Lizzie Clark, CC ’23, sent a text to the Columbia Resident Adviser group chat in March 2022 expressing concern about low wages. It was this text that inspired Leena Yumeen, CC ’23, to spend her final year at Columbia forming a union.

Columbia resident advisors have been officially recognized as a union by the National Labor Relations Board after a vote on Tuesday, with 90 percent of ballots supporting unionization.

The Columbia University Resident Advisors Collective hosted a rally to demonstrate community support for its unionization efforts on Monday afternoon hours after Senior Executive Vice President Gerald Rosberg emailed members of the collective officially refusing to voluntarily recognize their petition to unionize.

The Columbia University Resident Adviser Collective demanded that the University voluntarily recognize its petition to unionize in a letter delivered to University President Lee Bollinger on Monday afternoon. Organizers from the collective delivered the letter to Bollinger’s office in Low Library, which went into lockdown in anticipation of their arrival.

Resident advisors will no longer work 24-hour weekend duty shifts, Executive Director of Residential Life Tara Hanna announced in an email to RAs on Jan. 9. Residential Life has instead introduced 11-hour weekend shifts, following concerns from international students and the Columbia University Resident Advisors Collective about students exceeding the number of work hours permitted under F-1 visas.

Masking will no longer be required in Barnard classrooms beginning Oct. 10, Director of Pandemic Strategic Response and Clinical Advisor April Autry announced in an email to the Barnard community Tuesday. The update comes three days after Columbia lifted its classroom masking requirement.

Masking will no longer be required in classrooms beginning Oct. 1, senior administrators announced in an email to affiliates Wednesday morning. The requirement will also no longer apply on Columbia shuttles. Barnard’s COVID-19 restrictions, including its mask policy, will remain in effect.

The Columbia University Resident Advisors Collective has filed unfair labor practice charges against the University through the National Labor Relations Board.

Students who returned to campus this fall are among the first to benefit from a number of recent enhancements to undergraduate financial aid. The changes, announced by the Office of the Provost in late April, made Columbia—whose sticker price remains one of the highest, if not the most expensive, in the country—more accessible to middle-class students, who have long been underrepresented at selective colleges and universities.