click-me-im-a-lion

“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Let’s go into this with a powerful collective intention.” Alexandra Watson, a First-Year Writing lecturer at Barnard, said as she led a Zoom call in a breathing exercise. With its participants newly focused, the Cite Black Barnard Faculty Cite-a-Thon began.

“You say you like to tan because it’s fun / But half the time you burn yourself; how is that fun?” Grace Victoria D’Haiti, BC ’21, asks in her song “Black Looks Better on Me.” The song is simultaneously a Black cultural anthem and a commentary on the phenomenon of “blackfishing,” which is when non-Black people pretend to be Black or alter their appearances to look ethnically Black.

When I set out to write an article on Columbia fight songs, I planned to write about drinking songs (“The Columbia Drinking Song”) and stolen songs (“Stand Up and Cheer,” from the University of Kansas) and bad, boring, embarrassing songs (“Who Owns New York?”)—all songs that I, and maybe most of us, have never heard. I read the fight songs that Columbia students had written, most around 100 years ago, and the songs said what they probably did not mean to say at all: Columbia is obsessed with its legacy—and owning, and ranking, and lasting forever. The more songs I read, the more obvious this was, again and again, in new and different ways. One song that had everything—the legacy obsession, the gender bias, the total disregard for anyone outside the institution—I had already heard, far too many times, just like everyone has. If you listen to “Roar, Lion, Roar” enough, you can hear most of the major issues in Columbia Athletics—and some in the Columbia community—outlined in two paragraphs.

“We all are roses. I think we’re all these beautiful plants waiting to emerge from the soil,” Mamadou Yattassaye, CC ’21, said when asked about the rose imagery in his debut album, “To Stitch a Rose.”

Despite being scattered across the globe, student videographers bridged the gap between dancers in the Columbia University Ballet Ensemble, using digital effects to stitch together a magical forest for the group’s rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” CUBE presented its ballet version of Shakespeare’s play on Dec. 5, featuring befuddled lovers and mischievous fairies dancing across the screen.

Content Warning: This episode of The Ear discusses sexual violence and rape.

The registration process can be overwhelming and stressful. From figuring out your registration time to navigating CULPA reviews, waitlists, and conflicting classes, it is challenging to create a schedule with no obstacles. As registration approaches and you scroll through the course catalog, keep in mind that Columbia and Barnard have added intensive courses with alternative schedules. For those of you who want to finish a course before the semester ends, block classes are a perfect solution. As opposed to a standard 12-week schedule, intensive classes are in two six-week blocks for both the fall and spring semesters. Block courses meet more frequently than semester-long courses, allowing students to take fewer classes at a time. We asked a few students about their experience with fall A and B courses to help you decide whether spring A and B courses are right for you.

During the 2010s, Columbia Athletics was able to clinch 33 Ivy League championships and 11 national team titles. Under two athletic directors—M. Dianne Murphy, who served between 2004 and 2015, and current Athletic Director Peter Pilling—Columbia Athletics began toto transform, developing nationally-recognized programs such as fencing, men’s tennis, and cross country. Such teams have routinely found themselves among the top 25 in the nation.

While Columbia’s sports teams may be known more for losing than anything else, the opposite is true of the archery program under head coach Derek Davis, who took the helm in 2004.

Coming into the decade, expectations were not extremely high for the men’s soccer program. It had not earned an Ancient Eight crown in 17 years, Ivy League Player of the Year since 1993, and NCAA tournament berth since 1991.