CSER

After working for three years on the Unpayable Debt in an effort to develop new frameworks for thinking about the role of debt in our economy, Puerto Rican filmmaker, scholar, professor of English and comparative literature, and former Director for the Center of Ethnicity and Race Frances Negrón-Muntaner began assembling what would become her first art project: “Valor y Cambio.”

In the fall of 2017, approximately a month apart, two separate hiring committees began reading applications for assistant professor positions.The first was for a position at Barnard’s religion department; the second, a joint appointment between Columbia’s English department and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Although the two search committees had little to do with one another, they had certain key similarities: for one, both were searching for a candidate with a background in Indigenous studies. The two committees also gravitated toward younger academics with new perspectives in a growing field to take on a tenure track assistant professor position.

On the third floor of Hamilton sits the Center for American Studies. Its glass doors are framed by warm yellow lights that make the room look like the star of the hallway, even though it is nestled in at the end. On the right of the entrance, there is a poster for “Learning to ‘March,’” a lecture given by Congressman John Lewis on Selma in 2015.

As negotiations on the hunger strike continued between administrators and representatives of the protesters on Monday evening, University officials released a public statement regarding the strikers' demands.