Columbia wants West Harlem science graduate center

From left: Columbia President Lee Bollinger and renderings of Columbia’s changes on West 129th and West 130th streets

Columbia University submitted its own plans for a tech campus to the city, and like New York University it’s not interested in the Roosevelt Island site Cornell and Stanford covet. DNAinfo reported that the school wants to use the city’s promised $100 million infrastructure grant to expand its footprint into West Harlem.

The proposal calls for an Institute for Data Sciences and Engineering to eventually occupy three buildings and more than 1.1 million square feet in the $6 billion Manhattanville campus rising in West Harlem. The school would accomodate 2,500 graduate students and 167 faculty members.

Columbia’s incarnation of the science graduate school would focus on new media, smart cities, health analytics, cyber-security and financial analytics.

School President Lee Bollinger said Columbia’s proposal is competitive because it can do a better job of integrating the science graduate school with the school’s other education opportunities.

“Experience shows that engineering and applied science thrives as part of a multidisciplinary university community that includes everything from cutting-edge research in the basic sciences and humanities to the entrepreneurship of a business school,” he said. [DNAinfo]