Joy Resmovits

Debora Spar has been Barnard College's president for exactly one month. Read on for the second part of Spectator's interview to learn about Spar's thoughts on women's education, college rankings, and Barnard's international goals. Spar explains why she thinks Barnard's endowment lags behind its peers, and how it prevents the College from being as "ambitious in some respects as we’d like to be."

Gretchen Young, Program Specialist in the Study Abroad Office at the University of Connecticut, will begin her tenure as Barnard College’s Dean for Study Abroad Advising on August 18, 2008.

Check back for updates and interviews.

In an effort to hold onto her position as a tenured faculty member at Teachers College, controversial Professor Madonna Constantine is grasping at the last shreds of internal process available to her.

On July 1, Debora Spar, previously a Harvard Business School professor and an expert on the ethics of the reproductive medicine, formally began her tenure as Barnard’s president. After emptying a few boxes, moving into her SoHa apartment, and installing new shelves in her office, Spar took some time to sit down with Spectator to discuss the beginning of a new chapter in her life. Tune in next week for the second part of the interview, which concerns Spar’s expectations and ideas for her tenure at Barnard.

After a tumultuous year characterized by suspicions of plagiarism and a hate crime that stunned campus, Madonna Constantine, Teachers College professor of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, has been suspended from her tenured position. Her termination will be made effective December 31, 2008, pending an appeal.

Check back for continuous updates.

In what could have been her final public appearance as Barnard’s president, Judith Shapiro sang happy birthday in Portuguese to a roomful of Barnard donors at Monday’s 2008 scholarship gala and auction.

On Wednesday night, University officials confirmed that Google removed the file containing the personal information of about 5,000 current and former Columbia students. The removal of the file follows Tuesday evening's e-mail message that informed students that due to a mistake by a student employee at Housing and Dining, personal information including social security numbers had been posted online for over a year.

Bill Grueskin is about to assume leadership of a type of education he never received—in the classroom. Although he never attended journalism school, Grueskin has been a newspaperman since 1975, when he reported for the Daily American in Rome, Italy. Despite his content-based Masters, the School of Journalism considers his 30 years of intense experience to be sufficiently educational.

As Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), CC ’83, stands at the end of one of the most competitive primary seasons and the beginning of the general election, Columbia University finds itself in a new political position.

Justin Fiske might be an artist, but his head certainly isn’t in the clouds.

After speaking about educational inequity, New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo led a selection of Teachers College master’s degree students to the conclusion of their academic careers Tuesday afternoon.

Passion was the recurring theme at Monday’s Columbia College Class Day—a ceremony where the color of the sky matched the class of 2008’s caps and gowns, which blew ceaselessly in the chilling wind.

Teachers College was forced to do some soul-searching this year as the discovery of a noose on a professor’s door—and subsequent revelations about plagiarism on her part—brought to the fore questions about the school’s handling of racial issues.
On Oct. 9, a noose, an infamous symbol of lynching, was placed on the office door of psychology and education professor Madonna Constantine’s office door. Shortly thereafter, a swastika was found painted on the door of a TC professor known for her research on the Holocaust, kicking off a campuswide dialogue on the implications of hate crimes.

According to University President Lee Bollinger, the year’s events marked a flashpoint in the trajectory of his leadership.

In a move that speaks to Barnard’s ongoing interest in international programs, current Dean for Study Abroad Hilary Link will take on a broader role governing such programs in the provost’s office next year.

As the Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology, a professor of history, and the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Nicholas Dirks has a massive job description. But his post, he says, allows him to “realize as many of the aspirations that the University is invested in, because the realities are always more difficult, messy, expensive, and contested than the idea would suggest.”

When John Coatsworth invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Columbia last October, he knew there would be some fallout, but he could have been excused for not anticipating its extent. Coatsworth, then the newly-minted acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, was assailed by pundits from the left and the right. Adding insult to injury, Ahmadinejad’s appearance landed Columbia at the top of Time Magazine’s annual “awkward” rankings for 2007. For Coatsworth, it was a dramatic introduction to his new job.

After a year as acting dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, John Coatsworth has been named to the position permanently, University President Lee Bollinger announced in an e-mail Tuesday afternoon.

Questions about responsible investments and military research in the Iraq War have echoed concerns from 40 years ago, when the United States was entrenched in the Vietnam War. 1968 marked a turning point in the military-academic complex, and Columbia’s relationship with the U.S. military.

Barnard’s 116th Commencement ceremony, which will be held at Columbia due to Nexus construction, will feature an address by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. New Yorker editor David Remnick, tennis player Billie Jean King, and Harlem activist and Head Start program organizer Thelma Davidson Adair will also be present to receive Medals of Distinction, Barnard’s highest honor.

Reverberating in the spaces of Barnard LeFrak Gym’s sprawling ceiling and through the open streets of New York City, the voices of survivors of sexual violence and their allies spoke individually and cohesively against assault. Organizers estimated about 500 students marched in Thursday’s Take Back the Night, tracing a serpentine path through Morningside Heights.

Tonight, retiring Barnard political theory professor Dennis Dalton will march in the anti-violence demonstration Take Back the Night for the last time after more than a decade of involvement, a farewell he discusses with teary eyes. But this year, he will participate in the march’s entire duration—something that he and all other men were not previously allowed to do.

Former School of International and Public Affairs Dean Lisa Anderson will become American University in Cairo’s provost in fall 2008 in a career change she feels will take her full circle.

He sauntered into the Journalism School’s lecture hall on Friday, wearing a three-piece black suit, a large cross around his neck, and the requisite red ring. “Thank you for dressing more like a Cardinal than me,” he said, his blue eyes gleaming, to a woman in the front row wearing a bright scarlet suit and a matching cap.

After being passed over entirely in 2007, the Washington Post swept the 92nd annual Pulitzer Prizes Monday with a haul second only to the New York Times’ record of seven Pulitzers following their coverage of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

At Thursday night’s fireside chat, University President Lee Bollinger asked about as many questions as he answered.

On Tuesday night, as part of the World Leaders Forum, Rothkopf discussed his book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making with an audience that filled Low Rotunda. Wall Street Journal online executive editor Alan Murray moderated the ensuing discussion of 21st-century-style power, which included University President Lee Bollinger, Professors Merit Janow and Saskia Sassen, and President of the Inter-American Development Bank Luis Alberto Moreno.

The noose found on Teachers College Professor Madonna Constantine’s office door in October is up for a new round of close scrutiny in light of reports this week that a state grand jury has subpoenaed the school’s records concerning Constantine in an investigation of the noose.

A state grand jury has subpoenaed Teachers College records concerning Constantine in an investigation of the appearance of the noose her door, an official confirmed.

As the school plans a move into Manhattanville by the end of 2015, administrators and students are contemplating how non-physical aspects of the school should transform.

Elizabeth Dickey, university professor at The New School, will take over as Bank Street College of Education’s sixth president in August 2008, officials announced last week. Dickey will succeed current president Augusta Kappner as the 92-year-old education school’s leader.

In Tuesday’s announcement, Columbia University seems to incorporate aspects of each of the other recent Ivy League financial-aid reforms into its own, charting an ambitious—and expensive—path forward.

In the wake of similar reforms by other Ivy League schools, Columbia announced a package of broad financial-aid policy enhancements Tuesday morning. The much-anticipated reforms will convert all “need-based loans” to grants for students in Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and CC and SEAS students from families with annual incomes below $60,000 will not have to pay for any aspect of college—tuition, room, or board.

In the wake of similar reforms by other Ivy League schools, Columbia announced a package of broad financial-aid policy enhancements Tuesday morning.

Today marks the beginning of either Love Your Body Week or Eating Disorders Awareness Week 2008 at Barnard College, depending on who you ask.

Teachers College received its largest gift yet of $20 million last week, earmarked for private school leadership programs. According to a TC press release, trustee John Klingenstein and his wife Pat donated the money in support of the 30-year-old Klingenstein Center for Independent School Education.

Ordained minister and Yale academic Serene Jones will serve as Union Theological Seminary’s 16th president, becoming the first woman to lead the 172-year-old Columbia affiliate. Jones said the significance of her appointment as Union’s first woman president lies in the recognition that while globally, women are the majority of faith practitioners, women do not comprise the majority of religious leaders.

With last week’s news that a prominent black professor was found guilty of academic plagiarism, Teachers College’s handling of race issues was thrust into the spotlight—and under the microscope—for the second time this year. As the school launches a new round of soul-searching, both students and faculty have said they feel that the TC administration does not adequately address or facilitate discussions about race issues.

Embattled Teachers College Professor Madonna Constantine denied charges of plagiarism Wednesday and announced plans to fight sanctions imposed by the TC administration, a day after a memo detailing the allegations became public.

Read the official statements made by Constantine and Teachers College.

Professor Madonna Constantine has been sanctioned by Teachers College for plagiarism, according to a memo obtained by Spectator Tuesday evening. The memo, dated Feb. 18, was hand-delivered to professors on the Office of the President’s stationery. Read the official statements made by Constantine and Teachers College.

Professor Madonna Constantine has been sanctioned by Teachers College for plagiarism, according to an official memo obtained by Spectator Tuesday evening. The memo, dated Feb. 18, was hand delivered to professors on the Office of the President’s stationery.

For President Lee Bollinger, a lifelong academic, Monday’s fireside chat was a change of pace. He colored his explanations of University policy with stories from his past in a strikingly personal discussion with 50 students and administrators at his home at 116th Street and Morningside Drive.

Aspiring leaders in Jewish affairs will be able to combine secular and religious schooling starting in fall 2009, thanks to a new partnership between the Jewish Theological Seminary and the School of International and Public Affairs.

Following the departure of three popular experts in quick succession, urban studies program affiliates fear that with transition on the horizon, a program known for its success and popularity could find itself in flux.

Barnard College announced the selection of Debora Spar, a senior associate dean at Harvard University Business School and widely-published political scientist, as its eleventh president on Tuesday. Spar will take the post on July 1 when current president Judith Shapiro steps down.

As the Nexus building transforms the face of Barnard’s campus, Debora Spar will join the ranks of Millicent McIntosh, Ellen Futter, and Judith Shapiro to transform the face of the Barnard woman.

Though Anna Quindlen’s early-morning introduction of Debora Spar to the Barnard College faculty marked the first of five such meetings on Tuesday, the excitement in the James Room never wavered, even through repetitive speeches.

Spangler Family Professor of Harvard Business School Debora Spar will take over as Barnard's next president at the end of the academic year, the Spectator learned Tuesday morning.

Whoever is selected as the next permanent dean of the School of International and Public Affairs will find the institution primed for a makeover.

Though the votes for the University’s rezoning application have already been tallied, the story of Columbia’s big move into Manhattanville­—though a long time in coming—is more at the starting point than its conclusion. Already, officials are looking closely at the nitty-gritty details.

After heated debate over Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s appearance, rumors that a group of Columbia faculty would visit Iran to apologize for University President Lee Bollinger’s remarks incited confusion both on and off campus.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s superiors have withdrawn a book released in October in which the Iranian President describes his September visit to Manhattan, including his high-profile speech at Columbia.

Despite the rising enrollment of women in law schools, new research shows that women face particular pressures that may explain why they fall off the legal pipeline.

The number of minority applicants to law school has skyrocketed over the past decade, but the proportion of black and Mexican-American law students has not.

Following two high-profile hate crimes, Teachers College found itself in the center of media crosshairs this semester. But long after the camera vans left, concerns about diversity and inclusiveness persist among students, faculty, and administrators.

In light of her country’s upcoming elections, Fatima Bhutto, BC ’02 and the estranged niece of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, prefers the might of the pen to that of the sword—and political office.

As Columbia aspires to become a global university, one course transports students across the planet. Members of Covering Religion at the School of Journalism will travel to Ireland this spring break.

Five days after the New York City Department of Education was legally required to submit class-size statistics, parents, teachers, and educational advocates are still waiting for the data.

As Committee on Instruction administrators evaluate Barnard’s Nine Ways of Knowing, college student government representatives are calling for immediate diversification of the college’s requirements.

Dennis Dalton, a 69-year-old Gandhian scholar and professor of political science at Barnard, has joined a group of Columbia students in their ongoing hunger strike, he said Saturday.

A Teachers College professor whose door was defaced with a swastika decried anti-Semitism at Columbia during a press conference Monday morning on Zankel Steps.

The professor whose door was defaced with a swastika decried anti-Semitism at Columbia at a press conference this morning on Zankel Steps.

A swastika was found spray-painted on the office door of a Teachers College professor known for her research on the Holocaust Wednesday.

New York City Schools’ Chancellor Joel Klein has announced a plan to restrict admission to Gifted and Talented programs in public schools to students who score in the top 5 percent on standardized tests.

A swastika was found spray-painted on the office door of a Teachers College professor known for her research on the Holocaust Wednesday.

A swastika was found spray-painted on the office door of a Teachers College professor known for her research on the Holocaust.

In a much-anticipated appearance last Friday, conservative writer David Horowitz, CC ’59, attacked the professors at Columbia University, addressed abuses of women’s rights in predominantly Muslim countries, and discussed the U.S. War on Terror.
• CTV NEWS VIDEO: Horowitz's Speech

In a much-anticipated appearance at Columbia Friday afternoon, David Horowitz, CC ’59, addressed the war on terror, education at Columbia, and women's rights in predominantly Muslim countries to an encouraging audience.

Picture an office flooded with volumes by Gandhi, Einstein, Lao Tzu, Hitler, and Plato, all losing pages from being read, and walls decked in photographs of the Dalai Lama, Gandhi, and Marx.

Armed with pre-written questions, activists and students gathered last night at a panel held under the auspices of “Islamo-fascism Awareness Week” in a crowded Mathematics building classroom.

The New York Police Department’s Hate Crime Task Force is using DNA fingerprinting technology to identify the person who hung the noose on a Teachers College professor’s door, but still have no suspects.

Four professors debated academic freedom and the line between squeamish discomfort and real threats in light of recent campus controversies at an event Tuesday night.

A simple piece of rope—looped, knotted, and left on a office door in Teachers College two days ago—sat at the center of a firestorm Wednesday as members of Columbia’s community sought to make sense of its chilling symbolism.

As hundreds of students, professors, and city leaders gathered Wednesday to protest the hanging of a noose on the office door of an African American Teachers College professor, police said that there were no suspects yet in the criminal investigation of the incident.

A hangman's noose was found pinned to the door of an African-American professor's door at Teacher's College, administrators said today.

University President Lee Bollinger has said one of his top priorities is making Columbia a leading institution for the study of Africa. But Columbia’s decentralized initiatives regarding the continent, strewn throughout multiple schools, institutes, and departments with no central oversight, inhibit the University’s goals.

When Naila Campbell, BC ’09, moved into her residence hall, she observed an abundance of ants crawling on the floor, cable wires splayed across her bedroom, and dirt.

With new director Mamadou Diouf on board, the Institute of African Studies is back on its feet consolidating courses, programming lectures, and transforming Columbia University into a space for debate about Africa.

Spectator sat down with the new director of the Institute for African Studies for a Q&A.

Fresh leaders at Columbia’s School of the Arts and School of International and Public Affairs have expressed their intentions to carve a niche for their institutions in the University’s Manhattanville expansion and to increase funding for financial aid.

Dean Nicholas Lemann sent off the Graduate School of Journalism's 2007 graduates with help from Washington Post vice president at large Benjamin Bradlee, urging students to be active as alumni and retain community bonds to bolster the future of their field.

In addition to using her time in college to bridge the artistic and digital worlds as a visual arts major with a minor in computer science, Esther White, BC '07, shared her love of hardcore punk rock by hosting a show on WBAR, Barnard's radio station.

When Zohar Tirosh graduated from the School of General Studies, she unleashed a bit of herself and Columbia into the public world. Her play, This Bloodiness, began its development at Lincoln Center Theater on Tuesday, and her one-woman show Pieces is slated to be produced in Boston in 2008.

The revival of the Institute of African Studies came to fruition as a collaborative effort between students and the University's administration this year.

Groups of local public school parents are planning to boycott one of the ways the Department of Education solicits their feedback, part of their work to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg that their voices haven't been heard in his plans to reorganize school funding.

Last week, the Graduate School of Journalism announced plans for the construction and opening of the Stabile Student Center—the school's first such facility since its opening in 1913.

Parents of public school students will hold a press conference May 9 on the steps of City Hall to express their dissatisfaction with the way Mayor Michael Bloomberg has involved them in talks about his plan to change the formula governing school funding.

On March 30, U.S. News and World Report named Teachers College the number one graduate school of education, up one spot from last year and topping Stanford and Harvard.

What do Margaret Douglas, Duke Ellington,
the Wright Brothers, Sojourner Truth, Juan
Bosch, Fiorello H. LaGuardia, Countee Cullen, and Adam Clayton Powell have in common? They're all names of New York City schools.

Reverend Joseph C. Hough, Jr. announced yesterday that he will retire from his current position as president of Union Theological Seminary in June 2008.

Professors Peter Eisenberger and Graciela Chichilnisky suggested a global thermostat to control climate instead of fighting global warming at last night's kickoff event for Earth Week, "Balancing Needs: Global Warming, Economic Development, and Energy Security.

City education advocates and officials weighed the pros and cons of mayoral control of New York City public education and decried funding and organizational school reforms proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and schools Chancellor Joel Klein at last night's State of Education discussion.

Thomas James will take over as provost of Teachers College on July 1 2007, school officials announced Monday. James is the outgoing dean of the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Better government and investments can alleviate food insecurity, famine, and poverty in Africa, claimed African leaders and researchers who gathered at the School of International and Public Affairs on Friday for African Economic Forum IV.

Lefties on Columbia's campus are associated with rallies and protests, but Columbia's got another breed of lefty.

Copyright law experts and leaders of media companies discussed the practical ramifications of illegal downloading and Web sites such as Youtube last night at "Legal Issues and Media Platforms," a panel at Columbia Law School.

At Lisa Anderson's 20th and last town hall as School of International and Public Affairs dean, the outgoing administrator spoke about the search for her replacement, recruiting prospective students, and poor facilities.

Panelists discussed the difficulties of reconciling their cultural upbringing with their sexual orientations at last night's event entitled The Contemporary Lives of Queer Latinas, held in Milbank's Ella Weed room.

Standing in front of a sign reading "Number the lives" taped to Alma Mater's base, over 100 students used their cell phones to call senators to urge them to support Senator Russel D. Feingold's Iraq Redeployment Act of 2007 yesterday.