features

In her time working at the Visitor’s Center, Alex Parkhurst, CC ’19, has rubbed shoulders with director Steven Spielberg, White Chicks actor Marlon Wayans, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. “You don’t know who’s gonna come through that door,” she tells me.

“I’m a visual arts major, and I never did arts before I came here three years ago.”

This summer, Alani Sumako Fujii will be growing her own food at home in Maryland. Her decision, she explains, stems from a belief in “self-sustenance,” a key trait she’ll need before she starts working for the Peace Corps. In just a few months’ time, Fujii will be in the Kingdom of Tonga, in the South Pacific, teaching English.

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.

Take a look at that syllabus your teacher handed out at the start of this year. If your professor teaches at one of the 12 schools, departments, or locations that have been certified through the Sustainable Leaders Network’s Workplace Certification, that syllabus is most likely printed on 100 percent recycled paper. And that business card you got from a professor in the School of Nursing? It’s probably made up of at least 30 percent postconsumer waste content.

Dr. Wallace Broecker—lovingly called “Wally” by his coworkers, friends, and family—never wanted to be known as the prophet of climate change. He was the prank-playing, puzzle-loving, New Balance-wearing, colorblind, dented-Toyota-owning, dyslexic, opinionated rock of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Broecker saw the big picture.

In Upper Manhattan, artists and art lovers are neighbors. If you were living in an uptown neighborhood like Harlem, Washington Heights, or Inwood before 2003, though, you may have been completely unaware. Franck de las Mercedes, an abstract artist living and working in Washington Heights, often feels the anonymity of Manhattan. “New York can be like a small city, but it can be like a big city at times. And you know, sometimes it’s just like a whole universe.” Mercedes was shocked to find out, through his participation in the Uptown Arts Stroll, that two fellow artists lived just around the corner from him.

Chirping cranes, buzzing jackhammers, and the singsong of truck backup alarms are the sounds that Matt Reid has been waking up to since the start of Columbia’s Manhattanville construction, which began in 2009. Reid is a resident of 3333 Broadway, a 35-story apartment complex directly adjacent to the north side of Columbia's Manhattanville campus construction site.

Six nights a week, two or three Columbia student volunteers walk down Broadway wearing red North Face backpacks filled with sandwiches, socks, toiletries, and feminine hygiene products. They share these items in an effort to create and sustain relationships with members of their community who are experiencing homelessness.

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.