Redesigning Columbia University’s Diploma

As presented to the Executive Committee of the

University Senate on April 23, 2004

Executive Summary

Under the leadership of Matan Ariel, the Student Affairs Committee directed Columbia’s first University-wide electronic polling of students. Specifically, the question was whether or not there should be a new design of the standard University diplomas. The results are as follows:

Number of votes counted: 6,045

Percentage of population: 30.8%

In favor of a new design: 5,450

Percentage of total voted: 90%

In favor of “Old English” design: 3824

Percentage favoring new design: 70%

In favor of Alma Mater etching: 4705

Percentage favoring new design: 86%

In favor of separate doctoral design: 3548

Percentage favoring new design: 65%

In summary, the majority of those who voted are in favor of using the “Old English” design with the Alma Mater etching. In addition, the students are in favor of creating a separate design for doctoral degrees.

Diploma Leadership

· Matan Ariel, director of the redesigning initiative and respondent to the diploma@columbia.edu inquiries.

· Jennifer Schnidman, diploma webmaster

· In addition, the members of the Diploma Task Force included: Alida Bouris, Jennifer Caplan, Eduard Ghanem, Sean Kelly, and Nathan Walker

Table 1. Number of Votes by School and by Enrollment Percentage

Notes (1) The Enrollment is based on Fall 2003 statistics: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/2004EnrlHC.htm. (2) Controlled enrollment was calculated by subtracting the exact number of students that will graduate from each school this May or June. Please note, that we could not guarantee that some of these students may have voted even though their diplomas will not be changed. With that said, the controlled enrollment represent a minor margin of error. (3) The GSAS “controlled enrollment” figure is inaccurate because the PhD students are not coded for graduation until they defend and deposit, which goes until mid May. (4) Law and Medicine were not polled because they have separate diplomas. Only Dual Degree Union Students were polled because the M.Div. is not conferred by the Columbia Trustees, but the M.A. and Ph.D.s are Columbia degrees. (5) An “eligible student” is defined as a student who will graduate after January of 2005. (6) Table 1 only includes students that voted for one of the designs; the 111 students that left the design question unanswered are included in table 2. Consequently, the actual number of voting students was 6,156 or 31.3% of eligible students who voted.

Table 2. Number of Votes by Question

Total	Current	Old English	Roman	No design[1]	Etching[2] Yes	Etching No	Doc Yes[3]	Doc No
Architecture	8	18	10	2	21	14	15	19
Barnard	49	314	125	4	383	103	296	181
Business	57	233	147	3	340	96	165	259
CC	160	509	203	5	645	239	565	303
Continuing Ed	6	26	7	1	34	4	16	22
Dental and Oral Surgery	6	146	29	3	162	10	162	17
GS	38	285	110	1	340	89	268	154
GSAS	72	342	229	6	472	176	468	182
Journalism	15	50	31	0	73	23	35	55
Nursing	8	82	33	2	104	18	53	66
Public Health	10	113	61	0	150	37	77	105
School of the Arts	5	52	31	1	62	26	34	51
SEAS (grad)	18	124	36	2	154	27	92	87
SEAS (undergrad)	45	391	159	3	507	95	412	177
SIPA	20	159	101	1	210	68	96	169
Social Work	5	84	27	0	97	17	47	65
Teachers College	73	896	287	6	951	298	747	496
Sub Total	595	3,824	1626	40	4,705	1340	3,548	2408
Total Identified Votes		6,045

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[1] Some students did not vote for a design, but did vote for the other questions in the poll.

[2] The Etching is of the Alma Mater statue.

[3] The doctoral question was “Should the doctoral diplomas be a separate design from the Undergraduate and Master diplomas?”