Biography
Steven H. Corey, PhD, is the dean of academic operations and programming, and professor of history at Columbia College Chicago. He oversees all academic programs and curricular matters, including the delivery of the undergraduate general education Core Curriculum and course scheduling for all eight schools at the college. Corey is also co-chair of the college’s Core Curriculum Committee.
Corey joined Columbia in 2012 as professor and chair of the Department of Humanities, History, and Social Sciences (HHSS) and served as the interim dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) from 2015-2016 before being appointed LAS dean in 2017, a position which he held until the academic reorganization of the college in 2024. Prior to Columbia, Corey was a professor and chair of the Department of Urban Studies at Worcester State University (WSU) in Worcester, Massachusetts. He has also taught history at The University of Rhode Island and Yeshiva University in New York City. At WSU, he received the highest faculty honor, the George I. Alden Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 2012, for innovative, student-centered pedagogy. His scholarship on inquiry-based education was also recognized by the American Historical Association with the 2011 William and Edwyna Gilbert Award for the Best Article on Teaching History for “Pedagogy and Place: Merging Urban History and Environmental History with Active Learning” (Journal of Urban History, January 2010).
His research and teaching interests are in urban and environmental studies, public history, social history, and public policy. While completing his doctorate on the history of solid waste management in New York City, he served as research curator for the noted exhibition Garbage! The History and Politics of Trash in New York City (Gottesman Exhibition Hall, The New York Public Library, 1994-1995). He co-authored with the exhibition’s guest curator, Dr. Elizabeth Fee, the volume Garbage! The History of Politics and Trash in New York City (New York Public Library, 1994), which won the Katherine Kyes Leab & Daniel J. Leab Exhibition Catalogue Award for Excellence from the American Library Association in 1996.
In addition to other peer-reviewed articles and scholarly works, Dr. Corey is co-author with Dr. Lisa Krissoff Boehm (Bridgewater State University) of America’s Urban History, Second Edition (Routledge, 2023), First Edition (Routledge, 2015 available in both English and Chinese language editions); co-editor with Carl Zimring (Pratt Institute) of Coastal Metropolis: Environmental Histories of Modern New York City (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021); and co-editor with Dr. Lisa Krissoff Boehm of The American Urban Reader: History and Theory, Second Edition (Routledge, 2020), First Edition (Routledge, 2011).
Corey has appeared widely in television and radio programs, as well as newspaper and magazine articles for his expertise on waste management and urban affairs. He remains actively involved in public history, public policy, and community development issues, and served as an expert witness for the State of Rhode Island Department of the Attorney General, advocating greater public access to the Rhode Island shoreline (most recently in 2014), a board member of the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, Rhode Island (2007-2011), and an exhibition historian for Got Food? Creating a Hunger Free Community(Worcester Historical Museum, 2007-2008).
Corey holds a PhD in History from New York University, and an MA and BA in History from The University of Rhode Island.
Instructional Areas
Urban Studies, Environmental Studies, History
Creative Practice and Research Interests
Urban and Environmental History, Social History, Public History, Public Policy
Degrees
B.A., History University of Rhode Island 1983
M.A., History University of Rhode Island 1985
Ph.D., History New York University 1994