Columbia College announced Monday that it will open its doors in 2019 as part of the larger “Grand Opening of the Gateway to a New Century.”
“Grand opening” is the name of the project, which is meant to transform the historic site into a hub of student life.
“We want to celebrate the people who have been there,” said Columbia College President Dr. Steven S. Tisch in a statement.
“The school’s legacy is rooted in the stories of our past students, and we want to give them a place to flourish and thrive, and our future students will be part of that.”
The school will be a hub for academic learning, music and art, and other events and services, with a dedicated space dedicated to student life and an adjacent art gallery, the Columbia Times reported.
It will be the first college to open at a campus near New York City, and the first institution in the country to do so.
“It’s a historic day,” Columbia College Dean of Students and Vice President for Academic Programs Dan Stansbury told the Times.
“This is a place that has had a remarkable, magical experience, in which the community has come together to make it the place it is today.”
The university announced plans for the grand opening in an announcement posted to its website.
“Grand openings are a way of saying ‘thank you’ to students, faculty, staff and alumni,” it said.
“By opening the campus as a hub to a whole new generation of students, it will allow Columbia to bring together a community that is more than just a school, but a family.”
Columbia’s grand opening is a way to say ‘thankyou’ to Columbia students, staff, and alumni.
By opening the school as a centre for student life, it can bring together more than a school and a community.
It is a landmark moment for a great university.
Columbia is a small, private institution in rural western North Carolina.
The announcement comes less than a month after the college announced that it would be opening an undergraduate college in 2018.
Columbia’s campus was the subject of a long-running controversy after the university announced in 2011 that it was moving its women’s college to a new campus.
The decision sparked outrage, with the school’s president saying the move was “wrong.”
