Today is Columbus Day. But Columbia students don’t get Columbus Day off. Do you see where I’m going with this yet?
Columbus got 75 percent of his last name in the name of our University. For those of you who never researched the name of your school, Columbia is the “historical and poetic name used for the United States of America” (thanks Wikipedia), obviously derived from the name of its founder, Leif Ericson—I mean Christopher Columbus.
When the United States became independent, our college couldn’t be named after British royalty anymore (sorry George), and the patriotic thing to do was to name ourselves after our country, ‘merica. King’s College became Columbia College.
So indirectly, we’re named after Christopher Columbus. Then shouldn’t we celebrate Columbus Day? As a true pioneer with the courage to pursue his controversial idea of a westward route to Asia, he should serve as a model to Columbia students.
