John Howard Van Amringe

John Howard Van Amringe

John Howard Van Amringe CC 1860 was a Math professor, and is generally credited as the first Dean of Columbia College. Although he may not actually have been the first Dean (it was probably Henry Drisler), it was Van Amringe who convinced Seth Low to rename the entire school "Columbia University" and repatriate the "Columbia College" name back to its undergraduate liberal arts division in 1896. So while Drisler was the first Dean of the School of the Arts, Van Amringe was the first "Dean of the College" in name only. That said, if he hadn't proposed the change, you might have been attending the Columbia College School of Arts all this time!

Van Amringe was a passionate defender of the independence of the college from the university and of its liberal arts traditions, though some saw an elitism in this: part of New York's Knickerbocker elite, Van Amringe bought into its prejudices for the "well-read" man who came to college after a preparatory school education had ensured his ability to keep up with the classics. There were even hints of an anti-intellectual bent to Van Amringe's philosophy, seen in his supposed favoritism toward jocks and dismissal of "strivers" with their noses in books, but this may have simply been a manifestation of his preference for "well-rounded" students in the aristocratic tradition. While it cannot be said that Van Amringe did much to increase the value of the college for social mobility, his stonewalling kept the likes of University President Nicholas Murray Butler from completely dissolving it into the university.

Van Am Quad is named for him.

Preceded by Henry Drisler (as Dean of the School of Arts)

Dean of Columbia College  1894-1910

Succeeded by Frederick P. Keppel