Michael Zhong

A taxi crashed into a red Volvo at the intersection at 120th Street and Broadway shortly before 1 p.m. The taxi and car driver are both at St. Luke's Hospital in critical condition. Northbound Broadway is currently being blocked. Check later for updates. UPDATE (1:40 p.m.): Roads are clear now. The red Volvo has been towed away.

My elders
It all starts with Christine Jordan, who convinced me to run for Spectrum editor. Thank you Helen Werbe for providing a few pearls of wisdom during my early months as editor, Devin Briski, Madina Toure, Sam Levin for taking care of my sister, Embry Owen, Michael Shapiro, Raphael Pope-Sussman. My biggest regret as Spectrum editor was asking Emily Tamkin to cut down on Just Ask Emily. I learned a lot from that mistake, primarily that it's important to listen to smart people who have done it before. Thank you Emily Tamkin for letting me know that Just Ask Emily was awesome. Thank you Zach Dyer for staying an extra semester and serving as Spectrum's incredible CAVA, Sadia Latifi for talking to Leah and me about Mind Matters, Neil FitzPatrick, Maggie Astor for being the greatest copy editor in Spec's recent memory, Akhil Mehta, Ben Cotton for setting an example, Yipeng Huang, Nilkanth Patel, Sarah Sommer, Bart Lopez for making Sunday nights fun, Thomas Rhiel for giving me a job to do.

The Alpha Epsilon Pi, Pi Kappa Alpha, and Psi Upsilon fraternities were placed on interim suspension Wednesday night after the arrests on Tuesday of several members who allegedly sold illegal drugs from their 114th Street brownstones. Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger announced in a statement that the three fraternities had been instructed to cease all activities—including recruitment, initiation, and social events—pending further review. "According to Columbia's Fraternity and Sorority Life Community Standards and Greek Judicial Board Handbook, a fraternity or sorority can be suspended if determined 'necessary to promote the best interest' of the chapter and the University," Shollenberger said. "Given the severity of the alleged behavior, we believe these interim suspensions are in the best interest of our community at this time." He added that the national chapters of each fraternity had been notified. The interim suspension comes after five students were arrested in an on-campus police raid Tuesday morning. Harrison David, SEAS '12, Chris Coles, CC '12, Adam Klein, CC '12, Jose Stephan Perez (known as Stephan Vincenzo), CC '12, and Michael Wymbs, SEAS '11, were charged with selling cocaine, marijuana, MDMA, Adderall, and LSD, according to the New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office. David lived in Alpha Epsilon Pi, Perez in Pi Kappa Alpha, and Klein in Psi Upsilon. Wymbs had been involved in Psi Upsilon pledging this semester. All five men pleaded not guilty. Dean of Community Development and Multicultural Affairs Terry Martinez will conduct an internal review of the three fraternities and of the Intercultural House, where Coles allegedly sold marijuana. "We plan to work closely with student leaders, the fraternity and sorority community (including national organizations), and the ICH to assess the scope of the problem and what reforms may be necessary to address these issues," Shollenberger said. Representatives of the three fraternities declined to comment on the suspension. A statement from the Inter-Greek Council, signed by the incoming presidents, said it is standard practice for members of the Greek community to refuse to speak publicly about internal matters. "As we have throughout the years, we continue to have an open dialogue and partnership with Columbia administrators," the statement said. "The Division of Student Affairs has issued a statement announcing an interim suspension of the three fraternal organizations and will initiate an internal review of these chapters as well as the Intercultural House." A statement released earlier on Wednesday, signed by the current and incoming presidents of the Inter-Greek Council—the governing board of all fraternities and sororities at the Columbia—distanced the Greek community from the students arrested. "The IGC and its chapters do not tolerate illicit activities such as this. Engaging in criminal activity directly opposes the values of our individual chapters, our national organizations, and the overall mission of the Greek community nationwide," the statement said. "These alleged crimes involve individual members of our campus community who are also members of fraternities. These actions are not an accurate reflection of the Greek community's values." The charters for each of the fraternities remained intact as of Wednesday night. Mark Williams, executive director of the International Office of Psi Upsilon, said on Tuesday that his office planned to have a representative on campus Wednesday to speak with fraternity members. Kevin Puhlmann, GS, said he was not surprised that Columbia suspended the fraternities. "The frats did something and Columbia is obligated to react," Puhlmann said. "Columbia has a plan, and they have to protect that plan from chaos. If Columbia didn't do anything, it would reflect on them poorly. That would be them implicitly saying it's OK." Correction: An earlier version of this article misattributed an IGC statement to the IFC and did not include the correct authors of the statement within IGC. Spectator regrets the errors. news@columbiaspectator.com

Select Columbia squash players will compete at the Individual National Championships in Hanover, N.H., this weekend. For the Lions, junior co-captain Liz Chu and freshman Katie Quan will represent the women's team, and sophomore Tony Zou will represent the Columbia men's team. Columbia sophomore Graham Miao and senior Clayton Dahlman made the waitlist for the event. For this event, there are four divisions, in which each division fields 32 or 64 players. The top 32 individual men's players in the country will play in the Pool Division. After the Pool Division, the remaining men invited to the Nationals will compete in the Molloy Division, in which players will be seeded No. 1 through No. 64. Zou, a transfer from NYU, will compete at the No. 41 spot in the Molloy Division and will face off against No. 25 seed Trevor McGuinness from Penn. The women's side landed a bit more representation from Columbia as two players, Chu and Quan, will compete at the championship. The women's divisions are structured similarly to the men's. The Ramsey Division hosts the top 32 women in the country while the Holleran Division, where both Chu and Quan are competing, includes the next best 64 players into a single elimination bracket. Quan, competing at the No. 36 seed, will match up against No. 29 Virginia Shannon from Middlebury. The two, in fact, have faced off, with Quan winning a 3-2 match back in January. No. 25 Chu will compete against No. 8 Katie Ballaine from Yale. The event starts today and continues through Sunday.

Beginning this year, the philosophy department will no longer require a senior thesis in order for students to receive consideration for departmental honors. In the past, some philosophy students have written senior theses simply because they felt that they should write them, Philosophy Director of Undergraduate Studies Philip Kitcher said. "The department has had some terrific undergraduates. But we've also had undergraduates, whom I've felt, felt they must write a thesis, but there was no particular thesis they wanted to write and wrote something they didn't believe much in," Kitcher said. "It [writing a thesis] wasn't a good experience for them, and it ended up being, shall we say, mediocre," he added. Kitcher believes this was particularly a problem last semester, in which the philosophy department accepted just two of 11 thesis proposals. By removing the senior thesis as a requirement for honors, Kitcher thinks the department will be able to apply a more holistic evaluation of honors candidates. The hope for the department is that a student who otherwise has demonstrated outstanding performance in philosophy will no longer be excluded for honors consideration because of an inadequate thesis, Kitcher said. Now, honors can be obtained by writing a thesis of sufficient quality, or instead by faculty recommendations and overall performance in major courses. However, one requirement hasn't changed—students still must have a minimum GPA of 3.6 in major-related courses as a pre-requisite for honors. At Princeton University, all students irrespective of major are required to write a thesis in order to graduate. The Princeton philosophy department considers the senior thesis, as well as the student's grade point average and other factors, to determine who receives honors. "I think every student doing honors should probably do a thesis," Daniel Garber, chair of Princeton's philosophy department said, though he added, "I'm not sure the thesis is the best final capping project for every student." Kitcher stood by the change. "Honors in philosophy ought to be decided by the quality of the overall work that has been done, and that is something quite separate from writing a thesis," he said. All departments in Columbia are bound by a University quota that limits the number of students who can receive honors to ten percent of all undergraduates in the department. Most departments in Columbia also have an honors policy which requires a minimum grade average and some type of senior project. In the political science department, the conditions for honors consideration traditionally have included a 3.6 GPA in the major and an honors thesis of high quality, which is written as part of a yearlong senior honors seminar. Recently though, a second track has developed in which undergraduates with faculty support can submit a thesis-type paper outside of the seminar. Over the last three years, of the roughly 16 students who receive honors each year, the number of undergraduates that earned honors through the second track has ranged from two to five. The English department requires a minimum GPA of 3.65 in major-related courses and a senior essay for honors. The senior essay can be written by anyone with a faculty adviser's support and does not have to be written in a seminar class. David Yerkes, the English Director of Undergraduate Studies, supports this independent study-like approach—it offers English majors more course flexibility and provides students with the opportunity to converse individually with an adviser, he said. However, Yerkes added that many students do not choose to do a senior essay. In the sciences, the physics department requires at least a 3.6 major-related GPA as well as a research project of distinction. The mathematics department has a minimum GPA threshold of 3.63 in the major and mandates a senior thesis of merit. Bart Piela, CC '12 and a philosophy major and editor in chief of the undergraduate philosophy magazine The Gadfly, plans to attempt departmental honors and supports the philosophy department's policy change. "I'm very glad I don't have to think about a thesis just for that reason [receiving honors]," Piela said. Piela added that high-level seminar classes might be a better use of a senior's time than pursuing a thesis. "Truthfully, students do their best work in high-level seminars because as an undergraduate you need structure much more than as a graduate," he said. Susan Elmes, director of undergraduate studies of the economics department, said that a senior honors thesis is required to get honors in the subject. "Graduate schools do value the thesis, as it demonstrates that a student has the ability to conduct an original research project," Elmes wrote in an email. Economics major Jose Delgado, CC '12, agrees. "The honors program seems like it would be appropriate if I was going to do economics for graduate school," Delgado said. But, since he does not plan on pursuing economics in graduate school, he said, "I have so many other interests outside of economics that I wouldn't want to put in the extra time." But Piela argued that philosophy departmental honors have minimal impact on graduate school admissions. "A thesis can't even be submitted for graduate schools because it's [completed] too late," Piela said, referring to the fall deadline for most graduate programs. Jack Snyder, director of undergraduate studies of the political science department, believes a student should only do a thesis for intellectual purposes. "They should not be doing honors just to get a resume item," Snyder said. news@columbiaspectator.com

Women's golf, following a seventh-place finish two weeks ago at the Princeton Invitational, placed 12th out of 17 teams at the Nittany Lion Invitational this past weekend. Freshman Michelle Piyapattra continued her string of strong performances, this time placing eighth overall and scoring 75 in all three rounds. Her eighth-place finish follows her comparably stellar performance at the Princeton Invitational, where she placed second. However, the rest of the Lions could not match Piyapattra's pace. Freshman Jane Dong finished in 47th with rounds of 80, 81, and 76. Junior Lynda Kwon tied for 57th with scores of 77, 84, and 78. Junior Robin Lee placed 64th with rounds of 83, 75, and 83. Sophomore Ashley Zambito finished 90th with scores of 83, 84, and 88. Ivy rivals Harvard and Yale also participated in the event. Harvard tied for fourth with a total score of 913, and Yale finished right behind in sixth place with a combined score of 914. The Light Blue will conclude its fall season in two weeks when it heads up to compete in the Harvard Invitational from Oct. 16 to 17.

What appeared to have all the makings of a blowout turned horribly wrong for Columbia volleyball. Coming off a 3-2 loss to Cornell in which Columbia (10-4, 2-2 Ivy) came out flat the first two sets, the Lions jumped ahead immediately in Friday's match, defeating Harvard (5-11, 2-2 Ivy) in the first two sets 25-14, 25-19. The Lions lost the next set 25-19 but looked primed to end the match, taking an early 10-5 lead in the fourth set. Harvard rebounded, though, and after some dramatics, Columbia found its first match point with the score at 26-25. However, the Light Blue squandered this opportunity with a service error, and the score was tied again at 26-all. The Lions got a second chance at the match after sophomore Heather Braunagel had a kill to give the Light Blue a 28-27 lead. Columbia again failed to convert this opportunity. Then Columbia got its third match point opportunity following a kill by sophomore Megan Gaughn, but the Lions couldn't pull it out. They never received a fourth chance and eventually lost a heartbreaking fourth set 31-29. Following the tough fourth-set loss, the team failed to rebound and lost the fifth set, as well as the match, 15-12. The next day, coming off a deflating two consecutive 3-2 losses to Ivy rivals, Columbia easily could have folded against Dartmouth (12-3, 3-1 Ivy), the team with the best record in the Ancient Eight. Gaughn made sure that didn't happen. The sophomore recorded a career-high 26 kills and also had 15 digs to lead Columbia past Dartmouth in four sets. The top-ranked Columbia defense also stepped up, with five players—led by freshman libero Katherine Keller getting a game-high 27 digs—recording double figures in digs. With the doubleheader split, the Lions are now tied for fourth in the Ivy standings.

Volleyball continued its record-setting 2010 campaign, sweeping its season series with Princeton (13-9, 8-3 Ivy) for the first time in program history. Despite the loss to Penn (13-10, 9-2 Ivy) on the previous day, with the win over Princeton, Columbia (15-8, 7-5 Ivy) positioned itself to break more records next week for its final doubleheader of the season. If the Lions defeat Brown and Yale next week, the team will set a new Columbia record for Ivy and total wins in a season. The 2001 team holds the current record with eight total conference wins, and the 2000 squad set the record for wins—albeit with 29 total games—by notching a 16-13 regular season record. The first time Columbia played Princeton, it pulled out a tough five-set win in which the Lions just survived, prevailing after winning the fifth set 17-15. Columbia won the first two sets 29-27, 25-21. The Lions then lost the third set 25-20 and won the deciding set 25-22. Freshman libero Katherine Keller recorded a game-high 25 digs in Saturday's match, and junior Cindy Chen was active defensively as well with 20 digs for the match. The win over Princeton helped wash away the team's painful loss to Penn the day before, which mathematically eliminated the Lions from title contention. Columbia fared worse in its 3-2 loss to the Quakers, the defending league champions. The Lions lost the first set to Penn 25-20 but won the next two sets 25-19 and 25-23 to take control of the match. However, the Quakers responded with a convincing 25-18 fourth set win to set up the final set, which they eventually won 17-15.