The University celebrated its first in-person Commencement ceremony in three years on Wednesday, as thousands of graduates and their families gathered on campus and thousands of others joined on a livestream.

When Adam Kluge, CC ’22, transferred to Columbia from Ithaca College, he wanted to achieve a better sense of self. While he knew navigating the Columbia bubble could be difficult for transfer students, he was excited about what he described as New York City’s “broad tapestry of life,” which offers all sorts of opportunities to get involved in different communities.

Columbia’s Climate School celebrated its inaugural Class Day on Friday, graduating 86 students. The event marked the culmination of a historic year for the school, which was established in July 2020 as a pioneer in climate change research and as a flashy initiative to draw in donors.

Ahead of a faculty vote this week to potentially set in motion changes to administrative power in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, tensions reached a fever pitch, prompting what appear to be concessions from the faculty committee responsible for overseeing the vote.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has overwhelmingly approved the addition of a senior lecturer seat to the Policy and Planning Committee, the powerful nine-person body charged with faculty governance. The change comes after years of advocacy by lecturers, who have long sought more political power in a university that disproportionately relies on its contingent faculty.

Columbia College and Columbia College Student Council hosted an event on Monday in Low Library to celebrate James Valentini’s decade-long tenure as Columbia College dean and vice president of undergraduate education. The event—which was open to all Columbia College students—was a chance for students to connect with the outgoing dean, who has been affectionately called “Deantini,” before he leaves his position at the end of the academic year.

The Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons rose to third place—its highest spot ever—in U.S. News & World Report’s latest rankings of best medical research schools, which were published last week along with more than 200 other graduate school subject areas. Vagelos, which ranked fourth last year, now shares the spot with Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, San Francisco.

Several faculty members chartered a Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a national higher education association that advocates for academic freedom and faculty governance, late last semester. Although the group currently consists of just a small fraction of the total number of faculty, it has more than doubled its members in just a few months—from fewer than 40 to at least over 80.

Russian forces killed a Teachers College alumnus and wounded an adjunct professor at the Journalism School while the two were filming a documentary in Ukraine about refugees worldwide, including those fleeing the country amid the ongoing war.