curriculum

Lit Hum texts have been scrapped. Essays in University Writing are being graded without feedback or guidance. Some professors are discussing canceling courses altogether. As Columbia’s student-workers and teaching assistants strike for a third consecutive week and negotiations remain at a standstill, many undergraduate students have seen some of their classes grind to a halt.

The fast swing rhythm moves along with Nina Simone as she expresses her exhaustion over the wait for racial equality in her piece, “Mississippi Goddamn.” Richie Havens strums his guitar as he draws upon the spiritual song “Motherless Child” to improvise his first performance of “Freedom.” Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, and Dannie Richmond protest against then-Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus through dialogue sung between and over rich jazz sounds in “Fables of Faubus.” These works of music are all from Black performers and composers only recently added to the Core Curriculum.

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.

Imagine a typical New York City elementary school classroom: littered with half-chewed pencils, decorated with neon alphabet posters, filled with students’ voices as they work through books, with the ease of their reading serving as an unwitting indicator of their educational future. While not a complete determinant, a child’s reading ability can predict much of their scholastic trajectory—for example, a student who does not reach a third-grade reading level by the third grade is four times less likely to graduate high school by 19.

Amid this year of many changes, another was announced to Columbia’s undergraduate class of 2024: “Citizen: An American Lyric,” by Claudia Rankine, SoA ’93, has been added to the Literature Humanities summer reading list.

Amid all the chaos, confusion, and grief brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the students in Columbia College and School of Engineering and Applied Science remaining on campus received a chilling email last Tuesday from Dean Cristen Kromm, writing that on two separate occasions during the prior week, someone had drawn a swastika on the wall of the 16th-floor hallway in East Campus. The notion that someone is repeatedly targeting Jewish students with a symbol of hatred, especially during a time when we should be banding together to love and support one another, is painful to come to terms with. It is disturbing, isolating, infuriating, saddening, and as Kromm mentioned, “deeply concerning.” But it is certainly not surprising.

Her words reverberated throughout the classical dome of Low Library’s rotunda, evoking the ancient Greek literature to which she alludes in her plays. She began with her first of a million suggestions: “Entertain all your far-out ideas.” She paused, looking up at the expansive ceiling and out at the sea of faces before her in Low Library’s rotunda. “It sounds good in here.”

Starting fall 2020, students entering the School of General Studies with under 30 credits will be required to take Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization if they have not already fulfilled their literature/humanities and social science requirements. According to administrators, the effort comes as part of a broader move to slowly integrate General Studies students into the Core Curriculum.

For Aaron Stout, GS ’21 and a veteran, Columbia offered a unique opportunity through the School of General Studies to integrate and interact with the larger undergraduate student body both socially and academically, something other universities often do not offer for students in continuing education programs.

In lieu of a set and props, the horror of the scene is painted on Tecmessa’s face. Her husband, the warrior Ajax, is reeling from the death of his friend Achilles in the Trojan War. To add insult to injury, the army’s generals have passed him over for the honor of receiving Achilles’ armor. When his rage and grief drive him to despair, Ajax falls on his sword. After lamenting over his mangled body, Tecmessa turns to the audience, asking, “Who will lift him?” Her shift in focus is apt. The real play, after all, is in the audience.