In a break from highly public appearances, such as recent rallies on Low Steps, the newly formed Columbia Palestine Forum met with administrators Monday afternoon behind the closed doors of a Lerner Hall conference room.
Representatives of the group met with Dean of Student Affairs and Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Life Kevin Shollenberger, Dean of Columbia College Austin Quigley, Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks, and Associate Dean of Student Affairs Todd Smith to begin meetings with the group over its list of demands regarding Palestinian rights.
Administrators did not permit reporters to attend the meeting since they considered it an advising session, and accounts reported here have been gathered through interviews with students. According to several group members, administrators and student representatives discussed plans to have further meetings concerning the group’s demands as well as the prospect of future collaborative efforts. But there was little talk of concrete action on the part of the University.
“There was no negotiating over particular demands, but more of a negotiating about how we would move forward,” group member Aaron Winslow, a Graduate School of Arts and Sciences first-year, said. “They weren’t ready to sign on to anything.”
The Columbia Palestine Forum, whose leaders had participated in January rallies organized by the group Columbia Community in Standing with Gaza, launched a campaign in early March in an effort to gather support for Palestinian rights to education and self-determination. They released a list of demands that called on the University to grant a number of annual scholarships for Palestinian students to attend Columbia, to partner with and provide aid to a Palestinian university, to fully disclose its budget and endowment in order to ascertain that tuition money is not being used “to violate people’s human rights,” and to issue a formal statement of support for the Palestinian right to self-determination.
Since then, Shollenberger contacted the group via e-mail last week to arrange a meeting between group representatives and administrators. The administration had previously recognized the importance of meeting with the group, stating in an official University response to the Columbia Palestine Forum that “Columbia University remains committed to a civil dialogue that is an essential value of university life.”
“It’s good for us to hear more about what they’re trying to accomplish,” Shollenberger told Spectator in a brief interview later Monday afternoon. “It’s clear that there has to be a subsequent series of meetings.”
Group members said that, along with regular meetings between the group and the administration, administrators agreed to help the group find resources including names, committees, and places on campus where they would be able to strengthen their case through further research.
“They [the administrators] made the point that the University is such a decentralized place,and that what they can do is direct us to the various channels to attain what we want,” group member Ali Boggs, BC ’09, said.
Group members acknowledged that while this first talk with administrators was a milestone, it was only the start of a long-term process.
“This is just the beginning,” group member Akua Gyamerah, Mailman School of Public Health ’10, said. “Having this meeting reaffirmed our campaign and our demands, and we’re going to continue to build so we can move this faster.”
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