The ceremony will look much like this

You are cordially invited by the Academic Awards Committee of Columbia College to join in consuming some “pomp and circumstance worthy” hors d’oeuvres and honoring some professors. Tonight at 6 p.m. in the Faculty Room of Low, Boris Gasparov will receive the 38th annual Lionel Trilling Award for his book “Beyond Pure Reason: Ferdinand de Saussure’s Philosophy of Language and Its Early Romantic Antecedents,” and Nicholas Dames will receive the 52nd annual Mark Van Doren Award in recognition of his “humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership.” All and sundry are welcome to the event; get your RSVP on here. The reception starts at 6 p.m., with the ceremony taking place from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Gasparov is the Boris Bakhmeteff Professor of Russian and East European Studies in, naturally, the Department of Slavic Languages; Dames is the Theodore Kahan Professor of Humanities and teaches in the English department. Congratulations to both! Troop over to Low tonight to get a study break, some wealth of knowledge, and classy free food.

Classy times via Wikimedia

Hopefully the winners get swagtastic medals like this one…

The winners of the 2013 King’s Crown Leadership Excellence Awards were released by Student Affairs this week. Covering eight different categories, including “Columbia Spirit” and “Indelible Mark,” the King’s Crown awards seek “to recognize significant contributions of student organizations and CC/SEAS students to the Columbia community” (Student Affairs) or “ students who either did a good job running a student group or did the administration’s bidding, sometimes both” (WikiCU). Bwog extends our hearty congratulations to this year’s honorees.

In the spirit of recognizing outstanding members of the Columbia student body, however, we also thought we’d come up with our own awards for those who’ve managed to really distinguish themselves during their time in Morningside Heights. Here are our categories for general student excellence; feel free to submit nominations (or your own ideas for awards) in the comments.

• Best Business Card Hander Outer
• Most Frequent Senior Night Attendee
• Best Mel’s/Heights/1020 Customer
• Best Checker of Privilege
• Most Likely to Make Everyone Else Feel Terrible About Their Career Prospects with Their Insanely Prestigious Summer Internship
• Most Likely to Single-Handedly Keep Westside in the Black with Their Cookie/Salad/Dip Consumption
• Most Likely to Be on a First-Name Basis with Every JJ’s Place Employee
• Most Likely to Read Gender Trouble and Actually Understand It (more…)

It's just one letter away!

We’d like to take a moment to emerge from our very bitter Butler shell to extend a genuine congratulations to the seniors who’ve been inducted to Phi Beta Kappa, aka the nation’s oldest honor society, aka a BFD. (And if you’re still wondering what PBK is, you probably don’t have to check for your name on the list. But you can still read about it here!)

The newly inducted honorees are:

A: Shreya Agarwal, Yusuf Ahmad, Lauren Alpert, B: Audrey Baker, Katherine Balkoski, Noelle Bodick, C: Ashley Chin, Dane Cook, Jackson Cooper, Jacob Coppola, Philip Crandall, D: Joseph Daly, Samuel Draxler, Katherine Duh, E: Max Ehrman, F: Daniel Flicker, Elizabeth Foydel, G: Anne Gabriel, Priya Gandhi, Emma Gebert, Jou Glasheen, Erin Glennon, Sophie Gloeckler, Elyssa Goldberg, Felipe Goncalves, H: Perry Hampilos, Mark Hay, Benjamin Henderson, J: Victoria Jackson-Hanen, Alejandro Jinich, Madeleine Joseph, K: Colin Kinniburgh, Samuel Klug, Komal Kothari, Dylan Kotliar, Rafael Krichevsky, Rebecca Kutzer-Rice, L: Jacob Lasser, Cindy Law, Jiwoo Lee, William Leonard, Daniel Leong, Scott Levin, Emelyn Lih, Soo Youn Lim, Jodie Liu, Jordan Lord, Alexandra Lotero, Yin Yin Lu, M: Emma Manson, Katherine Marshall, Keith Miao, Laura Mills, Emilia Monell, N: Siddharth Nair, Michael Newman, Chimno Nnadi, O: Kelly O’Reilly, P: Sofia Pacheco-Fores, Vir Patel, Milesh Patel, Bartlomiej Piela, Lea Pollack, Samuel Preston, R: Jacob Rice, Julian Richers, Isabel Ricker, Kimberly Rubin, S: Usha Sahay, Sara Salzbank, John Sarlitto [full disclosure: !!!], Ian Scheffler, Amanda Schiff, Samuel Schube, Adria Schulman-Eyink, Ruijie Song, Erin Stahmer, Kevin Sun, Waradon Sungnak, T: Natasha Terhorst, V: Daniel Valella, W: Laura Waelbroeck, Yinou Wang, Elaine Wang, Erica Weaver, Fan Wu, Z: Katherine Zee

Delicious misread of actual acronym via Wikimedia Commons

See the list of previously inducted seniors after the jump.

Yesterday, while you were skipping class and sleeping in, the MacArthur Foundation announced this year’s 22 Genius Grant recipients, and Columbia graduate Alisa Weilerstein is one of them. A member of the Class of 2004, Weilerstein started playing the cello when she was four years old and debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra at just 13. The Foundation describes her as “a young cellist whose emotionally resonant performances of both traditional and contemporary music have earned her international recognition.” In other words, you are a complete failure in comparison to Alisa.

The MacArthur Genius Grants are awarded based upon anonymous nominations, and when Weilerstein heard the news, she was taken completely by surprise.

“I wrote kind of a rude email back because I really thought it was spam,” she says. Finally she contacted the MacArthur official, who had to explain to her exactly what the award was and told her that someone she knew “very well” has won the grant.

“Like a total idiot, I said, ‘who?’ And he said, ‘Well, you.’ I was in complete shock. I screamed and everything. I think they were highly amused.”

[NPR]

Along with the luxury of being called a genius, all Genius Grant recipients receive $500,000 in cold, hard cash.

Image from MacArthur Foundation

Nostalgic already

We’ve been telling you guys as they’ve been announced, but the final list of all Commencement and Class Day speakers, and the recipients of various other honors, has just been sent out. It does not include Barack Obama. It does include the professors who’ve won the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching, the largest university-wide prize for faculty. This year’s winners are:

• Mary Sheila S. Coronel, Toni Stabile Professor of Professional Practice in Investigative Journalism, (JSchool)
  
• Kenneth B. Frampton, Ware Professor of Architecture, (GSAPP),
• Richard Locke, Professor of professional practice in writing, (SoA)

and two you might actually have had, or at least heard of:

• Richard A. Korb, senior lecturer, (Dept. of Germanic Languages)
  
• Jill S. Shapiro, lecturer, (3EB).

We’ve compiled a lot of useful information about Commencement on the right-hand sidebar, as well as various tools for “aiding” the last of your cramming. We’re almost there guys!

Read the full press release

Learned accepts his plate award with childlike enthusiasm.

The old CCSC board convened one last time before finals. Brian Wagner reports, sheds one shiny tear.

• Norita Mengu was elected President of next year’s Elections Board. After she delivered a speech and answered a few questions from the board, the Council decided she had the experience and passion to bring about the reforms they hope to see next year.
• Returning to last week’s unresolved issue, the council voted to allow CCSC to play a large role in selecting leadership for Columbia’s Ivy Council. The final version of the resolution contained a few minor alterations, most significantly the Council explicitly stated that they will continue to fund only on-campus events.
• The Council did not make the Joint Co-Sponsorship Committee official. A member of the Committee spoke about the group’s trial run, and Council members debated back and forth over whether to amend the bylaws in order to make the Committee official next year. The resolution did not get the 2/3 majority needed to pass bylaw revisions; however next year’s Council will have the opportunity to revive this resolution.
• Next, the Council re-voted on two of the recommendations to the Elections Board that they did not pass last week. The recommendation to reduce the amount of flyers allotted to candidates by 50% was again rejected despite Learned’s pleadings (“My heart is breaking… and trees are breaking too!”). The council passed the  recommendation that alleged rule violations should be published on the EB’s website, but added the amendment that EB would only post after ruling on the violation (as opposed to all violations filed). Again, CCSC cannot force the Elections Board to do anything; these are simply recommendations.

Paper Plate Awards after the jump.  (more…)

Careful how you draft those plans

All sorts of plans grace the headlines today:

President Obama is to lay down his blueprint for economic recovery tonight. (NYTimes)

Blueprint appreciated: Barnard’s Diana Center is the recipient of the American Institute of Architects 2011 Honor Awards for Architecture.

Someone who knows the blueprints of NYC: Columbia University’s Professor Kenneth T. Jackson (of midnight bike ride fame), Professor in History and the Social Sciences who also really loves spaghetti. (NY Mag)

A lesson in planning–a blueprint gone wrong: How not to peddle information from Disney. (NY Post)

Image via Wikimedia

Columbia professors have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the journalism, law, philosophy and geography categories.

Portable showers were provided for travelers stranded at JFK, desperate for hygiene. (Gothamist)

Doormen all over the city are poised to strike. (NYT)

Some scientists stake the claim that 3D movies are bad for you, and can cause nausea and headaches. (NYT)

Today is 4/20 (Spec)

Image via Wikipedia

Graphic: http://www.mta.info

Metrocards may be on the rise next year because the MTA has no money. Start panicking. (Gothamist)

And Columbia had to give out fewer faculty awards because we don’t have a whole lot of, say, discretionary income. (Spectator)

Bike groups like Critical Mass are getting the legislative equivalent of a cop’s two-handed shove, and will be forced to organize events like, well, every other protest-ish group in the city. (The New York Times)

That HUGE, SEX- AND DRUG-FILLED David Paterson story isn’t so big after all. (The New York Times)

Coney Island will open a new amusement park, Luna Park, next year. Cheap amusements! (New York Post)

UPDATE: Sources close to Graybill say he will accept the Rhodes scholarship.

Raphael Graybill (CC ’10), fresh off receiving a Marshall Scholarship yesterday, was today named a Rhodes Scholar. Graybill will pursue the M.Phil. in Political Theory at Oxford while you continue to underachieve.  Bwog salutes you, Mr. Graybill–and we’re first in line to endorse you in 2024.

Bwog sat down with the latest Columbian to make the rest of his class look bad.

All-Amur’can Raphael Graybill (CC ’10) of Great Falls, Montana has recently been awarded the 2010 Marshall Scholarship. Each year, the prestigious award is granted to up to 40 American students of “high ability” to pursue graduate studies in the UK in any discipline. Graybill, a Political Science major, plans to study Political Theory at Oxford University in the fall.

The Marshall Scholarships were founded in 1953 to “commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan,” and to “express the continuing gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts.” Two other CC seniors, Mike Tannenbaum and Susanna O’Kula, were among the finalists for the award this year. This is the fourth year in a row that a Columbia student has been named a Marshall Scholar. Past scholars include Paul Sonne (CC ’07), Emma Kaufman (CC ’08) and Sam Daly (CC ’09).

Graybill’s studies at Columbia have been focused on the intersection between politics, psychology, and communication. “I’ve been lucky to learn under the best Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology faculties in the world,” says Graybill; “I am eager to apply what I’ve learned both as a student and as a practitioner of politics to future work in political theory at Oxford.” (more…)

Dying from a heart attack, seizing up, or miscarrying from the swine flu vaccine? The Feds say not to worry, this kind of stuff happens all the time, vaccine or no vaccine. (NYT)

Support or disagree with a University Senate-imposed Smoking ban? Hold your horses! In their first meeting of the year, PrezBo reminded them that the Senate only advises and doesn’t “have the power to implement” these kinds policies. (Spec)

Thinking the 96th Street transfer after hours on the 1 is the worst subway experience in New York? An MTA survey reveals otherwise; the worst station in the system is actually in Queens, where weeds have even sprouted. (NY1)

Happen to be in Brooklyn on Sunday? Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy if you saw 2,000 people walking invisible dogs. (improveverywhere.com)

Would you defend to the grave that Chicken and Rice is the best cart vendor in the city? Sorry, but the 5th annual Vendy Awards give this distinction to a taco stand in Brooklyn. You know, right next to the invisible dogs. (NY1)

 Image via Flickr

The architecture firm behind the new geochemistry building at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has won three design awards at the 2009 Sustainable Design Awards (building pictured at right). 

Xerox’s new CEO, the first African American women CEO of a Fortune 500 company, is also a Columbia graduate. Her degree? Master’s in engineering.

Three more Columbia faculty members have been named to the National Academy of Sciences.

Obama nominates a Mailman School professor to a Health and Human Services post.

Perhaps this will help him get an award: a Columbia pre-med student is featured in a Times article about web sites for cramming.

Our heartiest congratulations to professors James Leighton and Mark Mazower, the newest recipients of the Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling Awards, respectively. The awards were doled out by the Columbia College Academic Awards Committee, which is made up of 10 CC students who have overseen the selection process throughout the year.

Leighton is a Chemistry professor who teaches the infamously difficult Organic Chemistry class to undergrads. He has also done extensive research into strategies in asymmetric synthesis (eek!) and has already won the CU Lenfest Distinguished Faculty Award.

Mazower, a History professor, earned the Trilling Prize for his eighth book Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe. Both CULPA gold-stars will be honored in a ceremony in Low Library on May 7th. 

- Barnard College

Rosalind Rosenberg is this year’s winner of the Emily Gregory Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award, named for Barnard’s first female teacher, is bestowed annually by students on a member of the faculty.

Rosenberg’s popular courses include American Women in the 20th Century, and she holds “Silver Nugget” on her CULPA page. Her book Divided Lives: American Women in the 20th Century was published last spring in a new edition.

It’s also perhaps the most meta-award ever: the third result on a Google search of “Emily Gregory Award” is a biography of Emily Gregory – by Rosenberg! It’s a small, small world.