Director: Andrew S. Dolkart

Historic Preservation – the management and conservation of our built heritage – is one of the world’s most exciting professions and a chance for you to do creative work with your previous studies, be they in history, chemistry, anthropology, architecture, or any other field.  As a young architectural historian, I came to the profession of Historic Preservation because I wanted to change the world.  I wanted to enter a profession where the individual can make a difference.  This was the best decision that I ever made, since it resulted in my involvement in a profession that is a progressive force in the creation of better communities for everyone.  I hope that you will share this adventure with us.  I believe that there are still many opportunities for the professional preservationist to act for good within communities, and I invite you to bring your skills to the task.

As the new director of Columbia’s Historic Preservation Program, I am intent on building upon the field’s multi-disciplinary base, introducing students to all aspects of preservation study.  The curriculum is grounded in a solid core that lays out the knowledge that every preservationist should know.  Because we are such a diverse field, I believe that all professional preservationists should have an awareness of this diversity.  Thus, we teach history and planning and design and conservation and materials and documentation, and all students are introduced to these disciplines in their first year. With this knowledge students are then offered the opportunity to follow their own unique paths of investigation.

Columbia’s program is lucky in its location in New York City.  We use the extraordinary resources that this metropolis has to offer as a teaching tool.  But far from being parochial, we hope that each student will branch out in her or his course work and internship, bringing what they have learned in class to projects throughout the United States and all over the world.  Indeed, graduates of this program are leaders in preservation across the country and around the globe.

Columbia’s New York location has another great benefit – we can call on the very best professionals to teach our classes.  Columbia’s Historic Preservation Program offers the largest and most diverse group of professors of any preservation program in the country.  Our full-time and adjunct faculty are leaders in the field and are also dedicated to sharing their knowledge and experience with students who are the future of the profession.  This will be clearly evident if you read the biographies of our faculty on this website.

Historic Preservation is a dynamic field.  As the profession changes, so do the curriculum and focus of our teaching.  Columbia’s Historic Preservation Program, the oldest in the United States, continues to be in the forefront of preservation education and we invite you to investigate our website, visit our facilities, and embark on a career in this most exciting profession.

I look forward to meeting you soon at Columbia!

Andrew S. Dolkart
Director, Historic Preservation Program
James Marston Fitch Associate Professor of
Historic Preservation