Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next

AROUND THE QUADS

Campus Bulletins

Dean Austin Quigley (left) greets Bob Berne '60 at Dean's Day 2002. PHOTO: LOU ROCCO

DEAN’S DAY

The College’s annual Dean’s Day will be held on Saturday, April 12. Following the dean’s address and breakfast at 9:30 a.m., there are three sessions of lectures scheduled for 10:45 a.m., 2 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. This year’s academic program features a track on the Teaching of Science, the Arts, and Contemporary Issues in Political Science. There also is an array of humanities and social science lectures. The luncheon will feature a special student performance of musical numbers and skits from this year’s Varsity Show. The day ends with the traditional Dean’s Reception.

Invitations have been mailed. The cost of the breakfast, lectures and reception is $35 for alumni/ parents and $25 for young alumni. The luncheon is available by itself for $25. For further details, please contact Heather Applewhite, assistant director of alumni affairs, at (212) 870-2757 or hh15@columbia.edu. To register online, please visit the College’s Calendar of Alumni Events.

APPLICATIONS

Continuing a decade-long trend, applications for admission to the College Class of 2007 rose to record numbers, with 14,562 applications received by the Admissions Office as of February 1 for 1,050 places in the class. This represents an increase of approximately 3 percent over last year’s total of 14,135.

There was an even greater increase in early decision applications, which rose 11 percent to 1,805. Despite this increase, the College plans to keep the percentage of the class that comes from the early decision pool to about 45 percent, down a bit from a year ago but about at the same level as most recent years, according to Dean Austin Quigley.

SEAS and Barnard, which saw applications decrease a year ago, also were up for the Class of 2007.

JOHN JAY ONLINE

Columbia Libraries has launched a virtual archive, “The Papers of John Jay, 1745–1829”, an image database that includes thousands of pages scanned from copies of original documents. It links to unpublished correspondence, memos, diaries and diplomatic papers written by or to Jay, who graduated from Columbia when the school was known as King’s College and was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court. The papers include letters to and from George Washington, John Adams, James Monroe, Benjamin Franklin and other luminary figures from early U.S. history.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Florence Gould Foundation, the archive makes available to students and researchers primary resources that have in the past been difficult to find or link to one another. Among the topics that may be explored are farming, building, philanthropy, legal practice, the courts, education, political intrigue, health and what might be called “memorializing the revolution” in the early 19th century.

BIOSPHERE

The New York Times reported on January 22 that the University was considering reducing its financial support for Biosphere 2, the research center near Tucson. The University announced in December that it will relocate its Master’s in Public Administration in Earth Systems Science, Policy and Management from the Biosphere campus to New York.

In a subsequent article in Spectator, Robert Kasdin, senior executive v.p., was quoted as saying that the University would fulfill all existing obligations with regard to Biosphere 2 but that officials at both Columbia and Biosphere are seeking to create a consortium of other research institutions and government agencies to provide future funding. “The focus of the leadership of the Biosphere is continuing to be the creation of a consortium that will carry the Biosphere forward,” said Kasdin, who described the goal of Biosphere as “self-sustainability.”

Biosphere was built and financed primarily by billionaire Edward P. Bass. Columbia took over management of the facility in 1996. Since that time, the University has seen the arrival of a new president, Lee C. Bollinger, and a new director of the Earth Institute, Jeffrey Sachs. The New York-based Earth Institute oversees Columbia’s involvement with Biosphere.

SEMINARY

Columbia has announced plans to lease three buildings from the neighboring Union Theological Seminary for 49 years. The University will use the seminary buildings for academic purposes, which could include extra classrooms or offices. Union, the oldest nondenominational seminary in the nation, also plans to transfer its million-volume library collection to Columbia in July 2004; the University will assume all operating costs of the library by the end of 2005. Union’s library houses one of the pre-eminent theological collections in the country, including early editions of the Bible in Greek, Latin and Hebrew. Columbia and Union presently offer joint master‘s and doctoral programs in religion, and students are permitted to use libraries at either campus.

103rd STREET

As the 110th Street residence/school nears completion, the University has unveiled plans for more faculty housing, this time one subway stop further south. Columbia plans to build a 10-story structure with an estimated 96 apartments on the east side of Broadway between 103rd and 104th Streets, a site now occupied by a two-story building, according to a presentation made to Community Board 7 in mid-December.

CINCOTTI

What has Peter Cincotti ’05 been up to since being profiled in CCT (May 2002)? He has completed a self-titled debut album, which was produced by Phil Ramone and is scheduled for release by Concord Records on March 11. That’s shortly after he winds up a month-long return headline engagement at the prestigious Oak Room of the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Cincotti has several other concert appearances scheduled, and he’s been getting rave reviews: The Hollywood Reporter called him “a star in the making” and The New York Times said he was “going on legend.”

WHISTLER

Michael Barimo ’06 won first place in the men’s division of the Millennium World Championship of Musical Whistling, held recently in Edmonton, Alberta. He has whistled on stage in Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, and on March 3 was scheduled to have his Carnegie Hall premiere. He began whistling at age 3, imitating the sounds of a pet canary. A dedicated opera singer, he got his big break when an oboist for the orchestra of an opera in which he was acting called in sick; Barimo whistled his part. A member of the Millennium competition was in the audience, heard him, and invited him to compete.

Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next