Shira Poliak

Without child care, Donna Williams, who has a nine-year-old son and a three-year-old in preschool, said she would have to take a break from her education. And for Williams, this nightmare could soon become a reality in Morningside Heights, with her local day care center facing termination. Harbor Morningside Children's Center, located on 120th Street east of Manhattan Avenue, is one of 15 child care centers that the city announced would likely close by the end of the school year due to budget cuts. This local center, funded entirely by New York City's Administration for Children's Services—the agency that oversees child care and child protection—includes a preschool and an after-school program for elementary school students. It serves a total of about 90 children from low-income families. In response to budget woes, the city is shutting down some of these services throughout the city to save millions of dollars. And as parents and neighborhood residents worry about the loss of child care space, Harbor Morningside administrators and ACS officials tell very different stories about how the school, and its parent organization, not-for-profit Boys and Girls Harbor, were informed of the pending shutdown. Closure confusion Harbor Morningside Director Rory Scott said he first heard the school might be closed at an ACS meeting on Jan. 29. "My boss and myself were very surprised to hear it, and asked people we knew from ACS if they knew anything about it, but they didn't know. We spent a week trying to get information, but didn't get any," he said. But ACS Director of Communications Sharman Stein said in an email that ACS had spoken to Boys and Girls Harbor Executive Director Michael Marrone on Jan. 28. "The sponsoring organization, Boys and Girls Harbor, in fact welcomed the consolidation for its own reasons— and was responsible for communicating with the center director. The executive director said he had no issue with the closing," Stein said. Stein added that the closing might have happened without city intervention at all. "In fact he [Marrone] was planning to contact ACS in Feb. to discuss Boys and Girls Harbor restructuring of its services, which will include downsizing and consolidating ACS child care services [closing sites]," she said. Scott, however, said he was surprised to hear that Boys and Girls Harbor had any intention of shutting the center down. "That's news to me. Another site is closing because the landlord tripled the rent, maybe they thought he was referring to that. I don't like to say that people are lying, but I just don't know whether that was the case," he said. Bernadette Wallace, the director of day care services for Boys and Girls Harbor, said that nothing about the situation was clear. "Marrone is trying to get additional information. Right now it's all rumors, and we don't like rumors, we like specifics. I know he's put in several calls, whether he's received calls back I don't know," she said. Marrone could not be reached for comment on Thursday. But all parties agreed that without city funding, the Morningside day care could not exist. Teacher Keisha Kennedy from the center said, "ACS pays for the children to come and pays the rent. If they say they won't, we have no other option. We have 20 staff without jobs and 99 children without a school." Choosing Morningside Stein said that ACS had looked to close centers that have empty seats to consolidate neighborhood services, and Scott, Morningside's director, acknowledged that the site was not operating at full capacity. "We have had some issues with enrollment," Scott said, explaining that the city stopped funding kindergarten classes, which meant that all pre-K students had to leave the center. Neighborhood residents said that other local day care centers exist, but that Morningside Harbor is known for its quality. Stephanie Dubsky, who lives close to the center, said, "The good places have long waiting lists, and some others are just not good. Of course there are options, but they might not be good options." Patrice Eaton, who lives a block from the center, said that Harbor Morningside has helped fill in the gaps created by other neighborhood after-school programs slashed by budget cuts. "There are a lot of centers, but that's the biggest. A lot of neighborhood kids go there," she said, adding that the center also serves many Senegalese immigrants. Scott said that 75 percent of children have West African immigrant parents. Though the city council still has to approve the budget cuts in early March, the ACS said they were moving ahead with the plans to shut the center down. Stein said that they will soon begin to communicate with parents and present them with other child care options, including vouchers for private child care providers. "In the coming months, ACS will be reaching out to each center and enrollment will be frozen," she said in an email. No other options? Scott said he had sent a letter to parents letting them know about the possible closure, and the response was intense. "We have many second and third-generation parents here who are very upset," he said. Williams, who has two children in the program, said she was worried that if the site shut down, she would be unable to find child care for her youngest son even if the city provided vouchers. Of the closest other day care centers, she said, "They don't take vouchers, so we'd have to travel far out of our way. I'll have to stay home, stop everything, work and school, for a year. And that would slow me down It's hard to improve your life, improve your education without child care." Kennedy said that the school hopes to reach out to local politicians to fight the closure. Lynette Velasco, spokesperson for City Councilmember Inez Dickens, said that while she hadn't yet received a specific inquiry from Morningside Harbor, day care is an important issue for her office. "The councilmember had been advocating about cutbacks in day care centers for the last year. It's important for kids to get a good foundation, and it allows people to work, especially in this economy ... It's a very, very serious issue," Velasco said. Stein acknowledged that closing day care centers is upsetting to the neighborhood, but said the city's hands are tied by the budget problems. "The people are emotional about losing their local child care centers because people hate to lose their local services. Parents want the known entity that they are used to and trust. She added, "While child care centers are an essential service, its really hard to find money for it in tough times." news@columbiaspectator.com

UPDATED 5/19/11, 4:30 p.m. Business School faculty members approved stricter rules for disclosing potential conflicts of interest this week—the first policy change at Columbia's Business School in the wake of the critical documentary "Inside Job." The 2010 documentary criticized several leading academics, including Business School Dean R. Glenn Hubbard and Business School professor Frederic Mishkin, for apparent financial conflicts of interest. The film ignited a debate about conflict of interest policies at Columbia, prompting the administration to reexamine the issue and influencing a scheduled University Senate policy review. Under the new policy, Business School professors will be required to publicly disclose all outside activities—including consulting—that create or appear to create conflicts of interest. "If there is even a potential for a conflict of interest, it should be disclosed," Business School professor Michael Johannes said in an email. "To me, that is what the policy prescribes. That part is easy." The policy passed with "overwhelming" faculty support at a Tuesday faculty meeting, according to Business School Vice Dean Christopher Mayer, who chaired the committee that crafted the policy. The new policy mandates that faculty members publish up-to-date curricula vitae, including a section on outside activities, on their Columbia webpages. In this section, they will be required to list outside organizations to which they have provided paid or unpaid services during the past five years, and which they think creates the appearance of a conflict of interest. This section must include, but is not limited to, consulting work, research, membership on a company's board, and expert witness testimony. "We're talking about five years of work," Mayer said. "And it's not like activities of $10,000 or more I give a talk for $1,500 to some group four years ago, and I'm listing that on my vitae." Hubbard praised the policy, telling Spectator that it will help combat perceived conflicts of interest at the Business School. "Speaking for myself as an academic, it is extremely important to insure the credibility of research, and that's why as an individual, it's what I've always done," Hubbard said. Business School professor Franklin Edwards, who attended the faculty meeting where the vote was held, said that "this [policy] goes further than the University policy." He praised the school's administration for crafting its own policy. "The Business School is taking a leadership role in making the University's policies more concrete," Edwards said. Columbia's current policy requires faculty to report to the University all consulting or outside activities that could conflict with their University-sponsored research, but not activities that could conflict with non-research-related activities. The current policy has no requirements for public disclosure. Under the new policy, professors would also be required to inform the University of all outside activities—whether or not they judge those activities to create the appearance of a conflict—in their annual Financial Activity Reports. The next set of these reports will be submitted at the beginning of the spring 2012 semester. The Business School's Faculty Executive Committee will decide how long professors have to update their CVs with their outside activities, Hubbard said. A six-member committee drafted the new Business School policy. According to Mayer, the Business School held several faculty forums to discuss conflict of interest policy, which resulted in substantial changes to the final resolution. The new policy comes seven months after the release of "Inside Job," which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in February. The documentary, which explores the roots of the 2008 economic crisis, highlights Hubbard and Mishkin's alleged conflicts of interest. The film notes that Mishkin did not disclose publicly that in 2006, he was paid over $100,000 by the Iceland Chamber of Commerce to co-author a paper in which he praised the stability of Iceland's economy—two years before it collapsed. It also criticizes Hubbard for not disclosing that he is paid $250,000 per year to serve on the board of the insurance giant MetLife. The movie director, Charles Ferguson—who spoke to Columbia professors after a University Senate-sponsored screening of his film last month—has said that when academics do not disclose their potential conflicts of interest, it casts doubt on their objectivity. University President Lee Bollinger told Spectator earlier this year that he asked Hubbard to initiate a review of the Business School's conflict of interest policy in light of the concerns raised by "Inside Job." Hubbard, though, said that the terms of the new policy do not reflect the allegations made in the film, noting that the Business School was involved in discussing a new conflict of interest policy that the University Senate passed in 2009. "I don't think they're related at all," Hubbard said, referring to the movie and the new policy. "In our case, our faculty started in 2009, and in my own case, the question about my board service was clearly on my CV, and the amount was on the FEC website." Hubbard added that all Columbia deans are already required to disclose to Columbia all of their outside activities, including the dollar amounts they are paid for their outside work. Mayer, who headed the policy review committee, agreed that "Inside Job" was not a prominent factor in the Business School's discussions of a new policy. He said that the financial crisis had already forced academics to examine the issue of conflicts of interest before the movie's release. "I think we all understand that there are a lot of concerns about what happened in the crisis, and I think if all of us don't take a look at what happened, we would be missing an opportunity to have learned," he said. "I think as a profession, researchers and academics are having to take many additional steps to, I won't say restore our credibility, but keep our credibility, in these areas," he added. Hubbard added that he told Ferguson in their on-camera interview about his public disclosures, although this portion of the interview did not appear in the film. "I did say it to him, but he has editorial authority and I don't," Hubbard said. Though the policy resolution that faculty voted on does not mention "Inside Job" explicitly, it acknowledges that the Business School's reputation has been called into question, noting that "increasing transparency about research and real or apparent conflict of interests and commitments helps Columbia Business School strengthen its reputation." The resolution also states that, "When faculty members speak, write, or provide testimony, the public should understand their sources of compensation outside the University that might indicate any possible conflict of interests." According to the policy, the Business School Dean's office will monitor and enforce compliance with the disclosure requirement, and faculty members will be expected to update their CVs at least every six months. Faculty members who do not follow these rules will be subject to sanctions, although the policy does not specify what these sanctions might be. Hubbard, though, said he does not anticipate the need for much enforcement. "In my experience at Columbia, I would call it clearly a perception problem," Hubbard said. "I'm not aware of an actual problem [but] even if it's just a perception problem, it needs to be addressed." Mayer said that he expects the rest of the University—and other universities as well—to eventually adopt policies as touch as this one. He added that he has been approached by the deans of many peer institutions, some of whom are currently setting up their own committees to review conflict of interest policies. "We are the leading edge of this," he said. news@columbiaspectator.com

As opponents to Columbia's Manhattanville expansion seek to get their case heard before the nation's highest court, one prominent Harlem politician has officially stepped into the fray. State Senator Bill Perkins urged the United States Supreme Court to accept the case by filing an amicus brief with the court on Oct. 25—a document, literally meaning "friend of the court," written by a party not directly related to the litigation, but who has an interest in the case under consideration. Perkins, a Harlem representative opposed to the use of eminent domain for Columbia's campus, has long been an advocate of reforming New York state laws concerning eminent domain—the process by which the state can seize private property for "public use" in exchange for market-rate compensation. New York State Eminent Domain Procedure Law lacks transparency, accountability, and a set of explicitly defined terms, according to Perkins. As one of the few, if only, local politicians vocally against the University's use of eminent domain for its construction, he has argued that the current state laws are rigged in favor of condemnors, who use the system's ill-defined language and numerous loopholes to unlawfully seize private property. "We've been concerned with questions of eminent domain and its abuse, and this is a case we think is significant in that regard, especially in terms of what is meant by 'public use,'" said Perkins, who has held a series of eminent domain hearings across the state of New York in an effort to garner support for reform of the laws, but has been unable to get a bill passed in the state legislature. "When the door to the legislative process is hard to get through, there's always the judicial process." Perkins' latest move comes on the heels of a significant ruling in which the New York State Court of Appeals declared this summer that eminent domain can be used to obtain private properties in West Harlem. This outcome was a major victory for Columbia, as it effectively paved the way for the University to acquire the remaining private property in the neighborhood. Now, the attorneys representing two property holdouts, who have refused to sell to Columbia, are appealing the decision to the Supreme Court of the United States, arguing that the decision promotes an abuse of eminent domain law and violates fundamental constitutional rights. In Perkins' brief, which Spectator obtained a copy of on Tuesday, he echoed the attorneys' argument, asserting that the Court of Appeals ignored legal safeguards articulated in the landmark 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London­—in which the Supreme Court ruled that land could be transferred from one private owner to another through eminent domain in order to promote economic rejuvenation—and in the process abdicated its responsibility of judicial law review. Furthermore, he writes in his brief that process of eminent domain unfairly targets minorities and poorer sectors of the population. "The need for clarification of Kelo's taking jurisprudence on pretext is especially important given the nature of urban redevelopment in the United States, which targets the most marginal and least influential communities," Perkins argues in his brief. "Far too often, its negative impacts have fallen disproportionately on racial and ethnic minorities and the economically disadvantaged." For those directly involved in the case, Perkins' amicus brief is a much-welcomed document. They hope it will increase the probability of the Supreme Court presiding over their case, despite the statistical unlikelihood of this happening—last year, over 8,000 cases were filed, and only approximately 80 of those were taken by the court. "The idea is that when you have more serious documents coming in, briefs of this sort by well-known, well-meaning think tanks and elected officials and the like, I think that's the type of thing that law clerks who do a first read [of the briefs] will look at," said David Smith, attorney of gas station owners Gurnam Singh and Parminder Kaur, who are among the holdouts in the case. Smith added that in addition to Perkins' amicus brief, think tanks including the Cato Institute, the Institute for Justice, and the Pacific Legal Foundation also filed briefs. Yet some experts say that Perkins' brief may not necessarily be of benefit to the parties on whose behalf he wrote. "A brief from an unknown person that makes a new argument is more helpful than a brief from a well-known person that makes a point other briefs have already made," law professor Christina Burnett said. But by virtue of Perkins' role as a political figure, his brief may even carry less weight than it would coming from someone in a different position, according to some experts. "Politicians send amicus briefs in for their own political purposes," political science professor David Epstein said. "Coming from a state senator, the court might see it as a political statement and not a legal issue." Still, others counter that Perkins' political career must be viewed separately from his amicus brief, which they say is entirely grounded in legal arguments—not political ones. "The amicus brief by Senator Perkins is exclusively legal and based on policy, and it cites numerous cases and articles," said Norman Siegel, attorney for one of the holdouts, Tuck-it-Away Storage owner Nick Sprayregen. "What the amicus brief from the Senator does, it makes the point that the Court should take the case because the New York Court of Appeals ignored the Kelo decision, and that's clearly a legal point." news@columbiaspectator.com

La Casa Cluster, una instalación para mujeres diagnosticadas con enfermedades mentales severas antiguamente desplazadas, no tiene un ascensor. Subir cinco pisos en las escaleras estrechas ha sido difícil para los residentes viejos del edificio. El calentador de agua de la Casa Cluster acaba de ser reemplazado, sus escaleras de incendio son peligrosas, y su estado desmenuzado en general pone a prueba su capacidad de servir ellos quienes lo más necesitan. En respuesta, su organización matriz, Urban Pathways, Inc., anunció preparaciones este mes para renovar el complejo en la avenida Ámsterdam, entre las calles 104 y 105, en esperanza de hacerla una casa más moderna y permanente. Los directores dicen que la renovación de millones de dólares de sus instalaciones y la modernización de sus servicios dirigen su atención a la necesidad local. El plan convertiría el diseño residencial de dormitorios a estudios con baños y cocinas individuales. Se modernizará y restaurará el edificio, se instalará un ascensor, y se añadirá otros tres pisos. La Casa Cluster es un programa de Urban Pathways, Inc., una organización de la Cuidad de Nueva York que provee los centros accesibles para los individuos sin hogares ya viviendo en las calles. También coloca a adultos capacitados y residentes previamente sin hogares en viviendas dispersas o en instalaciones de vivienda independiente, según Frederick Shack, el directivo ejecutivo de Urban Pathways. Steve Muchnick, el director del programa, dijo que su instalación provee "viviendas transicionales." Las mujeres que salen de los refugios para desamparados lo ven como el próximo paso hacia viviendas permanentes. Muchnick dijo que las mujeres usualmente viven en la casa por solamente dos o tres años, ganando habilidades antes de que se muden a otro sitio. La semana pasada, los afiliados de La Casa Cluster se reunieron en la instalación para discutir la participación de los residentes en la creación de su futuro. Robert Robinson, un voluntario de Urban Pathways y un cliente antiguo, se dirigió a la multitud de diez residentes y directores de caso en la reunión, diciendo, "Si nos sentamos y nos quejamos, nada cambiará." Actualmente treinta mujeres viven en La Casa Cluster, aunque esta puede alojar 48. Una mujer que se mudó a La Casa Cluster en abril- y quien, junto con otros residentes, fue concedida anonimato como resultado de una enfermedad mental- dijo que ella ha estado sin hogar por meses. Otra mujer dijo que ella ha estado en varias instituciones mentales por ocho años y crónicamente sin hogar por 12 años antes de mudarse a La Casa Cluster en 1992 cuando ella tenía 38 años. Algunos residentes trabajan en el vecindario, y otros participan en programas de tratamiento para los adictos a drogas o capacitación profesional. Muchnick dijo que la meta última es "que la gente se quede en la comunidad en vez de en los hospitales." Pero proveer estos servicios ha sido difícil, Muchnick dijo, porque el edificio mismo ha sido menos funcional con el paso del tiempo. Él citó que su interior desmenuzado, la falta de ascensor, y los problemas con el calentador de agua son aspectos que, junto con otros, necesitan ser arreglados para asegurar cuidado continuado. El plan de renovación está proyectado a durar dos años, según Shack, quien presentó la propuesta a la Comisión de Servicios de salud y Humanos del Consejo de la Comunidad 7 (o el Community Board 7's Health and Human Services Committe para los angloparlantes) el 17 de noviembre. Él añadió que La Casa Cluster está trabajando para conseguir colocación apropiada para sus residentes actuales, quienes no regresarán a La Casa Cluster hasta después de que las renovaciones sean terminadas. Veinte y cinco de los residentes se mudarán a programas de viviendas más independientes, y cinco se trasladarán a programas comparables. Shack dijo que La Casa Cluster planea trasladar a sus residentes actuales en febrero o marzo y comenzar construcción en abril. Shack enfatizó la necesidad enorme para viviendas diseminadas para la gente antiguamente desplazada. "No hay suficientes camas," él dijo. Terminada, La Casa Cluster incluirá 52 estudios. Los inquilinos aprenderán a cocinar y comprar provisiones. Ellos también vivirán allí de una manera más permanente y recibirán menos cuidado intensivo. La Casa Cluster también será co-ed. La Co-presidenta Barbara Van Buren, de la Comisión de Servicios de salud y Humanos del Consejo de la Comunidad 7 inicialmente expresó reservas sobre el plan de La Casa Cluster para trasladar a sus residentes antes de las renovaciones. Pero después de la reunión, ella añadió, "Estamos familiarizados con sus planes."

When Barnard built its Cathedral Gardens dorms in 2005, it created two storefronts on 109th and 110th Streets to be used for community space. Since then though, the over 5,000 square foot property on 110th Street and Manhattan Avenue has sat vacant, its windows papered over. But that may change as Barnard moves forward with negotiations to move a local organization's college preparatory program to its site. Goddard Riverside Community Center, an organization that provides education, shelter, and food to residents of the Upper West Side and West Harlem, is planning to move its OPTIONS program to the space in Barnard. The program—currently located at 88th Street and Columbus Avenue—provides students from low and middle-income backgrounds free SAT and admissions counseling. In need of more space and counselors, OPTIONS' move would help give them more resources and bring new students into the program, director Jane Heaphy said. "The new site will put us closer to Harlem high schools and neighborhoods where there is tremendous need," she said. Teaming with Goddard Riverside comes at an opportune time for Barnard, said Vivian Taylor, Barnard's vice president for community development. Due to rising costs, Barnard this year terminated its Liberty Partnerships Program, a state-funded tutoring program for neighborhood students. "I look at ways that we can help young people succeed through educational avenues. This is another program to serve young people," Taylor said. Goddard Riverside will pay rent to Barnard based on the operating and maintenance costs of the space, said Greg Brown, Barnard's chief operating officer. "OPTIONS has a terrific track record in direct college preparatory work with neighborhood high school students as well as serving as a training ground for mentors and counselors across the country," Brown wrote in an email, adding that he hopes the program will utilize Barnard volunteers. Some neighboring businesses said they also support Goddard filling the vacancy. "It's a noble cause," said Norma Darton, owner of Spoonbread Catering, a business and restaurant two doors down from the empty space on 110th Street. "I don't know if kids applying to college will come get a meal, but it's a good cause." Because the space was already zoned for community purposes, Goddard Riverside and Barnard did not need Community Board 7's approval on the measure. Still, CB7 voted in favor of a resolution supporting the move, at its monthly meeting Tuesday night. Peter Arndsten, district manager of the Columbus Amsterdam Business Improvement District, said that this is a fitting use for the space. "This will serve the youth of the neighborhood, give them guidance, and help them see beyond the neighborhood." Arndsten also said he thinks this project could boost local business. "Anytime you have an empty space filled with people who've never been here before it's a good thing." Mark Diller, CC '80 and chair of CB7's Youth, Education and Libraries Committee, said he hopes Goddard Riverside can use CB7's vote to show funders that neighborhood residents support the move. "This program is bursting at the seams in its current space," Diller said. shira.poliak@columbiaspectator.com

The city is designing a new umbrella, but this invention will protect New Yorkers from a lot more than just rain. On Jan. 21, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with the New York City Department of Buildings and the American Institute of Architects, announced "Urban Umbrella," a new design for the city's sidewalk sheds—the enclosures that cover sidewalks while construction is being done on a building. Sheds protect pedestrians from construction activity on scaffolding above them. These basic plywood-and-metal boxes are located at construction sites citywide, and locally, these structures continue to fill a large, three-year development project on Columbus Avenue between 97th and 100th streets. According to sketch renderings, the new design has arching metal bars that meet to form a colorful ceiling in a structure resembling an umbrella. Marc LaVorgna, spokesperson for the Office of the Mayor said the design would improve pedestrian traffic and be more aesthetically pleasing. "The new design will increase the amount of usable sidewalk space, decrease the opportunity for people to walk into poles, and create less impediments on the sidewalks," he said. "It looks better, covers up less of the buildings, which is attractive for store owners and will be cheaper in the long run because the materials will last longer." But for some neighborhood residents, the shed's appearance is a secondary concern. After a crane accident caused part of a sidewalk shed to collapse in October 2009 at the Columbus Square project on 97th Street, local community groups held a forum with the Department of Buildings to address safety concerns. Paul Bunten, President of Westsiders for Public Participation, a community group that has been vocal about protesting the causes of the October accident, said that he understands that "Urban Umbrella" is just a cosmetic improvement. "This new design wouldn't have prevented the accident at 97th and Columbus, because this new design is not related to safety," he said. The city's mentions of increased safety with the new design are limited only to a note that the new structures will not have exposed bolts. "Because of certain laws, more of the city's sidewalks are covered for longer and longer periods, and they're not attractive or inviting to walk under," Bunten added. Carly Sullivan, spokesperson for the Department of Buildings, said that the structure, designed to hold 300 pounds per square foot, meets all building code standards. "Sidewalk sheds are important part of keeping the city safe, but we asked ourselves is there any way to make the pedestrian experience easier to navigate?" Sullivan said. But one local scaffolding company raised safety objections to the proposed plan. "Concept of beautifying is fine, but it's not practical. I have yet to see a proposal that could meet building standards for scaffolds and could hold 300 pounds per square foot," said a vice president of a New York based scaffolding company who requested anonymity out of concern that his comments could negatively impact business. "The city should invest more time to ask engineers as opposed to just looking at the aesthetics." David Lapham, an operations engineer for the Turner Construction Company, which is running a construction site at 120th Street and Broadway, said that a new design would need to meet specific requirements. "It could only work if it doesn't block sidewalks and pedestrian traffic," Lapham said. LaVorgna said that once the city begins manufacturing the new sheds, businesses will be able to choose between using the current scaffold model—which, according to the mayor's office, has been in use since the 1950s—or the updated version. And to the mayor, design matters, he added. "The aesthetics of a product matter and impact quality of life," LaVorgna said. "New York City strives to have the best quality design possible and street life is New York life." Shelley Ferrall, an employee at the Mandell School located on the corner of Amsterdam and 95th Street, said that for the past five months her school has been blocked by a sidewalk shed, which makes it difficult for people to locate the school, and also blocks incoming light. "People struggle to find us now—they would be able to see us with this," Ferrall said of the proposed design. Pointing to a sidewalk shed on Broadway and 120th Street, Ron Shapiro, GS/JTS '13, said, "This is disgusting to look at. If it had more of an aesthetic feel, construction would get a less disgusting response." Leo del Vecchio, a construction worker at 120th Street, said that from a practical standpoint, new sheds are needed. "They should be replaced, they are heaved from years of frost." shira.poliak@columbiaspectator.com

Kira Boesch traded her ballet shoes and leotards for pencils and textbooks when she came to Columbia five years ago. But the GS valedictorian said that the skills and qualities she developed as a professional dancer shaped her success at Columbia. Boesch, who majored in psychology in the School of General Studies and plans to enroll in a clinical psychology doctorate program at the City University of New York in the fall, danced professionally in Berlin and New York City for two years. She also trained rigorously in England for two years after high school. These experiences made her "determined" and hard on herself – traits she said dancers need to survive. At Columbia these habits came in handy; for example, though professors would excuse her from class when she was sick, she remembers always going unless she was contagious. "I've had to dance when I'm sick and go on stage," she says. Boesch deliberately chose to separate her dancing experiences from her academic pursuits and stopped taking dance lessons after her second year. But her passion for dance indirectly influences her professional interests in psychology. "Artistic creation makes its way into clinical psychology," she says. At Columbia, Boesch said she spent a lot of time in the libraries, which inspired her to work harder. "A lot of people before me have studied here and made it," she constantly told herself. Avery Library's ambience is her favorite, though its no-food policy often led her to take refuge in the geology library on the sixth floor of Schermerhorn, which was conveniently located near the psychology department. Boesch remembers fondly that some semesters she was so busy that she couldn't pack lunch and relied on Columbia's vending machines. Her favorite? Uris Café's, which sells ice-cream. Jokingly, she said that she was so familiar with the Columbia vending machines that she knew where she could snag the best deals. The machines in the Uris stairwell—around the corner from the café—are cheaper than the main business school café. As valedictorian, Boesch spoke at GS Class Day last Monday – something that may have been unthinkable to her when she first came to campus. Boesch said that she was quiet at first and treated college like a job. But she has embraced the distinction and the opportunity to share her experiences of GS with others. "Being named valedictorian yanked me to being more social," she says.