On February 5, 1944, the college re-filed as a not for profit corporation and changed its name to Columbia College. The college left its partnership with the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, named Norman Alexandroff as its president, and filed the Columbia College of Expression as a not for profit corporation on December 3, 1943. As the radio program gained prominence, Alexandroff was named as the vice president of the Columbia College of Expression and became a member on the board of directors at both institutions by 1937. However, the college was never incorporated under any of these names by the state of Illinois. When Bertha Hofer Hegner retired in 1936 due to health reasons, she was made president emeritus of the institutions and Herman Hofer Hegner became the institutions' official president.ĭuring Herman Hofner Hegner's presidency, the Columbia College of Expression was advertised under different names including, Columbia College of Speech and Drama, the Radio Institute of Columbia School of Speech and Drama, and Columbia College of Speech, Drama, and Radio.
Herman Hofer Hegner hired Norman Alexandroff, a radio programmer, in 1934 to develop a radio curriculum for the colleges as both institutions were suffering financially. By 1934, College curriculum also focused on the growing field of radio broadcasting. Hegner served as the institutions' head, although due to illness, her son, Herman Hofer Hegner served as acting president of the institutions from 1930 until 1936. As the president of the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, Bertha Hofer Hegner assumed the role as the fourth president of Columbia College of Expression in 1929 when Scherger resigned to become an assistant pastor of St. During Scherger's presidency, the college became an official sister institution with the Pestalozzi-Froebel Teachers College, a family-run school centered on training its students for teaching kindergarten. However, by April 30, 1928, the school reverted its name to the Columbia College of Expression by the board of directors, George L. Under his leadership, Scherger signed the paperwork at the board's annual meeting on April 14, 1928, to change the school's name to the Mary A. When Blood died in 1927, George L. Scherger assumed the office of presidency after serving as a former member on the board of directors. On May 5, 1904, the school incorporated itself again in order to change its name to the Columbia College of Expression, adding coursework in teaching to the curriculum. The school ran as a sole proprietary business from 1890 to 1904 when the school became incorporated by the state of Illinois. The women established a co-educational school that "should stand for high ideals, for the teaching of expression by methods truly educational, for the gospel of good cheer, and for the building of sterling good character" in the Stevens' Art Gallery Building, 24 East Adams Street.
Blood and Riley became the college's first co-presidents, until Riley died in 1901 Blood served in this capacity until her death in 1927. 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. 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 (now Emerson College), in Boston, Massachusetts.