Seth Low Junior College
{{Short description|Former Columbia University outpost}}
Seth Low Junior College, located at 375 Pearl Street in Brooklyn, New York, 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."{{cite web
|publisher=Tablet Magazine
|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/gatecrashers/episode-1-columbia-forgotten-jewish-campus-seth-low-junior-college
|title=Columbia and Its Forgotten Jewish Campus
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250215080144/https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/gatecrashers/episode-1-columbia-forgotten-jewish-campus-seth-low-junior-college
|archive-date=February 15, 2025
|url-status=live
|date=September 13, 2022}} 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."
Academics
Enrollment was limited to 300 male students. Tuition was the same as at the main Columbia campus, $380. All faculty were "regular members of the departments of Columbia University in which they serve."{{cite book
|title=Seth Low Junior College of Columbia University
|author=Columbia University
|year=1935
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120321/https://guides.library.columbia.edu/ld.php?content_id=75002079
|url-status=live
|archive-date=January 9, 2025
|url=https://guides.library.columbia.edu/ld.php?content_id=75002079}}{{rp|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.{{rp|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.{{rp|9}}
A second-class college for Jews
The enrollment at Seth Low was "heavily Jewish, with a strong Italian minority".{{cite magazine
|title=Nearly a Century Ago, Columbia's Jewish Applicants Were Sent to Brooklyn
|newspaper=Columbia Spectator
|volume=29
|issue=9
|first=Claudia
|last=Gohn
|date=April 15, 2019
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250305220119/https://www.columbiaspectator.com/the-eye/2019/04/15/nearly-a-century-ago-columbias-jewish-applicants-were-sent-to-brooklyn/
|archive-date=March 5, 2025
|url-status=live
|url=https://www.columbiaspectator.com/the-eye/2019/04/15/nearly-a-century-ago-columbias-jewish-applicants-were-sent-to-brooklyn/}} 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."{{cite magazine
|title=How Anti-Semitism Shaped the Ivy League as We Know It
|first=Yair
|last=Rosenberg
|author-link=Yair Rosenberg
|magazine=The Atlantic
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250304000841/https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/mark-oppenheimer-interview-jewish-ivy-league-antisemitism/676785/
|archive-date=March 4, 2025
|url-status=live
|date=September 22, 2022
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/09/mark-oppenheimer-interview-jewish-ivy-league-antisemitism/676785/}}{{cite magazine
|title=Columbia University's Anti-Semitism Problem
|first= Franklin
|last=Foer
|author-link=Franklin Foer
|date=March 27, 2025
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250426012608/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/columbia-antisemitism-israel-palestine-trump/682054/
|archive-date=April 26, 2025
|url-status=live
|magazine=The Atlantic
|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/columbia-antisemitism-israel-palestine-trump/682054/}}
Famous students
The most famous student of Seth Low College was Isaac Asimov, who, after rejection by Columbia College on Columbia's main campus,{{cite web
|date=Fall 2016
|title=Columbia for Jews? The Untold Story of Seth Low Junior College
|first=Leeza
|last=Hirt
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250329190603/http://www.columbia-current.org/seth_low_junior_college.html
|archive-date=March 29, 2025
|url-status=live
|url=http://www.columbia-current.org/seth_low_junior_college.html
|journal=The Current}} studied at Seth Low from 1935 to 1936, then transferring to Columbia. He has written at length about his time at Seth Low.{{cite book
|first=Isaac
|last=Asimov
|authorlink=Isaac Asimov
|title=In Memory Yet Green. The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov
|publisher=Avon
|year=1980
|pages=141–161
|url=https://archive.org/details/inmemoryyetgreen00asim}}{{cite magazine
|last=Asimov
|first=Isaac
|authorlink=Isaac Asimov
|title=Memoirs of a 'Noted Alumnus'
|magazine=Columbia Magazine
|date=Fall 1978
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250109120356/https://guides.library.columbia.edu/ld.php?content_id=75007424
|archive-date=January 9, 2025
|url-status=live
|pages=11–12
|url=https://guides.library.columbia.edu/ld.php?content_id=75007424}}
Basketball player and coach Red Auerbach also studied at Seth Low, 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.{{cite web
|date=September 13, 2022
|series=Gatecrashers
|title=Columbia and its Forgotten Jewish Campus
|author=Tablet Studios
|archive-date=February 15, 2025
|url-status=live
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250215080144/https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/gatecrashers/episode-1-columbia-forgotten-jewish-campus-seth-low-junior-college
|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/podcasts/gatecrashers/episode-1-columbia-forgotten-jewish-campus-seth-low-junior-college}}
Archival material
The Columbia University Libraries have compiled a guide to their Seth Low Junior College papers.{{cite web
|title=Columbia University Archives: Seth Low Junior College
|author=Columbia University Libraries
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250114134016/https://guides.library.columbia.edu/uarchives/sethlowjuniorcollege
|archive-date=January 14, 2025
|url-status=live
|url=https://guides.library.columbia.edu/uarchives/sethlowjuniorcollege}}{{cite web
|author=Columbia University Libraries
|title=Seth Low Junior College records 13225104
|url=https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/pdf/cul-13225104.pdf
|date=January 13, 2025}}
The student newspaper The Seth Low Scop is available in the Internet Archive.
See also
References
{{reflist}}
Firther reading
- {{cite book
|title=Seth Low Junior College of Columbia University : a case study of an abortive experiment
|last=Carron
|first=Blossom R.
|year=1979
|publisher=Columbia University dissertation
|url=https://teacherscollege.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?context=L&vid=01TCCU_INST:01TCCU&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&tab=Everything&docid=alma991000947949706971}}
Category:1928 establishments in New York City
Category:1936 disestablishments in New York (state)
Category:Jewish universities and colleges in the United States
Category:Defunct schools in New York City
Category:Columbia University colleges and schools
Category:Universities and colleges in Brooklyn
Category:Community colleges in New York City
Category:Universities and colleges established in 1928
Category:Universities and colleges disestablished in the 20th century