While we undergrads have been sunning ourselves and relaxing—read: feverishly catching up on the TV we missed during finals in a dark room, breaking only to snack—our profs and deans have been keeping busy, as usual. Read on to find out what they’ve been doing/saying/writing…

Making Headlines

• Admiral Eric Olson, who played a pretty big part in the raid that led to Osama bin Laden’s death last year, is coming to town. Specifically, our very own part of town—according to this piece, Olson will be teaching a class about military strategy come September. (NYT)
• According to an anonymous SEAS professor, 90 percent of the tenured faculty voted “no confidence” in Dean Peña-Mora. (Spec)
• Dean of Financial Aid Laurie Schaffler is resigning, and heading out West. KevSho says it might be awhile ’til she’s replaced. (Spec)

Getting Bylines

• Nick LeMann, Dean of the J-School, asks how valuable a college degree really is. The upshot: Ivy League schools are actually underpriced. (New Yorker)
• Meanwhile, chair of the Religion Department Mark Taylor says that competition is killing higher education. (City Wire)
• Phillip Lopate, the director of Columbia’s Nonfiction Writing program, reviews Jonathan Franzen’s essay collection, and sheds some light on his relationship with David Foster Wallace. (NYT)

Laying Down The Law

• The Law School is so fed up with professors giving grades out late that the Dean is allegedly now threatening to fine and publicly shame professors who don’t get their grades in on time. (Above the Law)
• In more positive news—at least for Columbia—Law School students released a 400-page report proving that Texas executed an innocent man. (The Atlantic)

Sitting, waiting... craning. (And you thought that was going to be a Jack Johnson reference. Tsk.)

Sadly, the pair of cranes visible in the distance from the 1 stop at 125th street is not an elaborate teaser for a new surprise Star Wars installment (we’re crushed, too).

In fact, they’re towering over the site of Columbia’s new Manhattanville campus. The cranes signify the start of work on the slurry wall, an impressive two year engineering feat that will keep ground water from seeping into the foundation—meaning it will still be some time before the campus starts taking shape above ground. Meanwhile local residents can get excited about their new sewage and drainage system, a much-needed (and greener!) upgrade from the previous one that dates back to the 19th century. The following comes from the September issue of the Columbia newsletter:

If you read our February issue, you’d have heard of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, a group of blue chips that has been meeting for the last two years to come up with some sort of statement on what do about our warming world. Last Tuesday, they came out with their joint statement, which has been garnering a lot of low-level press around the world. The statement itself is nothing to get your knickers in a knot over; mostly the conventional wisdom of what needs to happen that’s been out there for years, with lukewarm verbs like “provide,” “support,” and “encourage.” (Meanwhile, these guys are saying the same thing, but less delicately.) The list of groups endorsing is about half the size of those participating in the process–Ford, Google, and Wal-Mart are conspicuously absent. But many of those who didn’t sign as organizations have added their names as individuals, and now you can too! An e-mail went out on the ABC listserv asking students to get on the bandwagon. And chuck your car keys on your way out.

- LBD

Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman Project, has been brought down, not by protestors rushing the stage but by internal strife in his own organization, and is now fighting to regain his power. According to current Minuteman leadership, Gilchrist improperly used the organization’s funds for his own purposes, illegally sent mail at nonprofit rates without filing for nonprofit status, and has not accounted for up to $400,000 in Minuteman funds.  According to Gilchrist, bitches set him up. The LA Times reports that Gilchrist accused his accusers of being motivated by “a greed for power and a false perception of an endless stream of money.” Meanwhile, they are upset with their former leader using Minuteman funds to pay his court fees in his case against them.  Gilchrist’s replacement? Marvin Stewart, his opening speaker at Columbia. Minutemen: we know they hate themselves, or at least each other. – DHI

The Spectator hits newsstands every weekday morning, and it’s easy to forget that actual people work around the clock making it happen. Last Thursday Bwog caught up with the News Editors, Josh Hirschland and Erin Durkin, to talk about riots, skipping class, and what makes it all worth it.

I know it’s kind of a strange request, but I thought the campus would appreciate knowing a little about how the news is made.

Josh: We’re happy to help Bwog.

Erin: [Laughs]

So, why would you want this job?

Josh: I, for one, love the organization. I think that Spectator is an incredible thing. I know that when I came into Columbia, I was a very different person than I am now, and it’s because of this organization. I’ve met some incredible people who have shaped me and helped me to become a better person. I believe that this organization can do some wonderful things and make for a wonderful college experience. And the opportunity to help a new group of reporters to do that was just a breathtaking opportunity. That’s what gets me excited every day.

Erin: I agree with what Josh said, and to me it’s really a privilege to be able to decide and shape what goes on a front page that the campus and the neighborhood is going to get their info from every day. It’s an important responsibility and it’s hard and I like that it’s hard, but to me it’s something that has to be done because I love the opportunity to find out something that no one knows and to tell them. And especially when it something that’s really important to their day-to-day lives, I like being able to do that on a larger scale by being in charge of a news section. I like intensity, I like things that are challenging and difficult, I need something to do. I like the feeling that I’m—I’m so inarticulate, I knew this was going to happen! Something that my training editor told me that I never realized how true it was until now was even if you didn’t want to be a reporter, even if you didn’t really like Spectator that much, it’s just a great way to be a students at Columbia University and a great way to be a resident of New York City because you’re so much more engaged with what’s going on around you. (more…)

In a debate that could serve as a case study for a 2007 edition of James Davison Hunter’s Culture Wars, followers of conservative Judaism have fought long and hard over whether to ordain homosexual rabbis. At the center of the argument lies the Columbia-affiliated Jewish Theological Seminary, the generally-accepted center of Conservative Jewish thought. Although a decision for the broader congregation was made in early December (pro-gay rights), individual institutions (like JTS) have been left to resolve the issue for themselves.

Some mensches at JTS took the matter on and have lobbied for the implementation of the progressive policy, but a verdict hasn’t been made as of late. The newest development is JTS’ cumulation of opinions of Conservative Jews across the US, picked up by the national news. Armin Rosen sent in JTS Chancellor-elect Arnold Eisen’s e-mail with the results of the survey on homosexual ordination (“and other hot-button religious issues”). Rosen writes that the e-mail reflects “remarkably consistent support for gay ordination across the board… whether clergy or other Jewish professionals or lay leaders or students”, and the respondents’ “no-less-striking… commitment to a number of key principles of Conservative Judaism, notably the centrality of halakhah and egalitarianism; the need for a centralized Rabbinical Assembly Law Committee; and opposition to both patrilineal descent and rabbis officiating at mixed marriages.”

In sum, it ain’t over ’till it’s over. Which it’s not.  Text of the e-mail and more commentary after the jump.

- JDC

(more…)

Herein dumpeth Bwog various unrelated chunks of news, information, and gossip…

SoA Films Score Big

Three films produced by School of the Arts alums have received major accolades. At the Sundance Film Festival, Padre Nuestro, written and directed by Christopher Zalla and produced by Ben Odell (both SoA ’04) took the Grand Jury Prize for best dramatic film, while Grace is Gone, written and directed by current MFA writing candidate James C. Strouse (who also won the Walter Salt Award for best screenplay) and co-produced by Jessica Levin (SoA ’02), won an Audience Award for favorite dramatic film. In Hollywood, meanwhile, Little Miss Sunshine, produced by Albert Berger (SoA ’83) has received four Oscar nominations, incuding one for best picture.

SoA isn’t the only Columbia school celebrating filmic success, however. The Audience Award for favorite documentary at Sundance went to Hear and Now, directed by Irene Taylor Brodsky (J-School ’97), and (update!) Rosie Bsheer, a PhD student in the History Department, worked as an assistant producer for My Country, My Country, nominated for an Oscar for best documentary.

The university homepage is only too happy to gloat, not to mention provide a teleological narrative of the SoA film division’s rise to greatness. Bask in vicarious afterglow here.

Opine!

Spec’s editorial page wants to get the word out – it’s looking for 200-300 word reactions to Saifedean Ammous’ Jan. 26 piece “Recognizing Palestine’s Struggle“. The short articles should not be point by point refutations but address generally some of the issues with which Ammous’ piece is concerned, e.g. the direction of the anti-war movement or Israel’s human rights record. The articles will run on Monday as part the first of many “Spec Symposia,” a series of 4-7 short takes on a single issue. Submissions are due to specopinion [at] columbia.edu by Friday at 6PM; anyone remotely connected to Columbia or Middle East studies is ecouraged to contribute.

More minutiae after the jump…

(more…)

We don’t do it for the glory, but it is nice to get some recognition once in a while (even if it is from another blog). US News and World Report’s higher education page, The Paper Trail, is running a reader poll of the year’s campus news, and we’re up there for Best Alternative Media Outlet. So, go check out the offerings, and vote your college-educated hearts out. The faster our numbers go up, the less we’ll have to self-servingly bug you about it.

Just please don’t let us get beat by Wesleyan.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

- Whoa! She almost made it—Esther Reed that is, who was attending GS under the name of a missing woman, Brooke Henson. The tale of her undoing, which the New York Post is following with all the salacious zeal of, well, the New York Post, would make a good story for your dinner at Aunt Clara’s tonight.

By the way, Columbia isn’t being obstructionist, as the article not-so-subtly claims. There really is a law that prevents them from giving people your personal information, so you can sleep soundly again.

- Your second crack at registration probably begins today, and our magical webmaster Zach “the Man” van Schouwen has whipped up a handy Firefox plug-in that will help you search CULPA that much easier.  Don’t wonder how he did it, just use.

- File this under all the reasons you’re glad you didn’t go to Penn.

- If you’re not one of the 513 + people who’ve already been invited to join, the late Dogears has been supplanted…by a facebook group. Next to go, Craigslist?

- BW staffer Paul Barndt spotted Professor David Sidorsky, currently Columbia’s longest-serving member of the philosophy faculty, at Dreamgirls.

- LBD