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With the spring equinox last weekend, we’re only getting closer to summer, especially since the second round of summer 2021 registration is approaching on March 29. This year, Columbia and Barnard students have the opportunity to take extra classes tuition-free if they are within their respective credit limits. For an overview of what this summer will look like for undergraduates, take a look at Spectrum’s crash course on the summer semester.

In an effort to clarify procedures around University response to bias-related incidents, the Office of Undergraduate Student Life has updated their website and publicly available information about the procedures and resources available through the Columbia College and Columbia Engineering Bias Response Team, administrators announced in an email to students Wednesday afternoon. The names of the members of the Bias and Discrimination Response Team have also been released.

As the first Questbridge Finalist to come from her high school, Alysha Acosta’s college application process was shrouded in uncertainty. The organization’s website, however, did make one thing certain—she would be provided with a “full four-year scholarship.”

Undergraduate tuition and fees for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science are projected to reach an all-time high of $62,000 for the 2019-2020 academic year, Dean of Columbia College James Valentini announced at a recent Arts and Sciences faculty meeting. This latest price hike will make Columbia the most expensive undergraduate school in the nation.

It is the fall of 2015. As summer wilts, Columbia’s campus again transforms into the ant colony of activity that invariably defines the beginning of each academic year. Amid the moving in, the exploring and rediscovering, and the registration days, major pedagogical change looms large on the horizon.

Though it may feel like we’ve just arrived back on campus from winter break, February is already coming to a close, and you know what that means: It’s time to think about where you’re going to live next semester! If you’re bogged down with midterms, or didn’t have the chance to attend ResHall Rush (the room selection information session) last Thursday, don’t fret. Spectrum’s got you covered with the timeline of need-to-know dates to help you find your new home for the coming school year.

On Nov. 28, 2018, professor Elizabeth Midlarsky found two swastikas and an anti-Semitic slur spray-painted on the walls of her office in Teachers College. Four days later, an anti-Black slur written on an air vent cover was placed in front of a Black student’s room in Carman Hall. On Dec. 9, a white student harassed a group of Black students in front of Butler Library.

As a member of the Columbia faculty, I was shocked by the video of the incident in which a student harassed a group of predominantly Black students and expressed the superiority of the contribution of “white men” to “modern civilization” in front of Butler Library last week.

Assertions of white male superiority are rooted in ignorance or hatred, or a combination of the two. We must combat such assertions in all their myriad forms. Just as this op-ed was going to press, we learned of a despicable act of racist harassment in Carman Hall that confirms the urgent need for change on this campus. And yet, the suggestion that Columbia’s Core teaches the superiority of white males and Western civilization is, in my view, a misunderstanding of the Core’s purpose. As the new chair of Literature Humanities, I welcome the opportunity to debate the central mission of Lit Hum, and the ways it has changed and must continue to change to fulfill that mission in today’s world.