World War I

See also Wikipedia's article about "World War I".

World War I had significant implications for Columbia:

• A rift opens between pragmatist academics and more skeptical students and alumni - this is most noticeable in Randolph Bourne's critique of John Dewey's instrumentalist support for the war
• President Nicholas Murray Butler asks professors to support war, and quashes the dissent of those who don't. The dissenters and supporters of free speech, including John Dewey and Charles Beard, eventually left, in 1919, to found the New School for Social Research
• The need for a "war issues" course, and later, one to understand postwar issues, evolves into Contemporary Civilization, the first Core Curriculum requirement, established by 1919

The fireplace of JJ's Place includes an inscription memorializing the Columbians who lost their lives in the conflict.