Sarah Husk

“The bizarre aspects of covering race as America’s neuroses show themselves is in high relief in an election year,” Ray Suarez, senior correspondent for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, said as he opened an address to an audience gathered for a panel discussion at the Graduate School of Journalism Thursday evening.

Online academics at Columbia are getting a makeover, via an initiative by Student Services, the Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, and CUIT to switch Courseworks over to the alternate platform Sakai. After investigating several different options and piloting the programs extensively, Student Services officials have decided to switch platforms and begin using Sakai, a system with capabilities that exceeded those of Courseworks and which those involved hope will streamline and expand classroom use of new media.

Amid the plethora of events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 1968 student demonstrations, faculty and students gathered yesterday to discuss political action and civil liberties.

Twenty American flags, newly washed and hung out to dry in the sun yesterday afternoon on Low Plaza made a bold visual statement that few could ignore.

Armed with shovels and environmental initiative, eco-friendly students gathered outside of Pupin Friday afternoon for the groundbreaking of Columbia’s new community garden. The project aims to raise student awareness about sustainability, agriculture, and food-related issues.

After years of discussion, plans for the revamped use of Lerner Hall’s sixth floor were announced this afternoon in an e-mail from the outgoing Columbia College Student Council and Engineering Student Council presidents, Michelle Diamond, CC ’08, and Liz Strauss, SEAS ’08. The project would move administrative offices from the fourth floor to the sixth floor of Lerner—a space that is relatively unused—thereby making space for a centralized Center for Student Advising on the fourth floor.

Lerner, like Justin Timberlake, is bringing sexy back. In a joint effort of the Columbia College Student Council, the Engineering Student Council, and Columbia administrators, the “Make Lerner Sexy,” or “Sexify Lerner,” campaign proposes both long and short-term improvements to Lerner to make the student center more attractive and accessible.

As Wednesday’s Columbia College Student Council elections approach, the two parties running neck-and-neck for executive board positions, Experience Columbia and Connect Columbia, have found student groups as split as students as to who to support.

Course registration each term can be a tedious experience, only made more difficult by the limited and vague information initially available about each course. As fall semester course selection draws near, a new Columbia College Student Council effort, spearheaded by Academic Affairs Representative Donna Desilus, CC ’09, strives to increase student access to course syllabi in hopes of making the process smoother. Currently, few University professors post their syllabi online early. This lack of information becomes more problematic during shopping period, when students have limited time to seek out other courses and alter their schedules.

Few college students are surprised to hear that textbook shopping can be tough on the wallet. Start with a calculus textbook, listed on Amazon for $145, add one for art history at $107, and you’ve passed $250 without before getting halfway down your course list. Faced with such prices, many students are attempting to save some cash by pursuing alternative options.

A select number of students are investing in the stock market individually, in pairs, or sometimes in small groups, pooling capital and know-how in hopes of pulling out high returns. Amid economic downturn, the group claims to be doing quite well.

Though Lerner’s eight floors house student mailboxes, administrative offices, food courts, and lounge space, many Barnard students say they don’t feel at home. “I definitely feel out of place in Lerner,” Natalie Reilly, BC ’11, said.

Eight o’clock—the club’s scheduled meeting time—comes and goes, but the people lounging in the plush armchairs of Lerner club space on March 12 are not concerned. Group members have gathered here, as they do every Wednesday evening, to pursue their passion: science fiction. As for the late start, they explained, this club follows a sense of time different from that of the real world.

The Columbia University Film Faculty Series, the brainchild of a film studies major, will kick off for the first time Saturday afternoon with the endorsement of the Columbia College Student Council.