When classics professor Marcus Folch and his wife Celeste Fine decided it was time to try for kids, they expected it would take a while for their family to get started. They had no idea they would have twins within a year, much less a third child within two. More surprising was how much they would be paying in childcare costs—$120,000 annually—with only $3,000 a year in assistance from Columbia.

Former U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, CC ’95, declared his candidacy for president on Thursday, joining a diverse and crowded democratic field of challengers looking to deny President Donald Trump a second term.

Preliminary plans to overhaul Uris Hall reveal a vision that is far removed from the current state of the building, featuring expensive and drastic changes to a currently “claustrophobic and privatizing” space. The renovations would aim to create a space dedicated to modern interdisciplinary research and intellectual community, according to a draft of committee recommendations obtained by Spectator.

Columbia has dedicated $185 million in an effort to diversify its faculty since 2005, by far the largest public commitment an Ivy League institution has made to such an initiative. But over the last decade, the percentage of full-time black faculty in Arts and Sciences has shown a nearly-steady decrease, the percentage of full-time Latinx faculty has stagnated, and the percentage of full-time female faculty has only increased incrementally—around 4 percent.

U.S. Representative Beto O’Rourke, CC ’95, was playing bass guitar in campus bars and rowing on the Hudson the last time Texas had a Democratic senator. Now, O’Rourke’s campaign for the 2018 Texas Senate seat—which has drawn national attention because of O’Rourke’s charisma and unapologetically progressive positions—may put a Democrat back in office.

In an effort to grow its outreach within the surrounding Harlem community, Steep Rock Bouldering—a climbing gym in the Jerome L. Greene Science Center of Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus—has continued to deepen its collaboration with local nonprofits and student clubs since its opening in 2017.

United Nations General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces defended international cooperation and the relevance of the United Nations in the face of widening economic inequality and climate change in a speech to students in Low Library on Wednesday.

University President Lee Bollinger discussed the importance of the University’s global centers and the Core Curriculum in preparing students for a tumultuous national climate during a fireside chat Wednesday night.

The graduate student union has announced that it will strike again this fall, continuing their campaign of “relentless disruption” in light of the University’s refusal to negotiate, according to union spokesperson and bargaining committee member Olga Brudastova.