Valeria Escobar

An unidentified resident of the International House—a nonaffiliated residential community—has died after contracting COVID-19.

Members of the Graduate Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers have voted 1,833 to 77 in favor of authorizing a strike in response to what union members have labeled as the University’s unsatisfactory approach to negotiating key bargaining points.

Barnard and Columbia have confirmed that a member of the community is currently in quarantine after exposure to COVID-19. In light of the growing outbreak of the coronavirus, and its newfound threat to the Columbia community, the University has decided to suspend classes until Wednesday, when remote instruction will continue until spring break.

As the threat of the COVID-19 outbreak grows, the University has requested that all students in high-risk locations attempt to return either to their permanent residence or a safer location. The statement, which was sent in an email from Interim Provost Ira Katznelson to the University community, follows a line of updates that have altered Columbia operations in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Columbia suspended all its upcoming affiliated or sponsored travel plans to foreign countries until further notice, notifying students in numerous abroad programs to determine options for their return back to the United States, according to emails by interim provost Ira Katznelson.

Columbia researchers have received a $2.1 million grant to identify drugs that prevent the spread of the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The Jack Ma Foundation, a philanthropy group founded by the richest man in China, awarded the grant amid the spreading infection and a 2 percent fatality rate, which has sparked fears of a pandemic.

As the most recent step in a years-long battle, faculty and student activists stood in front of an official University advisory committee last Wednesday to call for Columbia’s divestment from all companies “primarily in the fossil fuel and extraction business.”

Companies that derived more than 35 percent of its revenue from thermal coal production were subject to Columbia’s divestment in 2017. While this was the first proposal to divest from fossil fuels, these companies are only a fraction of those that student groups and faculty have repeatedly claimed are not ethically aligned with the University’s mission.

Zhifan Yang, BC ’20, was absent for the first week of the semester—a time during which most students have yet to decide on their courses—in order to spend the Lunar New Year with her family in China. When she arrived back in New York on Jan. 27, Barnard suggested that students returning from China seek medical screening.

Timothy Malin has been appointed as the Columbia director of Morningside Operations after a 20-year career in the New York Police Department. This confirmation follows his retirement as deputy inspector of the 20th precinct, which serves the Upper West Side of Manhattan.