Letters to the Editor

Illustration by Shaina Rubin

Illustration by Shaina Rubin

Death of Student “On” Campus Highlights Campus Security Flaws

To the Editor:

It’s very sad to read about the death of Minghui Yu this weekend (“Grad Student Fleeing Mugging Killed by Car,” April 4). I imagine that his parents will be shocked to learn that he was killed not in some random part of New York City but right in front of Columbia University property. Despite President Bollinger’s attempt to frame the issue otherwise, the incident is more evidence of the University’s poor public safety record.

Bollinger’s e-mail over the weekend stated that the incident took place “two blocks north of our main campus.” The president should take another look at his map. The incident took place on campus, right next to Columbia graduate student housing, Teacher’s College, and the Jewish Theological Seminary. Combined with an argument later in his e-mail that Columbia is in a low-crime precinct, it’s an attempt to say: “It’s sad, yes, but it’s also not our fault. It wasn’t in our zone of responsibility.” (If the University really wants to distance itself from upholding a seamless safety web with “affiliated” institutions, you can be the one to tell Barnard.)

This incident is one in a steady stream of muggings and assaults between 118th and 122nd Streets (both on Broadway and Amsterdam) this year, taking place at all hours. (Helpful hint to the geographically-challenged: these blocks are all “on-campus” in front of Columbia buildings.) Late last fall, someone was shot dead not 100 feet from SIPA’s front door. The University was quick to stress that the person killed wasn’t affiliated with Columbia—because that matters, apparently. They were equally quick to place one dozing public safety officer by the door for a few hours that weekend day.

The University should be commended for its incident response procedures (text alerts, flyers, etc), but it remains deficient in prevention. We are reminded over e-mail that there are 24-hour guard booths and walking patrols. But because of the hill, those guards have a limited line of sight standing on the sidewalk and almost none when they’re in the booth (which is where they are most of the time). Foot patrols, while increased, apparently aren’t frequent enough to prevent a mugging every few weeks, even when you know which six blocks it’ll happen on.

One would think that the University would have control of its doorstep. Apparently not, but they should. Spare us the spin and get to work.

Rob Leonard
SIPA ’09
April 5, 2008

Academic Credit for ASL Courses is Appreciated, But Just The First Step

To the Editor:

I want to praise the Barnard faculty and administration for voting to grant academic credit for American Sign Language courses (“Barnard OKs Course Credit for American Sign Language,” April 9). As one of the many students who requested the resolution in a proposal to the Committee on Instruction last year, I am proud to know that I attend an institution where the students have a voice and where the administration is willing to work jointly with students to bring about change. The new resolution demonstrates an appreciation for Barnard students’ diverse academic interests and skills, and I hope that Columbia’s other undergraduate colleges will follow suit in recognizing ASL’s legitimacy as an area of study worthy of course credit. I also emphasize my hope that the faculty of Barnard and Columbia will ultimately adopt ASL as a language for which students may receive not only elective credit, but also language credit. As any linguist, professor of ASL, or native speaker will testify, ASL is a true language as syntactically, grammatically, and semantically complex as French, Latin, or Swahili. Importantly, although ASL is spoken throughout the U.S. and Canada, it bears no linguistic relationship to English and carries with it cultural traditions and conventions entirely separate from those of mainstream North American culture. Many of our peer institutions—Brown, University of Chicago, Vassar, Yale, and Wellesley, to name a few—already offer language credit for ASL courses. By accepting ASL courses for elective credit, Barnard has taken the crucial first step toward allowing its students to participate in the ever-expanding academic dialogue about sign language and deaf culture.

Chloe Kroeter
BC ’08
The author is the president of CU Sign.

Exclusion of GS From “40 Days” Is Indicative of Student Council’s Failure

To the Editor:

During our careers at this University, we graduating GS’ers have worked hard and deserve to celebrate our accomplishments just as those in CC, SEAS, and BC did Wednesday on Low Steps (“40’s on 40,” April 10). To be the only undergraduate school excluded from this event speaks to the isolation of the GS community and is a complete embarrassment to those who talk about equality among the undergraduate schools.

This sidelining of GS seniors from the University-dubbed “40 Days” is the fault of an unfortunately misguided and entirely dysfunctional student council. While it is unfair to allow this bureaucratic and entirely absurd reality to affect the basic and fair rights of student-life-fee-paying GS students, this council has very apparently done so, simultaneously overturning the many previous years of hard work that have gone into undergraduate integration and community building.

I am entirely insulted that I was forced to be an onlooker, while my peers celebrated our communal accomplishment. We must avoid situations like this, in which students are excluded from events that are tradition in the history of Columbia University, even if they have become officially chaperoned. There needs to be more administrative regulation in the allocation of student-life fees, since it has become apparent that the student council cannot successfully do so.

Danielle Klein
GS ’08
April 11, 2008