Kent Hall

Kent Hall

Kent Hall

Kent Hall, home of the MEALAC and EALAC departments, is named after James Kent, Columbia's first law professor. It was originally built to house Columbia's law school, and served that purpose from 1910 to 1960, when the Law School moved across Amsterdam Avenue to the more spacious, yet ugly Jerome Greene Hall. During that time it served as a focal point for the growing movement to admit women to the law school. It was not until 1927 that women were said to have "crossed the threshold of Kent Hall".

Above the doorway is the latin inscription "IVS EST ARS BONI ET AEQUI" - "Law is the art of the good and the just."

The campus level (3rd Floor) library, now the C.V. Starr East Asian Library, was once the Law Library, and the stained glass window on the east side of the Library is a clear relic of that bygone era.

Currently, the building is home to the departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures.

On its ground floor, easily accessible from College Walk, Kent also serves as the home of Student Services and several of its offices, including Student Financial Services, the University Registrar, and the ID Center. The offices seamlessly extend through Kent into Philosophy, which are connected by ground level tunnel.