The school year has ended and next fall many professors will be packing their bags and leaving behind their Metrocards for the greener pastures of other universities — Yale, in particular, seems to be popular among Columbia’s professorial population. (Another way professors are just like us!) Bwog’s rounded up some arrivals and departures of your beloved faculty, but let us know who we missed and we’ll update the post. 

David Kastan, the chair of the English Department and Edward Said Professor of English and Comparative Literature is heading to New Haven. 

Noam Elcott will be joining the Art History Department as an assistant professor. Bonus fun fact: Elcott was The Blue and White’s first moder editor (in 1998), following its 100 year hiatus. 

Also heading to Yale is the Music Department’s Brian Kane, who was at CU for a post-doctorate teaching fellowship.

Owen Gutfreund, responding to the University’s decision not to grant him tenure, announced in January that he was uncertain whether he would remain at Columbia (as an associate professor of urban studies and director of BC/CU Urban Studies Programs) after this spring. A quick glance at the course directory reveals that Gutfreund will not be teaching any Fall 2008 classes.

Lit Hum lecturer Jill Muller did not receive a contract renewal

Say goodbye to Annalies Wouters of Classics

Another loss for the Music Department as Ruth Rosenberg heads to the University of Illinois, Chicago.

Professor of Political Science Thomas Pogge is headed to Yale’s Philosophy Department (if you’re keeping score, that’s three for Yale).

Philosophy professor and YouTube user Christia Mercer is taking a sabbatical, as is Bwog’s inamorato, the Abelard to our Heloise, the Antony to our Cleopatra, English and Comp. Lit professor Bruce Robbins. 

Next school year marks the beginning of Barnard’s hunger-striking Professor of Political Science Dennis Dalton‘s retirement.

Philosophy professors/married persons Patricia and Philip Kitcher return from sabbatical, the later of whom will be teaching Michael Seidel’s Joyce course in the fall.

Bwog tipster Daniel Wong stumbled upon an old timey map of campus dating back to 1981 A.D. The map is fairly similar to those being handed out today, but Wong and Bwog noticed several differences, which we have archived for posterity—along with the full map—after the jump. 

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A rare bit of apolitical tenure news at Columbia arrived today in the form of an email from Urban Studies program director Owen Gutfreund, who announced that he had been denied tenure and will be leaving as soon as next year. Gutfreud, an expert on urban sprawl, had the reputation of being an engaging lecturer and remarkably accessible: “His door was literally always open,” recalls one Urban Studies major. Though of course no professor is without faults (reportedly attempting to convince an entire class to purchase Sim City, for one) Gutfreud’s departure is a great loss to the Urban Studies department and to the University. Full email after the jump.

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If you’re like us, you’ve spent many a seminar playing “guess the biggest secret of the person sitting next to you.” We’ve concocted a twisted past habit or two, but we didn’t think of naked urban spelunking until this article in the Times today provided us with ample imagery. The piece has weird Pupin lore, overt fetishization, hip post-industrial aesthetics, “human vulnerability,” and all the rest of what you love. Thanks Nick Kelly for pointing it out. 

According to an article in The Villager, Dean Yatrakis’s daughter and her husband are fighting with the city over the right to evict their tenants.
This development may make Yatrakis’s Contemporary Urban Issues Colloquium a little more interesting.