Columbia Publishing Course Celebrates 25 Years
For a quarter century, the intensive program has connected aspiring publishing professionals with leading voices across books, magazines and digital media.
The Columbia Publishing Course (CPC) is celebrating 25 years at the Columbia Journalism School, marking a quarter century of preparing aspiring publishing professionals for careers across the book, magazine and digital media industries.
Founded in 1947 as the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course at Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the program moved to the Columbia Journalism School in 2001, thanks to the vision of its long-time director, Lindy Hess. At Columbia, students spend six weeks immersed in the publishing industry through lectures, seminars and workshops led by editors, publishers, agents, designers, publicists, booksellers and other industry leaders.
Since moving to Columbia Journalism School, the course has welcomed 3,300 students and extended its reach outside New York. In 2016, current director Shaye Areheart established a sister program focused exclusively on book publishing at Exeter College, Oxford.
"I spent more than thirty years in the field of book publishing, and even in the early years of my career, I knew how important the Columbia Publishing Course is for the industry it serves," said Director Areheart. “Its reputation is continually buoyed by the amazing people who take it and become leaders in the field. I have worked for people who took the course; I have worked with people who took the course; I have hired people who took the course. Graduates of the course are woven tightly throughout the industry: Its alums form a supportive community of people who love what they do.”
“In the twenty-five years that the course has been at the Columbia Journalism School, it has become ever more widely hailed and is still considered the training ground for the industry and the gold standard of publishing courses."
The program’s impact is evident in the careers of its alumni, who have gone on to leadership roles across the publishing industry. They include Morgan Entrekin, CEO and publisher of Grove Atlantic; Jordan Pavlin, executive vice president, publisher and editor-in-chief of Knopf; Dawn Davis, senior vice president and publisher of 37 INK at Simon & Schuster; Tig Wallace, publishing director at Little, Brown UK; Scott Moyers, vice-president and publisher of the Penguin Press; and Lee Boudreaux, vice-president and executive editor at Doubleday, among many others..
“The Columbia Publishing Course is a benchmark for professional programs in higher education,” said Jelani Cobb, Dean and Henry R. Luce Professor of Journalism. “Its successes across the continually changing publishing landscape attest to both the talents of its leadership and the caliber of its participants in the past two and a half decades.”
The program’s network also continues to grow through publishing professionals who return to CPC each year to share their expertise with students. Recent speakers have included Robert Weil, vice president and executive editor at W. W. Norton’s Liveright Publishing; Jonathan Roberts, chief innovation officer at People Inc.; alumna Namrata Tripathi, president and publisher, Kokila, Penguin Random House; Willa Bennett, editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan and Seventeen; Niko Pfund, publisher of Yale University Press; and New York Times bestselling author Tayari Jones and her agent Jane Dystel of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
For many alumni, the relationships and confidence developed through the program remain lasting parts of their careers.
“The Columbia Publishing Course has completely transformed my life,” said 2024 CPC alumna Taylor Belgrade, who now works as a marketing associate at Random House Children’s Books. “I cannot emphasize enough how invaluable and truly magical this program is for anyone aspiring to work in publishing. It is more than just a six-week course - CPC held a mirror to my potential, instilling a profound and unshakable confidence, which I believe is the most essential element in pursuing a career in publishing.”
Today, the Columbia Publishing Course is proud to continue to offer students an intensive introduction to the publishing process while connecting them with the professionals and peers who will help shape their careers.