I Will Not Miss...

Welcome to part one of my two-part farewell. So as not to go out like a grouch, I'm going to get the kvetching over with this week and save the sappy stuff for two weeks from now. Spending four years anywhere would be fraught with downs to go with the ups, but Columbia's drawbacks are truly unique.

A Few Things I Will Not Miss About Columbia:

Housing

When I was a wee high school lad taking my tour of prospective colleges, I was with a tour group meandering across the Low steps. It was a sunny spring day, and a bunch of students were sprawled around reading and talking. I was toward the back of the group, and I heard a student call to me. I turned and a guy in sunglasses sitting with a bunch of other kids said, "If you come here, get a single. It's better for jerking off." What really struck me was that his friends didn't giggle, and he kept a straight face; indeed, the advice seemed sincere. I was amazed at how friendly the people were at this fine institution, ready to lend a helping hand to a bewildered stranger wandering in their midst. So I came to Columbia and requested a single.

I didn't get one, and I ended up in Carman, which had been my last choice. For the first couple months of sophomore year, I had to ram into my front door in Wien every time I came home just to open it because of its tendency to get stuck. And let's not talk about the green stuff under the sink. River had soul, but I didn't find the big chunk of doorframe that fell on my head when I opened the bathroom door one night to be all that charming. Granted, Woodbridge has been great, but then I've been one of the lucky ones who hasn't gotten stuck in the elevator for an hour.

The Corporate University

Hey, I love big business as much as the next guy, but does Columbia really have to strike up some major deal every day that makes students dependent on the most unsavory, unethical corporations on the planet? My first-year ID card has cracked in eight places and is held together by overextended strips of tape that cover up a photo of me in which I look about nine years old, but I would rather hold on to it than get a Citibank-ready Columbia Card. The merger with Travellers created a monolith so huge legislation was required to recklessly deregulate the financial system to make Citicorp legitimate. Meanwhile, Citibank has been at the forefront of numerous money-laundering scandals involving some of the most thuggish international criminals around. For more information, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan has been leading an anti-money laundering campaign, and there is lots of information on Citibank's complicity at his website: http://levin.senate.gov/issues/money.htm.

Meanwhile, instead of a thorough and high-quality academic bookstore, we have a second-rate Barnes and Noble run by people so oblivious that their idea of a good event is bringing in Scientologists to prey on students. We also have Starbucks, Volvogate, and the unfathomable Fathom.com venture. Oy vey.

General Student Life

So much to mention, but I think the beer sums it all up. Columbia has many dedicated administrators and employees who do a great job and have the best interests of students at heart. And yet something about the place seems to make things go wrong. This year the student body cried out with glee at the word that Ferris Booth Commons would be serving beer (well, I cried out with glee). Then it came, it was one row of expensive bottled beer that had to be purchased and consumed in the most stigmatizing way possible, and now it's gone. I think it all goes back to Columbia student life's culture of low expectations, embodied by the slogan of the Wien food court wraps when they made their debut two years ago: "Wraps: More like a meal."

Enlargement and Enhancement

While it has been fun to labor for four years under the looming shadow of a spooky campus conspiracy, E&E is overblown in some ways and genuinely disturbing in others. There has been a lot of progress made to strengthen the academic environment along with the physical environment, the financial health of the school, and the stature of the school as a research university. There is still much to be done, though, and many concerns of undergraduates have fallen on deaf ears. The advising system is still cold, chaotic, and inadequate; classes are still overcrowded; and the number of students still outstrips the available facilities and faculty.

Columbia's drawbacks are many, but it's been a pleasure to work with a student body intent on making things better, an Administration that has become progressively more receptive, and a faculty that is wonderfully cynical about it all and provides some nice perspective. For more on all this, tune in for the next, and final, installment of X-Ray Specs, when my frown turns upside down.