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Celebrating a Tradition for Tomorrow
Happy New Year and get ready for an exciting year filled with festivities and intellectual exploration as we celebrate the 125th anniversary of the founding of the nation's first professional school of education, our own Teachers College! Throughout the year, we will be taking time out from our normal routines for "Celebrating a Tradition for Tomorrow." We will revisit the TC that was, reflect on the TC that is, and dream of the TC that, through our collective efforts and imaginations, it is poised to become.
As we celebrate our history and imagine our future, we also will seize this wonderful opportunity to educate our fellow New Yorkers and the broader public about TC's vast accomplishments and contributions to the city, the nation, and the world.
Right now, you can go to our Alumni and Enrollment Services Facebook page and follow the 10-day countdown to the 125th anniversary celebration that will officially begin, fittingly enough, on January 25 (1/25!). That day, we will launch a 125th anniversary website that will serve as our gateway to a wide array of programs, events, historical links, and multimedia features, including the debut of "Mini Moments with Big Thinkers." Drawn from the Teachers College Oral History Project, these two-minute video segments will feature prominent TC faculty, faculty emeriti, alumni, administrators and others discussing groundbreaking ideas, research and initiatives born at the College over the past half-century. The "Mini Moments" will air weekly throughout 2013 and into early 2014 and be archived on the 125th website.
The real fun begins the following week on Thursday, January 31, with a three-hour, 125th campus birthday bash for the entire TC community and other invited guests. While the campus will be festooned with anniversary decorations, we will be giving away party favors, serving wine and cheese, staging presentations, providing musical entertainment, and inviting all comers to sing "Happy Birthday" for a videotaped mash-up to be posted on the 125th Facebook page. Whether you love singing solo or not, I hope all of you will join me at 4:45 pm in singing "Happy Birthday" to Teachers College, the birthplace of "Good Morning to All," the song that evolved into the legendary "Happy Birthday" song.
I hope all of you will also join me for many other 125th anniversary events and festivities throughout the year that celebrate our beginnings and enduring influence.
March 4 will mark the opening of an exhibit on Teachers College that Professor Judy Burton is mounting for a four-week run at the New York Historical Society. Viewers of the exhibit will learn how the College has been in the vanguard of innovation and leadership for advancing learning and the education professions for the past 125 years. Those attending the March 4 opening will also be treated to a presentation by Columbia University Professor Kenneth Jackson, one of our nation's foremost historians on American cities. Professor Jackson will describe TC's founding in the context of New York's first golden age of philanthropy, which saw the establishment of several other iconic cultural, educational, and civic institutions, including the New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Academic Festival will be held on Saturday, April 13. The theme for this year's Academic Festival also will be "Celebrating a Tradition for Tomorrow," when we will explore the trails that TC has blazed across the global landscape while demonstrating the breadth and depth of the impact of our talented alumni, students, and faculty.
Topping off the anniversary year will be a special 125th Gala in November that, again fittingly, will be held on 125th Street at the fabled Apollo Theatre, where TC will honor an eminent philanthropist, a leading corporate CEO, and a superstar from the world of entertainment.
There will be many more events between now and November, on and off campus and spanning the world. Please look for the events and activities tagged with our anniversary logo and visit the 125th site often.
Throughout the year we will be running 125th promotional spots for TC for radio and print and digital media. We also are arranging for many stories about TC that will appear in the media and in our own print and web publications.
I wish to thank my fellow members of the 125th Anniversary Steering Committee -- representing TC Trustees, faculty, students, staff, and alumni -- for organizing this extraordinary celebration.
Thanks in large part to all of you, there is no institution in the world quite like Teachers College. Let's have fun learning more about our beloved TC, and teaching the rest of the world about Teachers College, Columbia University. There's no better time for "Celebrating a Tradition for Tomorrow" than today.
Susan Fuhrman
Published Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013