Author's Posts

La Nina Is a Prude

Abe Handler — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 23:00:00 -0500

Most people think environmental issues are sexy. They bring to mind loafing trustafarians pitted against big-bellied oilmen , eco-socialists fighting heartless developers, the humble Lorax versus the callous forces of capitalism and greed.

Green issues are supposed to involve lots of drama, lots of politics, lots of ideology. And, indeed, there are some truly flashy environmental debates.

When a ski resort expands into a neighboring wilderness, or when ranchers use a pesticide that harms an endangered fish, expect a fierce showdown involving property rights, the role of government, and the relationship between humans and nature. Someone might even chain himself to a tree.

But there are other types of environmental issues that aren't sexy at all. So-called "primary" environmental matters involve treating the environment such that it can sustain life for everyone. And they are strictly non-political. How much mercury can we allow in our drinking water? What level of biodiversity is required to ensure a stable food supply?

In these cases, the only mystery is how to achieve certain obvious goals (for example, potable water for everyone) given the immediate facts of politics at hand. It's all less sexy than the Lerner Party Space.

Climate change, I contend, is very much one of these primary prudes. Sure, it gets people going (the Atlantic Ocean lapping up against Central Park, new hideous diseases let loose in the jungles of Paraguay), but deep down inside, it wants to be back in the lab, hunched over a computer model and eating Doritos from the bag, which is why climate change is blushing with all this recent attention.

With two new books, a recent cover story in Time, and a slew of recent television commercials, global warming (in Newsweek's words) is "the Topic du Jour." Is global warming happening? Are humans the cause? What will happen if climate change occurs? Scientists now have the answers to these questions. Now that the science is clear, there isn't that much more to say. There is nothing sexy here. There is no debate to have. Unless, of course, you're a member of the right-wing commentariat.

In the face of an emerging scientific consensus on climate change (the planet is cooking, we're cooking it, this is likely a bad thing), conservative pundits are working hard to politicize this fundamentally apolitical debate.

The "loose scientific consensus," they allege, is really nothing more than collectivist ideology dressed up as hard facts. As the world is in a panic to curtail emissions, the staff of the National Review is keeping its feet on the ground, staying critical, and keeping the sober global warming "debate" alive.

George Will, Robert Novak, Matthew Parris, and Charles Moore added a fresh round of this nonsense in recent weeks via op-eds still circulating the conservative blogosphere.

Of the scientific consensus, Moore wrote: "I often hear in what they say not the voice of science itself, but of the bad politics, thinly disguised by a white coat."

Novak said: "The dispute over whether the U.S. government should regulate emissions of greenhouse gases is at heart political. The scientists are divided, and [environmentalists] are using political tactics to try to prevail."

Yet this "issue" is only political because Novak and others are working hard to make it so. A "debate" about climate change is like a public fight about mercury pollution.

If scientists tell us we are harming the planet to everyone's likely detriment, the only question is how best to stop. There just isn't that much for journalists to say.

Yet, Novak might argue, if there really is some uncertainty within the scientific community, why is it only the right that is politicizing science?

I can't criticize conservatives by assuming the very scientific truth they dispute. The difference between right-wing and left-wing commentary on global warming is here: where left and center defer to the folks with the white lab coats, right-wingers go looking for a fight.

It, again, makes no more sense than debating mercury pollution. Perhaps Will and company should save their vitriol for arguments about whales. La Nina, it seems, keeps her shirt on.

The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in philosophy.

Would You Like a Book of Mormon?

Abe Handler — Sun, 27 Mar 2005 23:00:00 -0600

In the spring of 2002, as his friends were picking fall classes and preparing for the housing lottery, John Monahan, SEAS ’07, was packing for Taiwan.

A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the 21-year-old sophomore took two years off after his first-year spring to proselytize in Asia. Back from the ranks of the 60,000 dark-suited and name-tagged Mormon missionaries serving throughout the world, Monahan returns to take up a newly active role in the rapidly expanding LDS Church.

“You have no idea how hard mission is,” sophomore Josh Davis, CC ’07, another returning missionary explains, “alone in a foreign City, a new language, day-in, day-out, being made fun of. Everything else that I am doing seems to pale in comparison.”

From the work of missionaries like Davis and Monahan, the 200 year-old LDS Church has swelled to 12 million members—ranking among the world’s fastest growing faiths. Judaism, a several-thousand-year-old religion, now claims the same number of believers.

“There is no doubt that the [LDS] Church is growing and is growing from the proselytizing seal of its missionaries,” Barnard Professor of Religion Randall Balmer explained. “[The program] was a strategy devised by [seminal early Mormon] Brigham Young to keep the children within the faith and as a means to keep Mormon adolescents and spread Mormonism around the world; it was a stroke of genius.”

Consistent with this pattern, the two young men returned from their missions to resume active roles in their faith—participating in the young people’s ward at the Mormon Temple in Lincoln Center and holding officer positions within Columbia’s small Mormon student group, The Latter-Day Saints Students Association.

“A mission is as much for the sake of the missionary as it is for the Church,” Balmer continued. Most Mormon missionaries are young men between the ages of 19 and 26. The missionaries and their families finance the common two-year right of passage for members of the Church.

“It’s about how hard you worked, how much you learned, how much you changed,” Davis said.

Both students are nonchalant about coming back after lengthy and unusual times away. “Most people are interested about why I left,” Monahan said, “they have basically been curious and accepting ... [and] socially, I didn’t really miss a beat.”

“Of course, there are always people who don’t understand why I would give up two years of my life, free time, money, and friends to go [on a mission]” Davis said. “Those people would need to look at the change in each person who [serves].”

Missions aside, the returning missionaries are differentiated from their peers by following well-known Mormon prohibitions. “No alcohol. No cigarettes. No sex,” Davis jokes in discussing his decision to avoid college social mainstays. “That sets me apart and excludes me from social circles,” he adds, “but there are many kids for whom that is not the biggest priority. Mostly my social circle comes from church because of similar standards.”

While Davis is still close with the Columbia friends he made in his first year, he has been slower to reintegrate himself in campus social life—preferring to make friends with other young people active with the LDS temple in Lincoln Center.

Although also close with young New York City Mormons, Monahan has chosen to make many new Columbia friends since his return.

The LDS Church traces its roots back to a 19th-century American Christian, Joseph Smith. By LDS belief, Smith, confused by the varied teaching of Christian sects in upstate New York, received a clarifying divine vision that set in motion the creation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Believing that the true teachings of Jesus fell away as Christianity developed following the crucifixion, the LDS Church believes itself to be the divinely-guided restoration of the true, original Church of Jesus.

The geographically organized, unified Church is headquartered in Salt Lake City under the leadership of one prophet also believed to receive divine revelation. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has no professional clergy.

While three-quarters of LDS Missionaries are young men, many young women and elderly members of the Church serve missions as well.

Missionaries are assigned to a geographic zone and while many Mormon missions are located abroad, the LDS Church does have missions within the United States.

For young male Mormons, pressure to serve missions can be quite intense. Balmer said that while missions are, “not strictly speaking required, they are so much a part of LDS sub-culture that if you don’t go on mission, you are regarded with suspicion.” Balmer relayed second-hand stories of Mormon girls who refuse to date boys who didn’t serve missions.

Davis and Monahan each stress their decisions to serve Mormon missions were entirely their own.

Beyond their spiritual growth and continued participation in the LDS Church, each of the Columbia missionaries has come back changed from their experiences abroad. Monahan, an aspiring doctor, is now one of two white students in his third semester Chinese course and is also in the process of transferring from SEAS to Columbia College to allow for continued study in the EALAC department. Davis, a new economics major, points to his work ethic and sense of direction as results of his mission.

Speaking on campus, Davis reminisced about his mission in Southern Italy. “I was lucky enough to witness some wonderful lives change,” he said. “They felt something different in our message. Humble people looking for something more.”

Rev. Jackson Criticizes Bush, War

Abe Handler — Sun, 20 Mar 2005 23:00:00 -0600

National religious and political leaders joined the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the nave of Riverside Church on Sunday for an interfaith service launching Clergy and Laity Concerned About Iraq, a new broad interfaith coalition that plans to offer a moral critique of the Iraq War.

Commemorating the two year anniversary of the conflict in Iraq, the Palm Sunday service featured speakers including Congressman Charles Rangel (D-Harlem), City Councilman Bill Perkins (D-Harlem), and Riverside’s Rev. Dr. James Forbes who all joined Jackson in criticizing both the Bush administration and American conduct abroad.

Speaking before the crowd of several hundred, Jackson referenced a Christian parable in calling the war in Iraq “a house built on sand” founded on “misinformation, disinformation and lies.”

“A democracy at gunpoint, a military occupation, cannot stand,” he said.

Like many of the evening’s other speakers, Jackson addressed political concerns by considering moral reference points. Often recalling the legacy of slavery, the American civil rights movement, and his own experiences with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackson told the crowd, “Politics asks the question, ‘does it work?’ Conscience asks, ‘what is right?’ There is a time to ask not does it work, but is it right?”

After an opening procession of 1,000 wrapped coffins representing American and Iraqi war dead, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou, coordinator for the new coalition, offered the first speech of the evening service. Osagyefo reminded audience members of what he called the “prophetic tradition,” enshrined in the scriptures of many faiths, which draws upon religious moral norms as a reference against improper secular power. Osagyefo said, “we are here tonight to remind America that she has a soul.” The coordinator ended, “Bring our troops home now.”

Jim Wallis, who is the editor-in-chief of Sojourners Magazine, Susannah Heschel, associate professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College, local interfaith clergy, and leaders of secular social justice and anti-war groups also offered prayers and shorter speeches throughout the service.

Heschel told the crowd, “President Bush says that God is on his side ... that’s not biblical theology. In God’s eyes, the warrior is unfit for religious duty. Don’t let the politicians pretend God is on the side of kings.”

Community Debate Over Sacred Ground Intensifies

Abe Handler — Thu, 17 Feb 2005 23:00:00 -0600

While most eyes are focused on the University’s proposed development in Manhattanville, a lesser known Columbia expansion project has hit a new snag.

With Columbia and the trustees of St. John the Divine engaged in a dialogue regarding Columbia’s plans for construction on the north grounds of the church, Morningside Heights’ Community Board 9 has again taken steps to hinder developments. In December, CB9 resubmitted a petition to gain landmark status for the entire grounds of the cathedral.

If successful, the controversial resolution to the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission would make it much harder to build on the site in the future. The trustees of St. John are seeking landmark status for only the area immediately surrounding the cathedral building itself, clearing the way for construction.

Officials from St. John are also talking to private developers about plans to build on the southeastern portion of the site.

Still incomplete over a century after construction began and facing publicized financial difficulties, revenue from new construction could help cathedral staff maintain its facilities, continue to provide programs for area residents, and begin a raising funds to complete the structure.

Herb Katz, director of communications for the cathedral, declined to comment on the church’s motives for pursuing development. Katz said that cathedral officials have discussed the situation publicly several times in the past.

Liz Golden, Columbia’s director of operations, planning and special projects, also declined to comment on CB9’s resolution.

As the proposal moves through levels of city administration, two Morningside Heights community organizations are working to shape the future of the site.

The Morningside Heights Historic District Committee, an area preservation association, seeks to block further development by joining CB9 in working for landmark status for the entire church grounds.

“The Columbia administration does not seem to understand that they are tampering with a great national site,” said Carolyn Kent, an active committee member and longtime neighborhood preservationist. “We don’t want massive new construction coming onto [the grounds].” The HDC is planning a community forum and a private meeting with University President Lee Bollinger to voice its concerns.

Another neighborhood group, Community to Support the Cathedral, opposes the HDC’s position. CSC maintains a Web site and is petitioning in favor of development. Just over 300 individuals have signed the group’s petition promoting development on the grounds of St. John.

“The cathedral is in poor shape and the place is clearly in need of maintenance,” said Brad Taylor, an area architect and Webmaster for the pro-development organization. “One way to improve the site is through architecture.”

Taylor questioned whether Kent and CB9 were really acting in the best interest of the cathedral and the area.

“There is an idea that because Columbia is involved, Columbia’s needs are driving this project and, as another Columbia encroachment, we should try and stop it,” Taylor said. “In fact, this project is driven by the cathedral’s needs.”

“The original architect [Ralph Adams Cram] envisioned more building on the grounds,” Taylor added.

In the past, cathedral trustees have expressed a commitment to ensuring that new construction passes strict standard guidelines set by the church. At this stage, drawings for the new construction proposal are not yet available.

“They would like to stop this thing before we even see what is going up,” said Taylor, referring to his opponents.

CB9’s new petition reopens a complex, three-year, multi-party wrangle through several layers of city bureaucracy.

In 2002, Columbia University and the cathedral trustees entered negotiations offering the University exclusive rights to develop on the grounds. In response, CB9 sent a resolution in December of that year to have the entire grounds of the cathedral protected by New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. When the LPC sent a proposal to the City Council attempting to grant landmark status to only the cathedral structure itself, the city council rejected the attempt—overriding a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Kent interprets the city council rejection as a move in favor of granting the entire site landmark status, especially in light of Bill Perkins’ support of efforts to block development at St. John the Divine.

“The issue of restoration designation began a new concern with the landmark process by the city council that will help tremendously in the mission to preserve New York City,” Kent said.

Learning the Recipe for Eternal Salvation--In Lerner

Abe Handler — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 23:00:00 -0600

Amid the peacoats and denim of Morningside Heights, it is hard not to notice Gadadhara Pandit. Bareheaded and clad in plain, traditional robes, Columbia’s new Krishna chaplain stands out on campus.

After nearly four years of advising Columbia’s small Krishna community, Pandit has become a major part of some students’ lives on campus by leading a study group on an Eastern spiritual text and a series of weekly vegetarian cooking classes that draw over 100 students each session.

Hare Krishnaism is the American embodiment of a very old, monotheistic sect of Hinduism whose adherents chant “Hare Krishna Rama,” believed to be the name of God, as a form of worship. First brought to the West in 1965 when an elderly Bengali gentleman established a Krishna temple on the Lower East Side, Hare Krishnaism quickly gained popularity among non-Indians in the United States—adopting the name given to it by Western observers.

What began as a small, informal gathering of students with Chaplain Pandit has evolved into the Columbia University Bhakti Club, which now boasts over 400 members. The club’s mission is to introduce the spiritual culture of India to members of the Columbia community. Despite offering only minimal publicity for its cooking classes, the Bhakti Club hosts the most well-attended weekly event in Lerner.

Indian-born and raised in Los Angeles, Pandit first realized his calling as a young man working in his father’s import/export business in the eastern United States.

Pandit returned to India for one year to travel and study at a monastery in Bombay before joining a monastic order on the Lower East Side and teaching an accredited course on the Bhavag Gita, the primary spiritual text of India, at SUNY Albany.

It was then that he accepted an invitation from his friend Li Wa—a Ph.D. candidate in biology turned Columbia law student—to advise a small study group and cooking circle of Columbia students that met in Wa’s apartment. Seeking to promote spirituality and a non-violent vegetarianism, this group developed the weekly cooking classes that outgrew two prior spaces on the way to the current location in Lerner.

Inspired by spiritual principles enshrined in the Bhagavad Gita, the Bhakti Club’s cooking classes arose out of a philosophy of non-violence that Pandit said “extends not just to human beings but also to animals.” Because Pandit believes his cooking to be a form of worship, the monk does not taste the food while cooking because his creations are intended for God.

“We wanted to introduce spirituality and vegetarianism in a way which would allow people of different cultures to feel comfortable,” Pandit said. He began last Wednesday’s class with a warning to new attendees: “Don’t worry. Nothing strange is going to take place.”

Though the religion’s principles are of Asian origin, it has long fought the perception that it is a Western-originated cult.

“When you bring something that is so deep-rooted in one part of the world and transport it to a completely different culture in a different part of the world, there is a good chance that it will stick out like a sore thumb,” Pandit said.

Pandit’s application for University chaplaincy was approved last fall. Columbia has 17 chaplains, whose primary jobs are to serve as spiritual advisers to the University community.

Pandit emphasized that Krishnas believe they are worshiping the same God as that of common Western monotheistic religions. He added that Krishnas respect all forms of prayer. “If all worship God in a sincere way, all will attain the same goal,” Pandit said.

Regardless of theology, the large crowds each Wednesday in Lerner seem drawn to Pandit’s classes from motivations ranging from spiritual curiosity to vegetarian epicureanism to the traditional college impetus: free food.

While GS student Peter Goliszewski has long attended the classes to learn about Krishna spirituality, SEAS graduate student Theodore Kengre is drawn to the gatherings by the perceived health benefits of vegetarianism.

“I appreciate hearing about his philosophy,” said regular attendee Ezra Koenig, CC ’06. “I don’t just come here for the food.”

Another audience member said, “I’m a vegetarian. It’s hard to get vegetarian food around Columbia ... You can only eat salads and sandwiches for so long.”

Although most popular with undergraduates, Pandit emphasizes that the Bhakti Club’s classes draw students from many backgrounds and University affiliations.

Vegetarian dinners are held at 7 p.m. each Wednesday in Lerner party space. Bhavag Gita study groups are held at 5 p.m. each Friday in 502 West Lerner.

“The club is helping like-minded students form deep spiritual friendships,” Pandit said. “For me, that’s very satisfying.”

Scholars Discuss Religion in Politics

Abe Handler — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 23:00:00 -0600

In the wake of President Bush’s re-election, over 1,300 people filled the nave of Riverside Church last night to hear speeches from six national progressive leaders on the state of America.

The evening’s event, titled “Where Do We Go From Here?: An Interfaith Dialogue on Religion and the Future of America’s Politics,” featured Cornel West, professor of religion and African-American studies at Princeton, as its keynote speaker.

Most of the evening’s six prominent and religiously diverse speakers drew upon what the panelists called a “prophetic tradition” enshrined in Judaic, Christian, and Muslim scriptures. Although all offered differing visions for the future of progressive politics, almost every one of the panelists touched upon an interfaith scriptural mandate toward a more just and equal society.

Some of the panelists also said that the progressive movement was a broad moral effort and not just a narrow push to win campaigns. “If John Kerry had won the election, my speech would not be different,” West said to an enthusiastic crowd. “We live in a dark time. [But] I am not tired. I am ready to fight.”

Manning Marable, professor of history and African-American studies at Columbia, and Riverside’s well-known senior minister, the Rev. Dr. James Forbes Jr., joined West on the panel. Also on the panel, representing voices from progressive Judaism and Islam respectively, were Dartmouth professor Susannah Heschel and Talib Abdul-Rashid, Imam of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in New York City. The secular point of view was represented by Malia Lazu, the national field coordinator for Democracy Action Project, who spoke about 2004 programs to mobilize youth voters.

West began the evening by posing what he called “an existential question.”

“What kind of legacy do you want to leave,” West asked the crowd, “[in your time] between womb and tomb?” Calling for a just and uncompromising progressive agenda, West criticized those who have urged America’s left to move closer to the center in search of a broader following.

Speaking near the end of the program, almost an hour after West, Marable outlined what he called an “unholy trinity” of cyclical incarceration, disenfranchisement, and unemployment, which he said hindered the efforts of black Americans to gain a stronger foothold in national society. Marable called for a prophetic response deeply rooted in the traditions of African-American Christianity and an end to “the master-slave dynamic embedded in American master narrative.”

Several of the evening’s panelists lashed out at Christian conservatives.Speaking against what he termed the imperial “Constantinian Christianity” of the religious right, West said that some Christians have mistaken the blood of the cross as “Kool-Aid like” and “taken a place at the table” of the American empire.

Heschel added, “My Bible has been taken captive by a fascistic movement.”

Riverside’s Forbes ended the evening with a candlelit ceremony in the large cathedral. Before turning off the lights and signaling the church choir to sing “This Little Light of Mine,” Forbes told the audience, “We were not defeated. We were just delayed. ... God has worked in dark places.”

Riverside Rev. Represents Christian Left

Abe Handler — Sun, 24 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0500

In a national political culture dominated by religious dialogue, one Morningside Heights leader stands as a powerful voice in the fray.

With a progressive, inclusive and, "unabashedly liberal" Christian message, Rev. Dr. James A. Forbes Jr., senior minister at Riverside Church, has been a vocal and visible participant this political season, speaking before the Democratic National Convention, gatherings of national religious leaders, and members of the nationwide press.

Promoting what he sees as egalitarian precepts enshrined in scripture, Forbes has traveled the country with Riverside's faith-based Mobilization 2004 initiative, an officially non-partisan call upon America's citizens and leaders to check current policy against what Forbes sees as Christian principals of "righteousness and justice" laid out in the Bible.

While IRS regulations prevent Forbes from formally endorsing John Kerry in his capacity as leader of the protestant congregation, Forbes has publicly announced his independent support for the Democratic candidate on the Web site beliefnet.org.

"The United States needs to recover the moral values on which it was built," Forbes explained from his Riverside office overlooking New York. "America needs a spiritual recovery."

For Forbes, such a goal necessarily entails an intertwined religious and social agenda.

"The Church should nourish the moral values of its members and promote a world in line with justice and righteousness," said Forbes, drawing upon quotations from Dr. Martin Luther King and pointing to the Abolition Movement, the Civil Rights Movement and the Women's Liberation Movement as periods when Christians exerted a positive moral influence upon society. "[The Bible is] a call to personal holiness and societal transformation. You can't ignore one without compromising the essence of faith."

In keeping with such a philosophy, Forbes promotes what he calls "prophetic justice principals" in his local and national engagements--principles he sees as biblically-based policy guidelines mandating support for poor and disadvantaged members of society, a respectful foreign policy, ecological responsibility, and the importance of a free press.

As a prominent liberal Christian, Forbes stands at the forefront of a progressive faith movement that has arisen as a "counter-balance" to the growing visibility and influence of the religious right.

Conservative Christians "use God to support their own interests. Search[ing] the Bible to find verses where God happens to agree, putting words into God's mouth," said Forbes. "This leads to hypocrisy and disrespect for God. True spirituality is inclusive. We are all God's children. Those who read the Bible for personal piety while ignoring societal ills are out of touch with the religious principals which they claim to represent."

Although Forbes, like conservative Christians, selects passages from the Bible to support his political, social and religious agenda, he views his movement as differing from that of Christian conservatives in its more holistic, accurate reading of scripture and in its reluctance to use the state to decide moral issues.

Rather than attempting to "legislate theocratically," Forbes said that progressive Christians like those working with Mobilization 2004 promote "advocacy in conversation with others in the hope that the best wisdom for how to shape our society will shine through."

"We don't need to police the world for God," said Forbes. "We should have respect for people of different values."

Barnard religion Professor Elizabeth Castelli offered insight into Forbes' debate with Christian conservatives. "Dr. Forbes is drawing on Biblical themes and a prophetic tradition in the Hebrew Bible," she explained. "That tradition makes a strong ethical demand upon the community to which it is addressed to attend to the needs of its weakest members? Everyone who reads the Bible does [choose passages to understand the Bible's meaning]."

The potential difference between Forbes and Christian conservatives, Castelli believes, might be that "the religious right has an ascendant, popular position," while progressive Christians are a backlash to that dominant ideology. "[The] biblical tradition," the Professor Castelli says, "has historically been about offering a resistance or critique of power."

Regardless of its theological backing, however, such a joint spiritual and social campaign is hardly new for either the Forbes or his Riverside Church.

Long an ecumenical, inclusive, inter-faith congregation, Riverside hosts believers from different faiths.

Forbes' predecessor at the congregation's pulpit lead a prominent campaign against nuclear production. As a young man, Forbes participated in Woolworth's sit-ins during the civil rights movement.

Yet for Forbes, this election season is a special time of urgency. "At no time in the nation's history has our witness been more urgently needed than it is now," Forbes preached in a Riverside flyer. "The year 2004 is a critical one for us to come together and create a collective witness to reconnect America with its moral, spiritual, and democratic values."

"We live in a world house," Forbes added. "We just have to find a way to live in it together."

Schumer Fighting Student Debt

Abe Handler — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 23:00:00 -0500

Kym Jones has had a tough time with credit card companies.

Seeking to improve a poor credit history, Jones, GS '07, signed up for a MasterCard from South Dakota-based First Premier Bank, which bills itself as an ideal choice for those seeking to improve their past credit records. The result, she said, "was a disaster." Citing a long list of hidden fees including charges to pay monthly bills online, charges to pay bills by phone, and charges to change her credit limit, Jones said, "If I had known, I would have never signed up."

She said she will graduate with "thousands" in credit card debt.

Jones is not alone. According to recently released figures from the national student loan company Nellie Mae, New York college students are carrying a total of nearly $2 billion in credit card debt. And state lawmakers are starting to take notice.

Concerned with Nellie Mae findings that one-third of college students will graduate with as much as $7,000 in credit card debt, New York Senator Charles Schumer has announced plans to introduce legislation calling for a greater regulation of credit companies marketing to undergraduates. Schumer's proposed legislation would require parental consent for student credit card applications, greater disclosure of billing schemes from credit companies, and advanced knowledge of rate hikes for consumers.

Expressing concern over perceived unfairness in cryptic billing schemes, easy access to credit for those unable to pay, and aggressive marketing practices, Schumer said, "When I sent my daughter [to college] two years ago, a card for books and emergencies was standard issue. But when credit card companies descend on campuses, that one card quickly becomes four, and five, six, even $7,000 of debt follow close behind. Credit cards are a godsend, but when there are unscrupulous practices, they have to stop."

Blake Zeff, a spokesman from Schumer's office, said the senator will begin pushing the proposed legislation through Congress when the Senate returns from its October recess, likely after the November elections. "When we get back, we will be pushing forward," Zeff said. Schumer is widely expected to defeat his challenger, Republican Howard Mills, in his bid for re-election next month.

Columbia administrators seem similarly wary of credit companies. Director of Business Services Honey Sue Fishman, who oversees Columbia's relationships with private firms providing services on campus, said, "We don't allow any solicitation of any credit cards to students." She cited past instances in which her office had responded to scattered student complaints about direct solicitation from credit card telemarketers and spammers.

The Citibank branch in Lerner Hall, in keeping with agreements with Business Services, does not offer students the opportunity to apply for credit cards--though the facility does refer students to the 111th Street branch, where applications are available.

Peter Renneé, who oversees the scheduling of College Walk and Alfred Lerner Hall, said that although student spaces are not intended for commercial use, in isolated instances, "things have been slipped in." Commercial companies can gain access to campus if they are sponsored by a student group or have a privileged relationship with Columbia--as when Renneé allotted a spot for Citibank on College Walk during the new student orientation "to let students know what's available."

Yet regardless of tight campus regulations, Columbia administrators have no means to bar the familiar credit card booths immediately outside the 116th Street gates. "What happens out on the streets," Fishman said, "I am afraid that we have no control over."

From his booth just by the subway entrance, one Citibank employee, who asked not to be identified, said that he signs up 20 to 100 students a day at different area colleges throughout September.

These Citibank employees are paid on commission and offer frisbees, T-shirts, and laundry hampers to new credit customers.

Among his other aims, Schumer seeks to mandate that credit card companies warn students about the potential dangers of credit when they provide freebees.

Citibank applications for college students contain clear sections warning about the responsibilities that come with a credit line and the company's Web site offers several sections dedicated to educating students about credit debt.

Yet despite the hefty credit burdens facing undergraduates, some Columbia students seemed skeptical about Schumer's proposed legislation--especially provisions requiring parental approval for card acceptance.

"I think it's a bad idea," said Stefan Hasselblad, CC '07. "When you turn 18, you start making your own decisions on your own. You should be smart and mature enough to handle a credit card. And if you have to learn a lesson, better to learn it while you are young."

One Year After Changeover, CU Mail Troubles Might Be Over

Abe Handler — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 23:00:00 -0500

After a string of negative experiences with Columbia Mail Services, Virginia Zimpel, CC '06, is justly skeptical of the new incoming and outgoing package center on the fourth floor of Alfred Lerner Hall.

Emerging from the center following an incident-free pickup, Zimpel noted, "this time it was fine," before going on to cite a list of past grievances that included poor e-mail receipt notification and elusive packages that were confirmed as delivered by mail carriers.

"I don't trust the Columbia mail," she said.

Her sentiments seem to be going out of fashion. Despite the lingering legacy of past mail woes among Columbia's older undergraduates, many signs indicate that Lerner mail distribution has left its earlier problems behind. As Columbia students settle in to a new package center on the fourth floor of Lerner Hall and IKON Office Solutions begins for its second year of distributing in the student center, it seems as if Columbia's mail is finally running smoothly.

Things haven't always worked so well. Columbia administrators turned over the Lerner mail service to IKON in July 2003, following three years of what Honey Sue Fishman, director of business services called "poor performance" from a previous distributor. Most infamously, in November of 2001, 15 bags of unopened letters and magazines were discovered waiting to be disposed of by mail room employees in order to ease a crowded mail room.

The new center, which in June replaced the old facility on the street level of Lerner as the primary location for undergraduate package pickup, features an additional terminal, better means for line control, protection from the weather, superior lighting, greater convenience, and the option to ship outgoing mail from a choice of three carriers.

According to Fishman, business services worked extensively with student leaders and student panels during the spring semester of 2003 to conceive and design the facility. Assistant Manager Herbert Taylor was optimistic about the change. He called the old first-floor facility "a dungeon," and noted that now "the students seem happier."

Site manager Anthony Wheeler, who oversees Lerner mail, is similarly confident that things are changing for the better. Stressing that his staff is still gaining experience in receiving and distributing items at Columbia, Wheeler said, "we recognized that services needed to be improved. Since we took over, things have improved dramatically, but there is still room to get better."

Along with the structural advantages of the new center, Wheeler has added five additional employees, changed the ways in which Lerner computers register incoming mail, and added two terminals for package check-out. He is confident that the improvements will continue to improve service.

"When we got here, I will admit there were quite a few problems," he said. "We were new, we had to figure things out. But things have improved a thousand times."

Early in Wheeler's tenure, failures of communication between his company, IKON, and the previous mail provider, Archer, caused a failure in mail forwarding to 1,000 students in the summer of 2003.

During peak times, such as at the beginning of school, IKON will receive and distribute between 500 and 1,000 packages per day. Calling such times "a hailstorm," Wheeler conceded that packages can be lost in the shuffle and pointed to internal changes within the package center designed to minimize the number of lost boxes.

Conceived largely as a way to provide outgoing mail services, the center reports steady increases in student shipping from a package a day at the start of school to over 10 packages a day in mid-September. Wheeler reports that the center charges 30 percent below standard UPS rates.

Ray Pentangelo, owner of the UPS franchise on 115th and Broadway, said that his store has experienced a slight drop in business, but added that it was too early to gauge the extent to which students are shipping from the new center.

As of yet, student reaction to the new facility itself is similarly unclear. Many students reported having no problems with the new face of Lerner mail--one even specifying that he has received over 30 packages without a hitch.

Kwame Spearman,president of the Columbia College class of 2006 and a Spectator columnist, did report that five students have complained to him about the mail services already this year.

Arturo Pelaez, SEAS '05, said he can remember tracking down a previous site manager after a package went missing for a week in his first year.

"Things are better than before," Pelaez said. "The waits seem a little less."

Despite all the changes in Lerner mail, most Columbia students seem far more concerned with the contents than the delivery of their packages.

"My mom sent a box of brownies from Maine and it arrived two days later," said Peter Nalli, CC '07. "Now that's living."

Anatomy of a Name Change

Abe Handler — Sun, 25 Apr 2004 23:00:00 -0500

There are certain things a young man likes to do when coming out of the bathroom: zip his fly, latch his belt, wash his hands, and of course--if he's lucky--talk to a CCSC presidential hopeful about the pressing issues facing the class of 2007.

Such was the case during the past election season when your fine freshman columnist, emerging contentedly from the john, had the great fortune to find a bubbly candidate who shall remain unnamed in the narrow hallway of my Carman suite. With my fly down and my belt hanging loosely about my waist, the enthusiastic hopeful offered his hand and told me that he was going through Carman, meeting voters and "talking to first-years about the issues." Give me a reorganization of FYSAAC, or give me death!

Seemingly unconcerned as I zipped up, the bouncy fellow launched into an ebullient discourse on CCSC "policy." But my concern with the candidate's little speech does not lie with the poor man's student council plans. Election time--the two weeks of the year when a man can't read in peace on the Low steps--has thankfully passed. Rather, in this, the final installment of my freshman-experience column, Looking Up, I would to like to bring attention to a term that kept popping up in the then-hopeful, utopian discourse. As the candidate described a Morningside where Flex accounts ran free and financial aid flowed with the limitless bounty of the John Jay salad bar, everywhere was Columbia's now-favored designation for members of the class of 2007: "first-year."

If nothing else, this guy talked like a higher-up. Columbia's administrators have taken pains to establish this awkward and counterintuitive appellation for the University's youngest students. Evidently, their efforts have been met with some success. Favored by administrative offices, the odd designation is creeping into undergraduate vernacular.

Most members of the class of 2007 will still look at fellow classmates a little strangely if they use the designation. Carman, Furnald, and John Jay are known as "freshman," not "first-year," dorms. Yet taking a cue from Jay Orenduff's gripping "First-Year Flyers," the "First-Year Sophomore Academic Advising Center," and Alice!'s glossy pamphlets on how "first-years" can avoid gonorrhea, students are starting to warm up to the unlikely term.

How did this linguistic shift come about? After all, the other undergraduate ranks at Columbia are classified by their traditional, god-fearing appellations: seniors, juniors, sophomores. Why is it that that Columbia came to call its young'uns by a tag more appropriate for Hogwarts? After all, unlike Dumbledore, PrezBo is thoroughly and disappointingly unequipped with any sort of evil-fighting magical powers.

Caroline Middleton, senior dean in the First-Year Sophomore Academic Advising Center, is unsure about the precise timing and rationale for the shift. However, she speculates that the change came about in 1983, when women first came to Columbia College.

Though innumerable Columbia officials failed to return my calls this week--are you reading this, Q-Tip?--her speculation is probably correct. Had Columbia's top dogs taken a few moments from strike-busting, my guess is that somebody in Low could have confirmed the theory.

Cornell and Dartmouth have joined Columbia in the use of "first-year," with administrators at Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania committed to the word freshman. Brown administrators use both designations.

As for me, I'm rather conflicted about the term. Certainly, the phrase "first-year" smacks of the sort of empty, overly-sensitive, and absurdly PC jargon that is probably best avoided. It is very hard for me to imagine that students could be hurt by the allegedly gendered term "freshman."

Yet after a semester in Science of Psychology, Columbia's favorite science class (ignoring, of course, the infinitely challenging Earth, Moon, and Planets), I'm hesitant to totally dismiss the term "first-year." Three weeks ago, while desperately trying to read 200 pages of Peter Gray's blessedly math-less and creatively-titled Psychology, I read that psychologists have in fact demonstrated that when individuals employ the term "man" to stand in for humans of either sex, those who hear or read the term actually do associate "man" with males. If this is so, then the very language we use to describe members of the class of 2007 when we use the term "freshman" does, in fact, imply that the men of Carman and John Jay are the true exemplaries of the youngest students at Columbia: that the typical Columbia "freshman" is a man. From this perspective, it makes sense to join Columbia administrators in abandoning the term "freshman."

Yet whatever the name, I'll be happy to be moving on rather than looking up in the year ahead. After all, there is little doubt that the most belittling term at Morningside currently denotes the class of 2008. And I, after all, am no pre-frosh.

Abe Handler is a Columbia College first-year. This is his last installment of the biweekly Looking Up.