Seth Low Junior College

Seth Low Junior College, located at 375 Pearl Street in Brooklyn, New York,[1] was founded in 1928 by Columbia University, as "one of Columbia’s many attempts to deal with a changing student population that they felt was contaminating its pristine, Protestant campus."[2] It was named for Seth Low, former President of Columbia University (1890–1901), who had been Mayor of Brooklyn (1881–1885) and of New York (1902–1903). Faced with competition from tuition-free Brooklyn College, founded in 1930, and affected by the Great Depression, it closed its Brooklyn campus and ceased admitting new students in 1936. (Existing students completed their studies on the Morningside Heights campus; all activities ended in 1938.) It is little known today; Isaac Asimov, who had never heard of it when referred there, remarked that for the rest of his life, he "never heard of anyone who has ever heard of it—unless he, too, had been a student there."[1]

Academics

Enrollment was limited to 300 male students. Tuition was the same as at the main Columbia campus, $380.[1] All faculty were "regular members of the departments of Columbia University in which they serve."[3]: 11 

Students who completed two years at Seth Low were eligible for admission to Columbia's Schools of Architecture or Business, or its optometry program.[3]: 8  After three years of study, which necessarily included at least some classes on the Morningside Heights campus, the students were eligible for admission to the Schools of Law, Medicine, Engineering, or the Union Theological Seminary.[3]: 9 

A second-class college for Jews

The enrollment at Seth Low was "heavily Jewish, with a strong Italian minority".[1][4] According to Asimov, "it was clear that the purpose of the school was to give bright youngsters of unacceptable social characteristics a Columbia education without too badly contaminating the elite young men of the College itself by their formal presence."[1][5][6]

Famous students

The most famous student of Seth Low College was Isaac Asimov, who, after rejection by Columbia College on Columbia's main campus,[1] studied at Seth Low from 1935 to 1936, then transferring to Columbia. He has written at length about his time at Seth Low.[7][8]

Basketball player and coach Red Auerbach also studied at Seth Low,[5] as did historian Herbert Aptheker and politician Seymour Halpern.

Podcast

The first episode of Gatecrashers, a podcast series about Jews and the Ivy League colleges, is about Seth Low.[9]

Archival material

The Columbia University Libraries have compiled a guide to their Seth Low Junior College papers.[10][11]

The student newspaper The Seth Low Scop is available in the Internet Archive.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Hirt, Leeza (Fall 2016). "Columbia for Jews? The Untold Story of Seth Low Junior College". The Current. Archived from the original on March 29, 2025.
  2. ^ "Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish Campus". Tablet Magazine. September 13, 2022. Archived from the original on February 15, 2025.
  3. ^ a b c Columbia University (1935). Seth Low Junior College of Columbia University. Archived from the original on January 9, 2025.
  4. ^ Gohn, Claudia (April 15, 2019). "Nearly a Century Ago, Columbia's Jewish Applicants Were Sent to Brooklyn". Columbia Spectator. Vol. 29, no. 9. Archived from the original on March 5, 2025.
  5. ^ a b Rosenberg, Yair (September 22, 2022). "How Anti-Semitism Shaped the Ivy League as We Know It". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 4, 2025.
  6. ^ Foer, Franklin (March 27, 2025). "Columbia University's Anti-Semitism Problem". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on April 26, 2025.
  7. ^ Asimov, Isaac (1980). In Memory Yet Green. The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov. Avon. pp. 141–161.
  8. ^ Asimov, Isaac (Fall 1978). "Memoirs of a 'Noted Alumnus'". Columbia Magazine. pp. 11–12. Archived from the original on January 9, 2025.
  9. ^ Tablet Studios (September 13, 2022). "Columbia and its Forgotten Jewish Campus". Gatecrashers. Archived from the original on February 15, 2025.
  10. ^ Columbia University Libraries. "Columbia University Archives: Seth Low Junior College". Archived from the original on January 14, 2025.
  11. ^ Columbia University Libraries (January 13, 2025). "Seth Low Junior College records 13225104" (PDF).

Firther reading

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