The epigraph to E.M. Forster’s Howards End reads, famously, “Only connect.” The book is concerned with the question of communion: Can language, music, or paint meaningfully bring two people closer together? I don’t know. Recently, I’ve learned a lot more about distance than I have about intimacy. Sara and I became friends two-and-a-half years ago. In the time since, we’ve shared walks in Riverside Park, trips to gardening stores, late-night subway rides, even later night conversations on dorm room floors, and many an excursion to Jin Ramen. Those experiences are impossible to replicate virtually; some kinds of interpersonal connection are only possible in a Cathedral Gardens double or over a warm bowl of noodles. I am certain, however, that words can still connect. I’ve seen it happen, one answer sliding against another in a grid, letters marching into place like chess pieces.

Bloomsbury, London, U.K.

Aaron Smithson, CC ’19, is heading to Columbus—but not the avenue. Columbus, Indiana, is a 47,000-person town that sits halfway between Indianapolis and Louisville, which might seem like an odd vacation destination. But for Smithson, who was raised on the Upper West Side, it’s actually a pretty natural choice.

In a recent Netflix comedy special, Hasan Minhaj, a writer for the Daily Show, describes watching Fox News’ heavy hitters, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, and Bill O’Reilly, walk to lunch. Minhaj sees all of them leave their glossy midtown offices, those epicenters of American Islamophobia; cross the street; and get in line at a street food cart for halal chicken over rice.

Ji Hoon Ko, a Columbia College first-year, is currently in the planning phase of a project for the Roosevelt Institute. Ko, alongside Columbia College sophomore Maeve Flaherty and the Roosevelt Human Rights policy center that Flaherty directs, have been conducting research for the last two months in order to inform a campaign around the University’s obligations regarding affordable housing in Manhattanville and Morningside Heights. In tandem with his working group’s efforts and the 10th anniversary of the 2008 Community Benefits Agreement, he recently hosted a general body meeting for all of Roosevelt, in order to put the Manhattanville Expansion on the table.

Until last week, Valerie Adams had never been back inside a building she had built. “I’ve always driven by,” she says, as we stand outside the glossy glass doors of the Lenfest Center for the Arts. Completed in 2017 as the second building at Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus, the building today houses an art gallery and performance spaces. It would be easy to walk in and see it for its intended purpose and nothing more: a space for the arts, culture, and academia.

Whatever the conversation had been, the bird interrupted it.

A couple weeks ago, David Hanzal had a bout of déjà vu. Someone came into People Against Landlord Abuse and Tenant Exploitation, the West Harlem nonprofit better known as P.A.’L.A.N.T.E., asking for advice—someone like Hanzal, four years ago. “He walks in, he says, ‘I’ve organized my building, I’ve done 311, I don’t know what to do, the landlord’s doing this.’” The client lives right near Columbia’s 17-acre Manhattanville expansion, in the neighborhood of the same name. “He's got a long road ahead of him. You know, he’s where I was in 2014.”