News

It was a tumultuous year for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, with financial difficulties, a fare hike expected to raise $360 million, and the defeat of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan.

One of Columbia’s own, David Paterson, CC ’77 and an adjunct professor at the School of International and Public Affairs, was sworn in as governor of New York state on March 17.

Minghui Yu, Sam Boyle, and Charles Tilly were among the Columbians who died this year.

Teachers College was forced to do some soul-searching this year as the discovery of a noose on a professor’s door—and subsequent revelations about plagiarism on her part—brought to the fore questions about the school’s handling of racial issues.
On Oct. 9, a noose, an infamous symbol of lynching, was placed on the office door of psychology and education professor Madonna Constantine’s office door. Shortly thereafter, a swastika was found painted on the door of a TC professor known for her research on the Holocaust, kicking off a campuswide dialogue on the implications of hate crimes.

The four undergraduate student councils have defined the year largely through their responses to events that affected the campus as a whole, while also dealing with internal council strife.