Dear underclassmen: When you get to be a senior, Columbia will start dong nice things for you, in hopes that those good feelings will be the ones that stick when you have more money than you need for basic survival. Senior dinner is one of those things, and this evening, many thousands of dollars went into an elegant if predictably mediocre meal to celebrate the class of 2009′s last day of school.

Twas a convivial affair in that circus tent on South Lawn, as roughly a thousand seniors lounged with good friends and rediscovered others who had fallen by the wayside. Embarrassing photos beamed onto the tent roof above, disproportionately featuring senior class president Mark Johnson, who received lackluster applause when he took the stage to say a few words about something. There was decidedly more enthusiasm for the Senior Fund announcement by a beaming Kristin Kramer: 90 percent participation, which surpassed the 86 percent record set by the previous record-holder! Guess half a year of threats, bribes, and guilt trips finally paid off.  

CCSC President George Krebs did his signature song and dance, but he was really only there to introduce the night’s main attraction, dearly departing Dean Austin Quigley. No doubt slightly sauced himself, the ebullient Brit fairly leapt out of the Varsity Show throne installed for the occasion and into a routine based on his theatrical alter ego. Little too close to reality there, Sir! This, followed by a series of recycled one-liners (“Love makes the world go round, but alcohol makes it go round twice as fast!”) platitudes (“This is the greatest Columbia College class of all time, and I am proud to graduate with you”) and a few genuine pearls of wisdom (“The chief value of a Columbia life is the great company it allows you to keep.”) After 14 years on the job, he can be forgiven for a few cliches. 

- LBD

Outgoing Dean Austin Quigley is in the audience for tonight’s performance of the 115th Annual Varsity Show. Below, an eager audience member is disappointed to learn that his English accent is not, in fact, faked.

- Photo by ACM

Outgoing Dean of Columbia College Austin Quigley has just issued a goodbye letter to the students of Columbia College. He wants us to know what an impact we have all made, “individually and collectively,” on his life in the past fourteen years, and so he has copied and pasted his own statements from a previous interview published in Columbia College Today. To great effect, Bwog might add.

The self-plagiarism not withstanding, Quigley has been well-loved and his comments in the letter and interview certainly come straight from the bottom of his adorable little British heart. But who could have predicted he express them by quoting his own interview? Bwog congratulates the writers of the 115th Varsity Show on their incredible powers of divination.

Full email after the jump. Read more…

- Via the Cornell Chronicle

An hour ago, Spec was forwarded an email from Dean Kevin Shollenberger announcing that Cornell Vice-Provost for Undergraduate Education Michele Moody-Adams will be the next Dean of the College. Moody-Adams, who will replace the retiring Dean Austin Quigley, will be the first woman to hold the post.

Moody-Adams (whose last name punsters will have a field day with) was also the founder of Cornell’s Program on Ethics and Public Life, where her study included “moral relativism, moral objectivity, and moral psychology.” Perhaps she’ll be able to ethically justify raiding your room.

On more controversial issues, Moody-Adams has not shied away from giving her opinions: just two weeks ago, she joined several other professors in “co-sponsoring” an Islamic Alliance for Justice protest consisting of signs and 1300 flags representing dead Palestinians and Israelis in the recent Gaza conflict. Eight years ago, she told the audience at a teach-in one week after the 9/11 attacks that “vengeance is not the answer,” and suggested a multilateral approach to the response. She should fit right in in Morningside.

UPDATE (1:20 p.m.): President Lee Bollinger has sent out an email announcing the decision, saying “in the breadth of her scholarship and interests, Professor Moody-Adams exemplifies Columbia’s own tradition of great scholarship that is engaged in the public issues of our time.” Full email after the jump.

- JCD Read more…

The cast of the 115th Varsity Show entered to raucous applause from the crowd of 100 packed into the back room of the West End (as it will forever remain, at least for V-Show purposes). Our host for the evening was this year’s narrative patriarch, retiring Dean Austin Quigley, caught up in reading his own interview in Columbia College Today.

After announcing that he would still be teaching, as well as being “Supreme Chancellor to the Committee on Tree Lightings” (“I can light a Yule log like nobody else”) Dean Quigley (a delightfully posh Adam May Patrick Blute) took us to the first scene — a SEAS sophomore (sophomore Nina Pedrad) in Butler on a Friday being annoyed by fellow “studiers.” After getting snappy, she received the first Barnard joke of the night: “Do you need a hug? At Barnard, we hug.” In Preview form, it wouldn’t be the last.

Fed up, the SEAS student returned to her dorm, only to have her floormates, expelled from broken-up parties, make her the subject of an exorcism. This not only led to the truest line of the night (“But we don’t know how to have an exorcism.” “We’re Columbia students; we can bullshit anything!”), but also the most complex choreography, including a SEAS student being raised up Jesus Christ Superstar-style, and all the performers “doing the devil.” Read more…

Holiday merrymakers braved the drizzle this evening to drink hot chocolate, listen to a capella, and bask in the warmth of Austin Quigley’s valedictory address. The departing dean – who said he was looking forward to teaching next semester – waxed eloquent about the meaning of holiday time as a period of renewal, and a time to be with family. He then ran through the list of illustrious figures who have come out of this august institution, beginning with John Jay, progressing through Mark Van Doren, and concluding with Attorney General-almost-designate Eric Holder (who drew faint applause). You, too, can join these figures in the firmament of Columbian alumni, he assured us!

And then, the traditional count down. Having seen Home Alone enough times, Bwog really expected something to blow up—or at least some sort of sound–but all that happened was a sudden brightening, and the singing resumed.

One more photo by Hans E Hyttinen after the jump. Read more…

Maintenance was out early this morning prettying up the trees on College Walk, in preparation for everyone’s favorite holiday ritual: tree lighting! We know, the lights have been lit for like a week, but it’s really just an excuse for Dean Quigley to preside (for the last time!), hot chocolate to be consumed, and a capella groups to do their thing in the last shred of holiday cheer before you all recede into your bunkers for finals. 

Festivities begin at 6:00 pm, followed by the Lighting of the Yule Log in John Jay. 

Bwog’s inbox is abuzz with declarations, communiques, and plans regarding the encampment on Striker Lawn (although the strikers themselves are now tucked away in Malcolm X lounge, safe from the damp).  You should have all received the first tidbit, from Deans Quigley and Dirks: an enumeration of what they’re already doing to address the general spirit of the 13 Demands, minus the expansion part, which is being dealt with in separate meetings. Briefly summarized: reviews are in the works, and student voices considered.

CCSC, in a surprise move, also released a statement declaring support for a watered down, less specific version of the strikers’ demands. You can skip the awkwardly worded introductory paragraph, which says very little of substance, but check out their support for mandatory anti-oppression training, a Vice Provost for Multicultural Affairs, and the departmentalization of both CSER and IRAAS. Also note that, while a Committee has been researching the expansion for about a year now, “the council is not in a position to take a position on the expansion this semester.” Would you like to expand on that?

No word yet from PrezBo, although he did send out a university-wide e-mail today regarding graduate student teaching awards. President Shapiro, of course, sent out a statement last Wednesday, noting that “while hunger strikes have a long and important history as a form of political action, they are not without their dangers and may not always be a necessary strategy in a particular situation.” The full e-mail, as with the abovementioned documents, are posted in our Hunger Strike Primary Source Reader after the jump.

Meanwhile, Gawker finds eating disorders to be the most newsworthy part about the whole affair (while noting that Ivygate took down its post of a few days ago that ran with a pro-ana photo). Finally, if you notice that classmates look a little more wan than usual on Wednesday, they may be abstaining as well: those who didn’t want to undertake the strike whole hog are fasting from 6:30 AM until 8:45 in the evening.

- LBD Read more…

A smattering of students and a sea of empty chairs confronted Deans Quigley, Colombo, and Friedman (SEAS) about the noose incident at an event this afternoon sponsored by the Columbia Queer Alliance.

The small showing was probably due to the time – noon on a Thursday – and also because the admins agreed to show up on short notice. Bwog itself received a statement announcing the event at 1:23 a.m. this morning.

Organizers decided to merge their scheduled event to unveil a new “safe-zone” campaign with a session of firmly posed questions from the few students present– and mostly plain vanilla answers from the administrators.

Students wanted to know specifics — in what kind of time frame they could expect to hear from administrators with progress reports on the hate crime front, what tangible things administrators now realize they could have done better to create safe spaces for students. Administrators had palpably reassuring, but vague responses.

In his germane way, Quigley acknowledged that administrators should have let students know about the incident sooner, and that Columbia’s policy on hate crimes should be more widely known. In his less-germane way, Colombo said he would like to better “demonstrate to the community we are here to support them.” And Friedman, SEAS’s Quigley, said the three men in collared shirts and ties behind the panel ran “an open shop.”

When students asked why they heard about the noose from student groups and listsevs and not from administrators, Colombo stumbled, explaining he may wear his Blackberry on his belt at all hours, but that not everyone in the administration does. “You guys start your days at a variety of hours,” he said.

But perhaps they are learning. After office hours today when news of the anti-Semetic graffiti in Lewisohn hit, Quigley sent his delicate prose response merely minutes after President Bollinger –
who is himself feeling the heat of student criticism on this point.

At the end of the hour, students had a few commitments to transparency, tolerance, and inclusion to hold on to, and a new symbol to plaster around the school to signify safe-spaces, and perhaps the goal to blanket the campus in one large safe-space symbol.

-SEV

Statement by the CQA after the jump…

Read more…

Want extraneous ephemera? We’ve got extraneous ephemera!

• Bwog missed it while QuickSpecking, since the classic headline ”Penn to Teach at Penn” ran under today’s College Briefs in the print edition only. “Sean Penn?” one student was overheard wondering. Not quite, and if seniors here are upset about Matthew Fox speaking on Class Day, we wonder what they’d think if Columbia signed the star of Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and Van Wilder: Rise of Taj as an adjunct professor (okay, okay, he was in The Namesake too…and we’re still waiting for Fox to take on a similarly respectable role…)

• We’re not going to go beyond providing the link: Radar‘s…saucy interview with Matt Sanchez

• Dean Quigley, overheard leaving Low around 6PM yesterday: “One of my favourite* things in life is that time in between jobs.” Following in Zvi’s footsteps? Say it ain’t so, Austin…

• Are the SDS, progenitors of the 1968 protests, on the rise again? We guess we won’t know for sure until attending tomorrow night’s meeting. Until then, we offer a synopsis of their logo from Bwog’s very own semiotician, reporting from the Hamilton stairs: “They appear to be lacking a sense of irony. The flyers have George Bush doing a clenched fist and ‘Is this what democracy looks like?’ — but then two inches away, the SDS fist logo, in almost exactly the same position.”

*We like to imagine he both thinks and speaks aloud in the spelling of the Queen’s English. -CJS

Columbia College Dean Austin Quigley is hosting a senior class reception tonight at 5:30 in Lerner’s Satw Room. The event announcement mentions a “SUPER SECRET-HUGE-AMAZING announcement at 6:00pm sharp,” which, Bwog hears, is the identity of the 2007 Class Day speaker. We’re hoping for a speaker who’s a bit more Tony Kushner than John McCain – perhaps that gent to the right?

Guesses as to the secret identity welcome, though we feel safe in saying that it won’t be Barack “Alma Mater Who?” Obama.

Bwog correspondent Addison Anderson was there. 

I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, but Dean Quigley read an (the best) excerpt from Dylan Thomas’s “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” for about fifteen minutes to a rapt audience, and repeatedly told us to keep an eye out for friendly ghosts of Columbia’s past.  Then some administrators started giving each other awards so I grabbed a truffle from the truffle man and left.

More lovely photos from Sumaiya Ahmed after the jump.  Read more…

This evening, twelve lucky EC residents— and some prisoners of Wien —were invited to supper with the chipper, quick-witted dean of Columbia College himself, the venerable Austin E. Quigley. Bwog editor Chris Szabla was there and recounts what he learned about the origins of the major system, the progression of globalization, and British playwright Harold Pinter.

The family Harrist has, to this day, been living in the Faculty-in-Residence apartment of East Campus for thirteen months. Surprisingly, they claim, the location is not nearly as noisy as their old apartment’s, perched near that veritable magnet of late-night decorum, Pinnacle. “It can even get too quiet here,” Prof. Robert Harrist told me. The arrival, however, of the firey-haired Dean Quigley and his wife, Barnard prof. Patricia Denison, ensured the evening would be an active one indeed. While the invitees were still tearing into their Kitchenette-catered feast, Quigley launched a seminar-like discussion of the College curriculum and how participants felt it could be improved.

The first item of business was the major. Quigley asked whether, in an age of dual or treble-majors and interdisciplinary emphases, the traditional major made any sense. It had been designed, he said, for those who needed sufficient depth to go into graduate school, with the presumption many graduates would become highly specialized academics. In recent years, however, with a proliferation of CC students interested in finance and other business fields, students have become more concerned with their degrees’ marketability. One recounted his experience in consultancy interviews as a philosophy major, being continually asked to justify his major choice and to demonstrate some quantitative ability. “Did you ask them to spell that?” Quigley returned in his characteristically clipped, dry jest.

Read more…

In which Bwog allows you to feel like you were there without actually having to sit through it.

Chris Colombo, Dean of Student Affairs: lived up to his Sopranos-worthy name by welcoming all ’10-ers to the family.

Cindy Horowitz, head of NSOP: do we even have a pre-law major?  Sweet, but why is there a sophomore running the show this year?

Kwame Spearman, alumnus: kids and parents ate up his facebook jokes and smooth oratorical stylings.  Money quote: “I’ll tell you a few things after your parents leave… but we’ll talk about that later.”  Hitting on the first-years before classes have even started.  Good luck at Yale, Kwame.



Austin Quigley, Dean of Columbia College: killed, as always.  With that accent, he could read the phonebook and the parents would be impressed.

Zvi Galil, Dean of SEAS: he envies you.  And when you engineers are bombarded with his emails, don’t say he didn’t warn you.

Lee “PrezBo” Bollinger, President of Columbia University: plugged Brinkley’s book review in the times before he got around to welcoming the new crop of students, but a very nice speech overall.  The hair looked great, the pop culture references were spot-on, and he actually uttered the phrase “just keeping it real, dawg.”  Gotta love an academic who can quote American Idol and be self-aware about it.

Roll on Columbia, muddled ditty: don’t feel bad freshies, no one knows the words.  And if you avoid pre-Homecoming pep rallies, you’ll never have to hear it again.

Convocation, a “tradition” started at Columbia four years ago, has been the same ever since: always too long, and always humid.  But you’ll never feel so welcome at Columbia.  Congratulations, class of 2010—Bwog’s happy you’re here too.