While the new diploma will display your date of graduation, it will bear the signatures of the current university president and dean of your school, who may be different from when you graduated.
Redesign efforts
In 2003-2004, GS student and University Senator Matan Ariel spearheaded an effort to redesign Columbia's diplomas as part of the C250 celebrations, hosting an online poll and passing a University Senate resolution urging the Trustees to look into the issue.[2][3] Ultimately the Trustees declined to take any action. Exemplars of the designs that were voted on can be found in the University Archives.
In later years GS students again agitated for change, requesting that their diplomas, which are in english, be granted in latin, like Columbia College and Barnard College. However Dean Peter Awn quashed the idea, stating that a latin diploma was inappropriate for a school founded in 1947 with a non-traditional mission.[4][5] Awn also cited that it seemed like an inappropriate allocation of resources to make the necessary logistical changes in a time of fiscal restraint. Awn also found it "difficult to grasp why any student would want a diploma written in a language that he or she could not understand."
Columbia College Diploma Translation
We, The Trustees of Columbia University
In The City Of New York, Formerly King's College,
Present Our Greetings To Each And Every One
To Whom This Document May Come. We Inform You That
[Graduate's Name]
Has Duly And Lawfully Completed All
Requirements Appropriate To The Degree Of
Bachelor Of Arts
And Has Accordingly Been Advanced To That
Degree With All Rights, Priveleges And Honors
Customarily Pertaining Thereto.
In Fuller Testimony Of This Action, We Have Ensured That The Signatures Of The President
Of The University And Of The Dean Of Columbia College
As Well As Our Common Seal Be Affixed To This Diploma.
Done At New York On The [Day & Month]
In [The Year].
- Taken from the "Translation of the A.B., BACHELOR OF ARTS diploma" photocopy that is included with every CC diploma.
Gallery
Columbia's most prestigious degree
Michael Pupin's Pulitzer Prize (which apparently is a recycled diploma)
Nikola Tesla's honorary doctorate 1894
