It’s no fun to be stuck in a sweaty classroom while those of us who skip class the rest of the world frolics outside in the sunshine. Over the past week, Bwog has reached out across academic disciplines, to professors young and old, to assess their stances on teaching out of doors. While some highly respected figures remain staunchly opposed, we’ve learned that not all professors who teach outside are chumps (Oh hai Professor Foner!)–even Law professors do it too!

Up For Debate - Slade vs. Brinkley

Carole Slade: “I occasionally teach class outside, but very occasionally, when I have spring fever myself. Usually, I petition the weather gods for a cool, damp spring that warms up just after the last day of classes. I find it difficult to accomplish much outside, given that it’s hard to hear one another and there are so many distractions. I don’t take the class outside more than once, sometimes twice, and only when the day is too delicious to miss. Sometimes I quote a professor of mine who used to say, ‘Serious people do not hold class outside.’ I probably don’t say it with quite his seriousness, because it doesn’t work as well for me as it did for him.”

Alan Brinkley: “I don’t know why, but I’ve never taught outdoors. I have no objection to it in principle, but for whatever reason I haven’t done it. (Nor have students ever proposed moving outdoors in any class I’ve taught as far as I can recall.) I certainly don’t assume that professors who teach outdoors are any less serious than those who don’t.”

Foner, Awn and Katznelson after the jump!

Read more…

Photo via mtv.com

BSchool professor Adam Dell is Padma’s babydaddy.

At long last: beekeeping is legal in New York. GS student Sam Elchert is relieved.

More on GS and the G.I Bill: GS student John McClelland talks to the BBC about his time as an Army medic.

Generally Big Deal Person and History Professor David Eisenbach is writing a book with Larry Flynt called One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents and First Ladies Shaped America. Sounds just like his old History Channel special, “Beltway Unbuckled” (no joke).

Remember the girl who conned Columbia? Now she’s a movie.

Madonna Constantine lost the first of her three lawsuits against Teacher’s College.

- Photo by CEE

Bwog Theism Bureau Chief James Downie grabbed a stiff plastic chair in Roone Arledge for the first Veritas Forum event. The second event will be tonight at 8:00 PM in Miller Theater.  The third event, which includes Matisyahu, will take place tomorrow at 7:00 PM in Miller Theater. 

The evening began on an odd note, after the moderator, Professor David Eisenbach, remembered that he had a new television show coming out. Called “Beltway Unbuckled,” and appearing on the History Channel in March, Eisenbach asked the attendees to watch the pilot,  promising that “you’ll never look at Abraham Lincoln the same way again.” The audience groaned at the image.

The evening’s question was “Is God Necessary for Morality?” and the first speaker, Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan, argued no. Kagan instead posited that a self-sufficient morality can be constructed from basic rational desires, such as helping rather than harming others. As to why the belief that evil is wrong is so strong, and where that strength comes from, he admitted that atheist philosophers disagree on answers. Some believe in social contracts between people, others suppose a veil of ignorance, but, more importantly, there is some rational basis under all of it – “the rules of morality are an objective fact, what philosophers refer to as categorical.” Contemporary Civ references would only increase as the night went on. Read more…

Everyone’s elections predictions (which took up most of the “Columbia University” hits this week) came out alright, but there are still more predictions to come.

Stiglitz says “Yes We Can…eventually”

Eisenbach says “See?  I told you this one would be different.”

A Columbia scientist says, “The predictions were too late.”

Those who were around in ’68 say, “It’s gonna be just like it used to be, dang nabbit.”

Columbia should be post-gender…We shouldn’t just have to live with people of the same sex, they were assigned to that at birth.

Columbia should be a safe-haven for all minority groups…After this, the Republicans will demand their own lounge on campus.

Columbians, you better read up on your Gay History if you want to fight against the Reagan Revolution.  Step 1, buy David Eisenbach’s book.

To all the West Coasters among you, never go home if you care about the environment.  Instead, take the Bus Rapid Transit system to the Bronx!

Ivy League dating is so passe, go for a highly successful investment banker…

Procrastination doesn’t have to mean venturing far.  Lectures, laughs, and lame ledes, all on campus.

Sunday

Photo Scavenger Hunt: Run around campus with photography nerds and try to take the most super-awesomest pictures to win an unspecified prize!  4:00 PM.

Monday

Elections and the US Media: An international panel of journalists discusses the coverage of the 2008 elections by American media.  7:00 PM.

Tuesday

The Secret Life of Bees: Free screening in Lerner Cinema.  Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, and Queen Latifah!  Director Gina Prince-Bythewood will be there for a post-show Q&A.  2:00 PM.

Read more…

Lecture Hop editor Pierce Stanley reports on a strange visitor in the hallowed halls of American history.

(Hi Daily Intelligencer!)



Recent semesters at Columbia have seen the arrival of some of the world’s brightest and most eloquent speakers at fair Alma, broadening academic discourse on campus in a very fruitful way. Unfortunately, for all of the good speakers that come to Columbia, some bad ones happen to slip through the cracks. Indeed, these years have also been witness to some of the most controversial, questionable, and even disgraceful speakers on campus in recent years.

The appearance this afternoon of Obama Girl (a.k.a. actress Amber Lee Ettinger) in Professor David Eisenbach’s American Presidency history course likely falls into the latter category, with Eisenbach’s choice of speaker being questionable at best.  Amber’s visit this evening to Mike Gravel’s Communications Director’s course (just in case you missed her live-chat on YouTube last night) sparked both interest in the topic at hand–the role of viral videos and the YouTube generation in determining the eventual outcome of the 2008 Presidential election–and it sparked much controversy as to whether a minor actress (who doesn’t even do her own singing, failed to vote in the last election, and claims that she does not even really have a crush on one of Columbia’s favorite alums) should receive such a reception in the hallowed halls of the classroom.  Many Columbia students left the classroom in IAB befuddled by Amber’s appearance and by Professor Eisenbach’s impromptu decision to hold such an event.  Some left not knowing quite what to make of Obama Girl’s appearance on campus.  Overheard: “Are we really paying $40,000 plus a year to line up and take pictures with her like shes Santa?  I feel like a five year old kid again.”

Read more…

Bwog correspondent Christopher Morris-Lent  attends a Friendly Fire-Columbia Political Union-sponsored event and encounters a man who savors the taste of defeat .

On Friday afternoon, a ragtag group of people streamed into the hallowed space at the top of Earl Hall to see Mike Gravel, once a senator from Alaska and now running a quixotic campaign for president, speak on a variety of issues ranging from why he dislikes all politicians to what you can do about it.  The audience, which ultimately numbered about 70 people and consisted of about ninety percent males and at least fifty percent policy wonks, grew steadily in size until Gravel arrived, accompanied by his speechwriter and History department lecturer, Dave Eisenbach.

Eisenbach is perhaps best known around campus as the founder of Friendly Fire, ostensibly a series of discussions targeted at deconstructing what he sees as Columbia’s “problem” with free speech and featuring vocal critics of the University (Jim Gilchrist, Karina Garcia, Bob Podhoretz) squaring off against one another in a debate-style format. Yesterday, however, he eschewed his typical role as the impartial moderator and assumed that of a salesman, delivering a rousing introduction on behalf of the man whom he once called “an American hero.”

Read more…