Dear readers,

In December 2013, a Columbia administrator placed an envelope in a mailbox in Low Library. It was for a student who had left a voicemail a few days before, saying she was an urban studies student doing research and asking if she could look at Columbia’s direct investments. After all, it was for her thesis on development...

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.

Wednesday, November 14, the day of the Barnard No Aramark boycott, is very chilly. At 8 a.m., the Barnard No Aramark team sets up its table by the Barnard gates, but it is cold and members are concerned about diminished foot traffic. “We weren't even sure if people would come up,” Tanisha Aggarwal, a junior at Barnard and the co-head of Barnard No Aramark, tells me. “It was just so cold out.”..

After long days, I recommend long walks.

You aren’t able to tell from my name that I’m Chinese. The first part hints at my mom’s taste in literature, the last is a small act of feminism: two long American surnames that won’t fit on a hospital wristband. I do have a Chinese name, but I don’t use it. It came on my adoption documents, and it’s supposed to mean “bean sprout,” but Google Translate doesn’t agree. I type “Qimeng” into the translation engine, and it gets regurgitated in English as “to enlighten” or “to free from prejudice.” I like “bean sprout” more...

Content Warning: This piece deals with issues of death and grief.