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Around the Quads

ALUMNI BULLETINS

KLEIN AT LERNER

Speaking to an assembly of students, schoolteachers and community members in Roone Arledge Auditorium on February 3, New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein ’67 rued the current climate of education and promoted major changes for the city’s schools. “If we fail public education, we fail the American dream,” Klein stated at the event, which was sponsored by the student-run Columbia Political Union.

In his speech, Klein depicted an education system with reversed values — prone to lowering expectations in order to yield results and promoting an environment of complacency, with teachers having no incentive to be innovative. Klein also spoke of a need to re-examine the standards by which many educational departments are judged, suggesting that the merit of a program be judged by level of performance, not how much was spent. He appears to be keen to keep the initiative of this model as he revamps the education system from the top down.

ON STAGE

Brian Dennehy ’60 returns to Broadway as James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, which opens May 6 at the Plymouth Theatre. The star-studded cast also includes Vanessa Redgrave, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard. The play is directed by Robert Falls, who also directed Dennehy’s last Broadway effort: his portrayal of Willy Loman in the 1999 production of Death of a Salesman, which won him the Tony Award for best actor.

OSCAR NOMINEES

Two College alumni were among the nominees at the 75th annual Academy Awards, but neither took home the coveted statue. Bill Condon ’76 was nominated in the category of best adapted screenplay for Chicago, and Yana Gorskaya ’96 was nominated in the category of best documentary feature for Spellbound.

E-Community Version 2.0 Makes Joining Easier

Since it was introduced last year, more than 3,000 alumni have become members of the Columbia College E-Community, the College’s online community for alumni. They’ve used the E-Community to reconnect with classmates, learn about alumni events, participate in online discussions and stay in touch with Columbia.

Now, with version 2.0, the E-Community is better than ever.
An improved registration procedure makes joining easier. In earlier versions, gaps in the Columbia database made it difficult for many to use their Social Security numbers to register. Now, an alum can use the last five digits of the subscription number that appears on the Columbia College Today mailing label (see image) to join.
An advanced user interface makes it easier to update information, upload photos and navigate the site.

A groundbreaking communities function connects you with the people you were closest to at the College. E-Community Version 2.0 features many smaller communities to help you stay involved. Your graduating class is a community, but so is any alumni group to which you might belong. Within the larger E-Community, each community has its own page that serves as a one-stop shop for all the community’s services, including discussion boards, calendars, directories and notes.

Online facebooks let you see your friends and classmates. Each community, whether it’s a class or club, has its own facebook of photos that members have submitted.

Whether you’re already a member or you haven’t yet joined, now’s a great time to check out the E-Community. You can log in or sign up at the E-Community welcome page: https://alumni.college.columbia.edu/ecom.

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