http://www.columbiaspectator.com/authors/posts/31183 An authors posts... used for embedding en http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/47748 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/47748#comments News Protests of 1968 Sat, 10 May 2008 13:07:51 -0500 David Xia 47748 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/31184 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/31184#comments News Arab Students Association LionPAC Nakba Turath Mon, 05 May 2008 02:48:32 -0500 David Xia 31184 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55077 The 2007-2008 school year will kick off with a new pass/D/fail policy, a new creative writing major, and possible changes to academic advising. The old pass/fail policy lists any letter grade above an "F" as "pass." The new policy, taking effect in the upcoming fall semester, will allow students in Columbia College who earn a "pass" to find out the letter grade that they earned. They will then have the option to have that grade recorded on their transcript instead of the "P." A grade of "D" will no longer be a passing grade and will be printed on the transcript as is. Presenting before the Committee on Instruction in November 2006, Neda Navab, CC '08 and junior class president, David Ali, CC '07 and University senator, and Alidad Damooei, CC '09 and vice president of academic affairs, explained that the new policy would permit students to take courses outside their usual fields of study without being bogged down by anxiety about grades. They said that this would provide incentive for students to do well in classes that they elect to take pass/fail. Although Navab, Ali, and Damooei said they did not support the "D" portion of the pass/fail policy, the COI considered this rule to be commensurate with new policy's goals. The creative writing major, which will replace the School of General Studies' literature-writing major, will mark the first time that students in Columbia College can major in creative writing. In the past, offerings have been limited to an 18-credit special program. Seminars and workshops in fiction, poetry, and non-fiction will be added to the former concentration's list of courses-most of which are available to students who are majoring in creative writing as well as those who aren't. Collaboration among student councils, administration, trustees, and advisers have led to the changes being considered for the academic advising system. Reforms, if enacted, would replace the First-Year Sophomore Academic Advising Center and Junior Senior Academic Advising Center with a central advising office sometime within the next three years. In addition, the changes call for increasing the number of advisers and having students remain with a single adviser throughout all their undergraduate years. Columbia's department of Spanish and Portuguese and Barnard's department of Spanish and Latin American cultures willl shift their focus from language and literature to cultural studies beginning in the coming academic year. Students majoring in these fields can choose between Hispanic studies with or without specialization in another discipline on the side. Also next year, the Middle East and Asian languages and cultures department will adopt African studies. The department has also appointed Mamadou Diouf as the new director for the Institute for African Studies. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55077#comments News Sun, 06 May 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 55077 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55018 The first Faculty Forum organized by the Executive Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences pointed out departmental facilities upkeep, computer support, and housing as three major concerns among professors. "Our material needs are not being met," Christia Mercer, chair of ECFAS said, pointing to rats and burst pipes. Mercer said that those at the forum were very outspoken about the conditions they faced. The forum was one of several steps that ECFAS has taken to "become much more proactive at identifying concerns of the faculty and working with the administration to address them," Mercer said. Now, ECFAS and the administration are working together to address those concerns. They are improving the condition of departmental facilities by quickly identifying areas of disrepair, aiding faculty with their computer needs by creating a computer upgrade program, and financially supporting faculty housing by providing subsidies and mortgages at below market rates. In an effort to quickly identify areas in need of maintenance, the facilities refresh program will plan a walkthrough of certain buildings every Friday. Director of Space Planning and Management Kevin Fox and representatives from Vice President for Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks' office, ECFAS, and Facilities Operations will take part in these walkthroughs. On top of concerns regarding maintaining departments' existing facilities is the need for expansion. There is currently a "gridlock in the departments" with "no room for faculty expansion," Dirks said at the last ECFAS meeting. In an effort to relieve the crowded science departments, plans for a new interdisciplinary science building have already been put into action. The Northwest Corner Science Building will cost approximately $179 million and provide 188,000 square feet for the chemistry, biology, engineering, and physics departments. Site preparation and excavation for the building on the corner of Broadway and West 120th Street have already begun, and the project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2010. Dirks responded to the faculty's wish for more computer support by proposing a plan similar to one in place at the University of Michigan where he once taught. According to him, the Faculty Research Allowance Program, for which faculty can apply and receive up to $1,750 to cover expenses such as travel, manuscript preparation, and equipment, may not be enough for the purchase of a new computer. Although Columbia provides faculty members with a new desktop when they first begin work at the school, there is currently no program to replace old computers. In his March 2007 letter to the faculty, Dirks wrote, "Faculty should not be asked to choose between attending a professional conference and upgrading a computer." By the next academic year, "faculty without ongoing research support will be entitled to request funding towards a new computer every four years," Dirks said in the letter. Provost Alan Brinkley said during the last ECFAS meeting that a housing purchase plan and housing subsidies will be introduced. Although not yet approved by the University trustees, the housing purchase plan will "offer [a] University-organized mortgage program with ... normally one point or one and one-half points below market rates," Brinkley said. The second option is catered toward senior and retired faculty members who may choose not to pick from Columbia's housing stock. These individuals would receive about $40,000 a year for residential costs. These two plans come at a good time, according to Mercer. "We're at this moment where there's just not enough housing for faculty," she said. "It's very difficult to recruit top faculty if you don't have appropriate housing for them." Devika Bhushan and Taylor Napolitano contributed to this article. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55018#comments News Sun, 29 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 55018 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54826 Approximately 300 students, faculty, and administrators gathered together at the sundial last night for a candlelight vigil held in memory of the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech shootings. University Chaplain Jewelnel Davis delivered a message of inspiration and hope to those gathered at the base of the sundial. Davis said that during this time of national mourning, it was crucial for members of the Columbia community to band together in solidarity and offer their condolences and prayers to those grieving over Virginia Tech. "Life will always overcome the darkness of hate, despair, and violence," Davis said. The undergraduate student councils provided 1,500 white candles, according to Ana Ortiz, CC '07 and Columbia College Student Council vice president of campus life, who spoke at the event. As the candles were lit and the flames passed along in silent respect, those in attendance exchanged glances of support. "We who believe in learning believe in hope," Davis said. "Light, when it is shared, overcomes darkness and spreads more light." Only the soft pattering of the drizzling rain was audible as attendees, heads lowered in respect, observed a moment of silence. Ortiz stated the names of the 32 students who were killed. "One great thing about the Columbia community is that when a horrible incident like this happens, we are able to come together as a family," Dean of Student Affairs Chris Colombo said after the event. For Mark Johnson, CC '09 and vice president of the CCSC class of 2009, the shootings in Blacksburg, Va. struck very close to home. Johnson, whose hometown is Virginia Beach, said it was unsettling to see such a tragedy occur at a place he considers home. "I'm happy we had something like this. It allowed me to vent," he said. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54826#comments News Wed, 18 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 54826 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54693 In a dizzying demonstration of mental calculations, manual dexterity, and muscle memory, James Ouyang, SEAS '10, twists and turns his clicking contraption and, within a minute, slams down a fully solved Rubik's Cube. Ouyang was first introduced to the mechanical puzzle at the age of eight, but he didn't learn how to solve it until two summers ago. His first successful attempt to solve the 3-by-3-by-3 Rubik's Cube took him six minutes. Since then, Ouyang has competed in five national events and has achieved a lifetime best of 24.40 seconds. "Everyone had one of those crappy Chinese knock-offs somewhere in their house. I had one, but like everyone else, I just threw it in the closet after I couldn't solve it," Ouyang said. Ernö Rubik, a Hungarian sculptor and architecture professor, invented the puzzle in 1974, and today there are four common variations: the 2-by-2-by-2, 3-by-3-by-3, 4-by-4-by-4, and 5-by-5-by-5. "Speedcubing" originally became an interest of the SEAS first-year when he attended a Stanford University math camp where many students knew how to solve Rubik's Cubes. Ouyang went to the local Toys "R" Us, bought one the day after camp ended, and spent a week over the summer learning how to solve it. When he found out the Exploratorium in his hometown of San Francisco was hosting the January 2006 Caltech Winter Competition, Ouyang made a spur-of-the-moment decision to participate and ranked 43rd with a time of 56.01 seconds. It was at the Cornell spring competition on March 31, 2007, where he achieved his current personal best. Ouyang also competed in the 4-by-4-by-4 and 5-by-5-by-5, and he is currently ranked 166th in the world for the 3-by-3-by-3 for 2007. Although a standard 3-by-3-by-3 Rubik's Cube has 43,252,003,274,489,856,000, or 43 quintillion different positions, every single position can be solved with at most 27 face turns, which is a turn of 180 degrees along one rotating axis. Ouyang, like many other "speedcubers," uses a method developed by Jessica Fridrich, a professor at the SUNY Binghamton's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. This method is the most common and is referred to as CFOP. A cross of single color is formed on one face, and then its corners are added to construct a single face. The first two layers are then matched up, and finally the last layer is manipulated to solve the entire cube. Ouyang said that solving the cube is a hobby because there is a certain pride in being able to do something very well, no matter what it may be. He hopes to achieve a best time below 20 seconds on the 3-by-3-by-3. Next semester, Ouyang hopes to start a Columbia Rubik's Cube club and host a competition in late fall. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54693#comments News Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 54693 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54370 At a conference on Core Curricula in the 21st Century, organized this weekend by core lecturers in Contemporary Civilization and Literature Humanities, Columbia administrators, faculty, and students took a critical look at Western Humanities-based courses in higher education. David Denby, CC '65, Journalism '66, and a film critic and staff writer for the New Yorker who took core courses at Columbia a second time in 1991 to pen Great Books, a journalistic recount of his experience, kicked off the conference with his keynote address on the role of core curricula in wartime. Denby began his speech by describing the film "300" as a "porno-military fantasia-a muscle-magazine fantasy crossed with a video game and an army-recruiting film," and pointed to general education as a means of combating "ignorance and extreme belief." Professors from Columbia, the University of Chicago, and Stanford-among other schools which have some form of core curriculum-discussed the evolution and place of a core in both a liberal education and a globalized world. On Saturday, a student panel with Isabel Bussarakum, CC '07, Mark Krotov, CC '08, Spectator film columnist and Editor in Chief of The Birch, Jenni Oki, CC '07 and executive co-chair of the United Students of Color Council, Jeff Shrader, CC '08, moderated by Jonathan Blitzer, CC '07, discussed representation within the Core. "Students have never really had the opportunity to voice their opinions in such a formal setting," said Classics major Sydney Cochran, CC '08, executive board president of Columbia Queer Alliance, an organizer of the student forum. Much of the discussions focused on the question of whether core curricula should be based more on course content or critical thinking. Denby explained that his return to Columbia's Core in '91 was caused by what he called the "theory-based political attack on the Western classics." After writing Great Books, Denby maintains he does not recognize the "Western classics in the most extreme versions of the opposition from within the University-dead white males, that embarrassing phrase, the hegemonic discourse and all the rest of that." Shrader said that the critical thinking skills taught by Columbia's Core are more significant than the cultural background of its texts while Krotov said that the Core has not given him all the skills stated in its mission statement. Citing a personal example, Bussarakum said Colloquium on East Asian Texts was the hardest class she ever took because "these skills work well for the Western tradition, but they don't work well outside of that." Students and faculty alike expressed that there is much at stake in investing in a core curriculum. While no one proposed abandoning core curricula, Oki and others shared that feelings of an unfilled gap left by the Core. At the end of the dialogues many questions were left unresolved. The fact that a discussion was begun, however, was in itself meaningful for some. "I would consider progress simply an hour of dialogue," said Blitzer. "There's not really a narrative here. It's nobody's history," said professor Philip Kitcher, the Chair of Contemporary Civilization, in the closing remarks, adding, "It isn't such a bad idea to put Confucius side-by-side with Plato." Julie Appel and Devika Bhushan contributed to this article. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54370#comments News Sun, 25 Mar 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 54370 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54340 Five years into its existence, students and faculty are still working to establish and understand the role of University Writing within undergraduate education at Columbia. The pilot course was taught in 2002-03, and the finalized version replaced Logic and Rhetoric as the Core's official writing course at the beginning of the 2003-04 academic year. Now, Columbia's largest Core course is under review by the executive committee on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Logic and Rhetoric, the brainchild of Professor Edward Tayler, was an integral part of the Core for two decades before complaints about a lack of clear objectives and funding brought about its demise. The course, which was based on the skills of expository writing, was replaced by University Writing, with its focus on reading academic texts and conducting research beyond assigned articles. One of the primary goals of the class is teaching students that academic writing is not conducted in a vacuum. "We want students to learn how to enter into conversation with other writers, and we want to draw students' attention to the language they use in their arguments," said Professor Joseph Bizup, Director of the Undergraduate Writing Program. Shayne Legassie, a Literature Humanities instructor who has had experience teaching Logic and Rhetoric and both the pilot and final University Writing courses, shared the same opinion. "UW, CC, Lit Hum, and other core courses try to get students to see written work in a new way-not as the carrying out of an order but rather as an intervention in an ongoing intellectual discussion." The essay-writing components of Lit Hum and CC tend to overlap, causing confusion among some students, according to Shilarna Stokes, a teaching fellow who instructs a University Writing course. "There are a lot of people who have the idea that UW is meant to help them write essays for Lit Hum or other classes," Stokes said. "It has its own worth." Bizup disagreed. "In University Writing, the main emphasis is on the students' writing," he said. "In Literature Humanities, the main emphasis is on students' engagement with the literary texts. I don't see this as a conflict. I see the courses as complementing one another." As designed, this complementary role for University Writing extends beyond Lit Hum to all other parts of Columbia's undergraduate education. The fact that revision and editing is incorporated into University Writing has garnered positive student responses. "I like the workshopping," John Ruan, CC '10, said. "Before UW I never revised and I never knew how much better my writing could be," said Ruan. The course, however, is often not suited to every student's interests, according to Ruan. "I don't like how the course is structured so that you're forced to write essays based on assigned articles. ... It would be better if we could pick our own texts." "I've had my fair share of grumbling over the work required in University Writing class, but there's no denying the necessity of it," countered Leanne Penna, CC '10. When asked about the feedback the University Writing Program receives, Bizup responded, "We are constantly gleaning responses and suggestions from students, instructors, and faculty. We are constantly working to improve the course for Columbia's students." Legassie and Stokes both agree that the principle of academic writing needs to be articulated more clearly to students. "I think a writing class is a great thing, but there needs to be more awareness across the curriculum that one's development as a writer is a lifelong process," Legassie said. "He [Legassie] couldn't be more right," Stokes said. "Writing is not a set of skills but a process and cannot possibly be done in one semester." She added that many instructors feel it should be a year-long course. "To some extent I feel that as a Literature Humanities professor I have to teach half my students how to write in the first semester because they will not have a writing class until spring," Legassie said. "It's challenging to teach a class where only half of the students have had training in the conventions of writing in the humanities." http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54340#comments News Thu, 22 Mar 2007 23:00:00 -0500 David Xia 54340 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/53551 Tucked away in a corner on the first floor of Hartley Hall, the Malcolm X Lounge might not be as crowded as Milstein Library or as grandiose as Low Rotunda, but, replete with its own rich history, it is the heart of and the safe space for many student organizations. The story of the Malcolm X Lounge extends back in history to a time when it was an office for the Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps. According to the Columbia archives, the University decided to end its NROTC program in 1968, and the room soon sank into abandonment. On April 20, 1970, six months after the Student Afro-American Society called for the creation of a black students' space, several students occupied the empty NROTC office and renamed it the Malcolm X Liberation Center, according to Christien Tompkins, CC '08, historian for the Black Students Organization. The motivation for this move stemmed from the general attitude during the time period. "In a very broad sense, the whole country had a lot of racial tension," Tompkins said, adding that the students wanted the lounge to be an on-campus community center for black students. The Hartley management body voted to give them the lounge. In the face of the controversy of the students' actions, "A lot of black faculty and staff signed a statement saying not only should they be given a lounge, but they shouldn't be punished," Tompkins said. When not being used, the lounge is locked, and it is not open to unregistered events. Its white walls are decorated with paintings and ornaments, such as a copy of Sherman Edward's painting My Child, My Child, in which a mother in a purple shawl clutches her unclothed baby close to her chest. A decorative pole for mashing Fufu-a West African dish commonly made from yams-resides in a corner. On the opposite wall are two pictures of Malcolm X. One shows the black leader, his lips tightly pursed, raising his right index finger with conviction with a quotation reading, "We declare our right on this Earth ... to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary." Over the years, the lounge has become the meeting place of BSO, the successor of SAAS, which shares the space with student groups such as the African Students Association and Caribbean Students Association. Today, the ideals that sparked the renaming of the old ROTC office nearly 40 years ago in order to maintain a safe space live on. "We wanted to create a space and opportunity for students to feel safe to express themselves," Tanya Lindsay, CC '07 and president of the BSO, said. Although the lounge is named after a controversial figure, Mark Attiah, CC '09 and secretary of BSO, said that the name shouldn't be associated with negative values. "If you think this name means hatred," he said, "you need to come to a G-body [General Body] meeting." http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/53551#comments News Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:00:00 -0600 David Xia 53551 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/53470 The Columbia UNIX and E-mail Systems group said it hopes to resolve CubMail problems by today after an e-mail server was overloaded and users were unable to save their account preferences or use their address book last week. At approximately 10 a.m. on Jan. 17, the database server responsible for storing both e-mail preferences and address books failed in keeping up with user demands. Due to the server overload, CubMail users found their sessions prematurely timed out, rendering Cubmail "unusable," Melissa Metz, Director of UNIX and E-mail Systems, stated in an e-mail. UNIX and E-mail Systems temporarily disabled preferences and the address book to alleviate the problem. "On Thursday, we re-configured CubMail to reduce its use of the database ... but the number of requests was still more than the database server could handle," Metz wrote. "We made additional changes and tried again on Monday at 8:30 a.m., but it still didn't work." The group then chose to transfer the entire e-mail database to a bigger server. Metz said the group plans to complete the server transfer by today, keeping all information within preferences and the address book intact. The influx of activity that brought down CubMail arose from a surge in users, Metz stated. In December 2004, there were 41,000 users compared to about 51,000 last December-nearly a 25 percent increase in just two years. Of these users, 73 percent use only CubMail for their university e-mails. Some students never use CubMail. "Other e-mail services provide more space and accessibility," said Tadi Ciscak, SEAS '08, who forwards everything to his Gmail account. Others, like Austin Brauser, SEAS '10, frustrated by CubMail's recent problems, have converted to other e-mail services for the interim. "We are committed to restoring CubMail's full feature set and are making plans for further improvements over the next year," Metz added. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/53470#comments News Thu, 25 Jan 2007 23:00:00 -0600 David Xia 53470 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com