Lauren-Pearson

This Thanksgiving had three highlights for many people: turkey, turkey dumping back-home beaus, and the Gilmore Girls "A Year in the Life" revival.

When's the last time you heard "Columbia athletics" and "best in nation" in the same sentence? Well just in case you've been behind on your college sports headlines, I'd like to enlighten you with some good news. This weekend at the Men's Tennis National Indoors competition, two Columbia athletes were some of the best in the nation. No jokes.more In this weekend's competition, the doubles team of Kevin Kung and Nate Gery advanced through their matchups to ultimately face the No.2 team in the country from Stanford. OK, so we lost to them. But don't be fooled; it's kind of a big deal. Since the start of the season, the double's team of Kung and Gery has been hanging low—very low. Actually, they hadn't won a match since September. They waited until the biggest competition of the fall season—the 2010 USTA/ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships at the USTA-Billie Jean King National Tennis Center —to really make a big splash. And they did. Good strategy, boys. So listen. These guys deserve way more than someone like me using them to justify our athletic program in a 200 word blog. Good thing we have Kunal Gupta. 1800 words, ladies and gentlemen. Read 'em.

Soak it in, Lions. It's been a while. The women's soccer team sits proudly at the top of the Ivy League (suck it, Princeton) after its 2-0 victory over the Tigers. So what does this mean for you? more Well, with the soccer season just more than half over, it's a pretty solid time to jump in if you haven't already been following. The Lions have three more Ivy games to go, with senior night against Dartmouth coming up this Saturday at 7 p.m. De-stress from midterms this weekend and head to Baker to watch a team that actually has a shot at winning. It's always more fun this way—I promise. And hey, check it out! There's a Youtube page dedicated entirely to our very own mighty Lions. Here's a clip that features the star of last week's soccer game: junior and Ivy League Player of the Week Nora Dooley. Browse around the Columbia Athletics channel to find postgame player interviews and other fun clickables.

As promised earlier in the semester, the Arts Initiative launched its new website today. Along with the updated website comes a new arts page on the University's main website, with the Arts Initiative "literally at the center," Executive Director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre Melissa Smey said. The new site's development is keeping with Smey's goal of updating the site and addressing student concern about the outdated site expressed in the "Save the Arts Initiative" petition. The petition circulated last November, garnering more than 1,300 signatures, and was overwhelmingly supported by student governing boards and councils. The new advisory board---consisting of 16 students---which was created in response to the petition, gave feedback on the new design before the launch, according to Smey. The new website preserves the branding of the old one while increasing the functionality. The new events calendar introduces filter options, so those looking to purchase tickets through the TIC can choose on- or off-campus events and specify where in the city they're looking for off-campus tickets.more It also allows for three ways to highlight events, according to Lauren Pearson, the Arts Initiative's Associate Director of Programming Administration. Pearson was appointed in January, partially in response to the petition, and partially to fill and expand the role of her predecessor, Chad Miller, who was the Associate Director of Faculty and Student Outreach. The homepage features up to four promoted events, and other pages feature a sidebar of highlighted events. Finally, the updated calendar will highlight up to 20 events that users can scroll through. In addition to highlighting the Arts Initiative's core programs---including Museum Meetups, which allows students to receive guided tours of certain museums, and Creative Conversations, which brings prominent figures in the New York arts world to campus---the new site also introduces a photo ops section, which will feature student photography of events. These photos will also be featured on the University's page. It also introduces a new forms page, which allows students and outside arts representatives to promote and/or sell tickets to their events more easily, offering a more "concierge service" for those wishing to be featured on the site, as Smey put it. Smey and Pearson emphasize that this is a beta launch and would like feedback from students.

With just days to go before her first solo exhibition, Lauren Silva, SoA '13, was still putting the finishing touches on her pieces Monday.

"Someday, Someday, Maybe," the debut novel from Lauren Graham, BC '88, challenges and reaffirms high expectations by adding a new twist on a familiar story.