Graduate Profile: Tiffany Davis

Growing up in Camden, N.J.—one of the poorest and, according to many rankings, most dangerous cities in the nation—Tiffany Davis dreamed of obtaining the authority to shape more effective social policy.

“Many people were disadvantaged ... and at times our voices were being sloshed. It created in me a burning desire to get these voices heard, to get my voice heard,” Davis said.

The trick was finding out exactly how to do that.

At Columbia, Davis seems to have found a formula. She has served as a student representative on the University Senate, interned at the New York City Council, lobbied politicians in Albany, and acted as a student delegate on the Interschool Governing Board. She also says that Columbia has made her into a more well-rounded person both academically and socially.

Davis originally aspired to be an attorney, and while she will still pursue a law degree starting next fall, she is open to other careers for which a law degree will equip her. She attributes this development to her studies in the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race, where her work took a very strong legal focus. Davis now strives to eventually attain prominence in the political consulting field.

Contrary to some of the criticism surrounding the body, Davis said she believes that the University Senate—which includes student, faculty, and administrative representatives and makes University-wide policy—sincerely helps to unite the community and take into account student opinion. During her two-year tenure in the senate, Davis chaired the Elections Commission and partook in the Structure and Operations Committee.

Always intrigued by “the many different perspectives sitting at the table,” she made her own voice heard by urging a reevaluation of the University’s criteria to invite speakers to campus in the wake of the incident last year involving a speech by Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project. “There should be a possibility for dialogue and not just one viewpoint that dominates,” she said.

Personal circumstances have also driven Davis to push for greater educational funding for the underprivileged. A participant in Columbia’s Higher Education Opportunity Program, Davis has gone to Albany twice to advocate against cuts in financial-aid funding. “I want politicians to know that programs should be continued and expanded,” Davis said, glad that various programs are still in practice.

Davis was instrumental in organizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month activities, and as an intern at City Council, she worked under Leroy G. Comrie Jr. (D-Queens), who chairs the Consumer Affairs Committee.

As she works toward a job that will involve policymaking, Davis looks back happily on what she calls “an unparalleled education.”

“I think I’ve had an amazing experience here,” Davis said. “There’s so much I have to give back.”