Columbia University
Columbia to distribute $2 million in grant money to find 'best practices' in digital media
In a brief phone interview on Friday, Bell said the money will be doled out in the form of grants and fellowships to academics and "news professionals" who pitch the best ideas for projects. More
April 30, 2012 10:14 am
Rockstars of neuroscience (and their fans) turn out to debate the future of brain studies
The crowd was gathered at Columbia University for “Does the Brain's Wiring Make Us Who We Are?” featuring two leading lights in the field. The debate, the second annual event hosted by the science-writing collective NeuWrite, had sold out weeks ahead of time. More
April 3, 2012 1:54 pm
At Columbia, Edward Gorey art, books and ephemera, collected by an admirer who was his friend until death
Andrew Alpern’s four-decade-long pursuit of writer and artist Edward Gorey's books and ephemera began during his frequent trips to the Gotham Book Mart across from his Midtown office, where he was working as an architect. Near the sales counter, a stack of small, clearly self-printed books and drawings caught his eye.
“It was fascinating, it was exquisitely drawn, and it was a little weird!” Alpern remembered. More
(2)March 9, 2012 11:27 am
Holder wonders why Justice doesn't get more credit on financial crime, and why affirmative action is in question
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is bothered by the perception that the Justice Department hasn't been vigorous enough in prosecuting financial crime.
At an event at Columbia University yesterday moderated by university president Lee Bollinger, he said, "For some reason, I’m not sure exactly why, all the great work that has been done has not somehow seeped into the American consciousness." More
February 24, 2012 2:13 pm
The last thing on Jennifer Egan's mind is the needs of e-readers
On the 15th floor of Columbia University’s International Affairs Building, about 200 people listened last night as Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Jennifer Egan speculated on the pros and cons of technology, the benefits of escapism, and why people are attracted to a digitized version of Stalinist apartment blocks. More
February 8, 2012 8:27 am
Jill Abramson to deliver Barnard commencement speech
“We have so many reasons to value Ms. Abramson’s place in history as the first woman to appear at the top of The New York Times masthead,” said Barnard President Debora L. Spar in a statement. “From her early days as a reporter to her current post as the paper’s executive editor, she has been unfailing in her convictions and a true inspiration. I am certain that our graduates will be energized by her words and personal story.” More
February 6, 2012 2:25 pm
A distant president and a mysterious McKinsey report send Columbia's liberal-arts faculty into an existential panic
In late October, Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco took the podium at Columbia’s Casa Italiana, an imperious building best known for its rumored funding from Benito Mussolini, to tell an audience of donor-alumni and administrators that the school’s leadership was betraying them. More
(3)February 6, 2012 11:45 am
Before the flood: New York City is just beginning to gird for the '100-year storm,' if it's not already too late
Recent efforts from the Bloomberg administration will significantly reduce the city's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change in the future. What they won't do—can't do—is reverse what may be very real dangers the city faces as a result of environmental changes already well underway. Specifically: Sea-level rise. More
(2)February 3, 2012 8:47 am
Helen Gurley Brown gives 'transformative' $18 million to Columbia's journalism school
Helen Gurley Brown, the 89-year-old former long-time editor of Cosmopolitan, has written a $30 million joint check to Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University’s School of Engineering to establish an institute in her name and the name of her late husband, David Brown, who graduated from both schools. More
January 30, 2012 1:04 pm
Composer George Lewis rages with the machines in rare Miller Theater presentation of his work
“In my kind of doing electronic music, there is always an upfront notion of the machine's subjectivity,” he said. “You can't turn it off, you can't have it do exactly what you want. But it's obvious that it's listening, though it doesn't always imitate what you do. … It also contributes things that are nice that you want to deal with. That's a very difficult thing for some people to accept, because they're used to the encounter with machines as one in which there's a strict hierarchy, where humans are at the top. That gets smashed in my work, where basically there’s a subject relationship. More
November 11, 2011 10:14 am
Bloomberg doesn't believe in presidential candidates 'who don't believe in science'
Mayor Michael Bloomberg can't believe who's running for president.
"We have presidential candidates who don't believe in science," said Bloomberg, who flirted with running for president and is now trying to open a science-oriented college in New York City. More
November 3, 2011 4:16 pm
Campus colossus: N.Y.U. and Columbia pursue a global university model, hotly
In the spring of 2009, Columbia University opened two foreign outposts. There wasn't much fanfare at the time—the ribbon-cutting ceremonies garnered less coverage than, say, each of the university’s expansions into Manhattanville.
Last year, just as quietly, Columbia opened two more centers, in Mumbai and Paris. And later this year, Columbia will open a center in Istanbul, with a center in Santiago hot on its heels.
By 2012, according to Kenneth Prewitt, Columbia’s recently minted vice president for global centers, the university intends to have centers operational in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi. This, all of this, is only Phase One. More
September 16, 2011 11:36 am
Dillon's difficult music, rarely heard, gets big show at Miller Theatre
Most commonly associated with Europe’s “New Complexity” school—and really, that’s as self-evident a stylistic heading as classical music offers—the composer James Dillon thrills to the constant manipulation of texture for its own sake. His work may be hard to play, and yet, if your ears are primed for the pleasures of severity in any musical genre, it can be paradoxically easy to enjoy for long stretches.
His cycle "Nine Rivers" is presented at the Miller Theatre in three parts beginning tonight. More
September 14, 2011 9:29 am
F.A.Q.: Who knew Columbia was such an exciting place to go to school?
Eliza Shapiro: I think people are divided but generally united in their freaked-out-ness. Most people I've talked to (which is a lot of people at this point) feel bad that these kids are sitting in jail (although four of them have been bailed out) and generally that their lives are pretty much ruined. There's been a lot of like "three days ago, they were just like us, and look at them now!" But also people feel pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. In particular, I know commenters and real people are upset that one of the students, Stephan Vincenzo, was wearing a Columbia sweatshirt in court. More
(1)December 10, 2010 8:13 am
'Difficult music' is starting to draw crowds in New York
It's as if everyone’s made the decision that nothing can be excluded from the tradition of so-called "serious music" if it is to survive at all. The more that pop steals everything from experimenters at the margins—as the Beatles did with Stockhausen, and as Kanye does in the three-minute electro-acoustic outro of "Runaway"—the more enthusiastically the margin has to appreciate itself and heal up its divisions, or else perish. More and more, it seems quite possible that this state of affairs can be, at once, the reflection of a sad reality as well as a really ripping opportunity to be a music fiend in the city. More
December 9, 2010 11:26 am
Writers
