Columbia College Chicago
American arts college
Columbia College Chicago (CCC) is a private art college in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1890, it has 4,200 students (as of fall 2025) pursuing degrees in more than 40 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. It is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.
As of July 1, 2025, Shantay N. Bolton is the president and CEO of Columbia College Chicago.
Columbia College Chicago is the host institution of several affiliated educational, cultural, and research organizations, including the Center for Black Music Research, the Center for Book and Paper Arts, the Center for Community Arts Partnerships, the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP).
Columbia College Chicago is not affiliated with Columbia University, Columbia College Hollywood, or any other Columbia College in the United States. However, Columbia College Hollywood was originally founded as a branch campus of Columbia College Chicago from 1952–1957.
History
Columbia College Chicago was founded in 1890 as the Columbia School of Oratory by Mary A. Blood and Ida Morey Riley, both graduates of the Monroe Conservatory of Oratory (later Emerson College), in Boston, Massachusetts. Anticipating a strong need for public speaking at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, Blood and Riley were inspired to open their school in the exposition city, Chicago, and adopt the exposition's name. Blood and Riley became the college's first co-presidents, until Riley died in 1901; Blood served in this capacity until she died in 1927.
The public source identifies “Columbia College Chicago” as american arts college. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Columbia, College and Chicago.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5149662. VIAF identifies the subject as 155886588. The Library of Congress control number is n82000515. Authority coordinates are 41.874, -87.625. 3 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 2025, 1952 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Columbia College Chicago” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.