The holidays light up Columbia

On Tuesday, Columbia continued two of its most revered traditions. Students were on hand for the lighting of College Walk followed by the Yule Log ceremony in John Jay. In her first public speech at Columbia, Dean Moody Adams spoke about the importance of light and religious diversity.

"In each of these traditions, we participate in traditions that unite us, even as they mark our religious and cultural uniqueness. They unite us because they are traditions that provide us with an occasion to celebrate the symbolic and the universal importance of life."

The chilly air could not prevent the Dean from lighting up the stage. Students, on the other hand, were not as receptive to the cold weather. Students commented that:

"The event was really nice. It was a bit long and we were cold, but it was worth it.

"Personally, I was kind of disappointed. You know, I was expecting this event to be kind of a fun study break, but mostly it was speeches. The speeches are important, I realize, but they took up too much of the time."

"There’s so many people, and there’s no more hot chocolate or cider, so I’m sad."

The tree lighting ceremony marks the beginning of the holiday season at Columbia. But with the end of the semester fast approaching, students are having a difficult time finding the holiday spirit.

"I think because of finals and stuff it diminishes,"

"Yea, it gets totally massacred."

"It’s going to last throughout the semester. It’s going to be a bit down later because of finals week, but the spirit’s going to be here."

"Half the people are really busy with finals and that’s all that’s on their minds and they just bounce from library to library, writing paper after paper, and therefore they sort of neglect the holiday spirit. But some people when they walk on College Walk, they appreciate the lights, maybe they’re thinking about it. But mainly it’s finals, I’d say."

"And the holidays isn’t about large events, it’s about the small things you do with your friends and floor mates, so I think this is definitely just the beginning."

College Walk will be lit every night until the end of February, which is a good thing; with finals less than two weeks away, this may be the only light students see walking out of Butler.

Courts deny CU expansion

On Thursday the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court decided in a 3 to 2 vote that the state cannot use eminent domain to obtain land for Columbia in West Harlem. This could potentially put a damper on the University's plans to substantially expand campus for the first time in 75 years. But Columbia still owns 91% of the property in the area and can just build around the property owners challenging the university's take-over. Planning and construction will still go ahead in full force but the court's decision will have an effect on future city development plans.

Noam Chomsky takes over the IAB

Noam Chomsky, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at MIT, came to Columbia on Thursday to discuss hypocrisy and “schizophrenia” in American foreign policy. Speaking at the fifth annual Edward W. Said Memorial Lecture, Chomsky was critical of America's role in the Middle East. Noam Chomsky, an important figure in modern linguistics and philosophy, is also known for his anti-imperialist views. Chomsky drew such large crowd on Thursday that the International Affairs Building had to be shut down before his lecture began.

Clinton discusses the spread of AIDS

Also on campus this week was former President Clinton who visited campus Tuesday December 1st to speak at a panel marking World AIDS Day. The panel was organized by the Mailman School of Public Health, where his daughter, Chelsea, is a graduate student. Joined in Roone Arledge by other panelists from throughout the university, Clinton spoke on the state and stigma of the AIDS epidemic both in the United States and abroad. The conversation focused on HIV/AIDS programs and health care systems, particularly in developing countries and was part of a day long symposium on "Universal Access and Human Rights."

Administration comments on gender-neutral housing

After the undergraduate student councils as well as the Housing Advisory Board passed resolutions in support of the gender-neutral housing policy, the measure now awaits final approval by Vice President for Auxiliary Services Scott Wright. CTV News spoke with Scott Wright to discuss his position on the proposal.

"Students have brought it to us as a way that they feel that housing would be improved and their experience in housing would be enhanced, if it was an option for those students who wanted to live with someone of the opposite gender in a double room," said Wright.

As Columbia refines the details of the new policy, officials are limited in their ability to compare their plan with that of Housing offices at peer institutions.

"Candidly, looking at the way it has been implemented in other areas wouldn't do that much for Columbia. Looking at other institutions has not had a big impact on us. The reason I bring that up is that in other areas, it's been very limited in scope and in some cases, to only juniors and seniors," explained Wright.

Wright also believes that the transition to gender neutral housing can be beneficial to certain groups of students, even if they do not take advantage of the policy.

"Right now, most juniors and seniors live in single rooms, so while it could be attractive for them to room with somebody. That is a possibility in particular areas, like Watt which are two person apartments. The real opportunity, if you look at the way that housing is currently being selected by students, is for sophomores. So, there was not much precedence in the Ivy League or Ivy plus group for what the students have proposed to Columbia," commented Wright.

Students complimented the joint effort between student groups, student government, and administration in cooperatively developing the policy.

"The administration has been extraordinarily cooperative and they really put in a lot of effort to not only just work with us, but also to understand the terms and whom the policy affect. Dean Scully-Kromm and Housing & Dining have been fantastic so far," said Barry Weinberg (Treasurer, EAHH)

If implementation of the policy remains on schedule, gender-neutral housing should be available this coming spring, just in time for the 2010-2011 room selection process. Nevertheless, the full impact that this will have on the Columbia community remains to be seen.

Barnard dissects the science requirements

Barnard students and administrators held a town hall forum on Monday night to discuss the future of the university's science requirement. In the Nine Ways of Knowing curriculum, students must complete two semesters of the same scientific discipline along with corresponding labs. Many students find the requirement to be excessive. The faculty, however, emphasized its importance to a well-rounded education. If Barnard decides to rework the requirement, changes will have to be recommended and considered by the Committee on Instruction, before being presented to the entire Barnard faculty.

Iran accuses Columbia graduate of spying

An update on Kian Tajbakhsh, the Iranian American scholar and urban planner who is serving a 15 year sentence in Tehran for spying. Tajbaksh received his doctorate from Columbia and was back in Iran living with his wife when he was arrested for spying after the disputed presidential election in June. News just came this past week that he also been given new charges of spying for the "Open Society Institute" which is a pro-democracy group founded by george Soros. Mr. Tajbaksh appealed the original charge, but was transferred to solitary confinement right after. His family is concerned for his safety in light of recent activist cases in Iran as well as Iran's standing as a world leader in numbers of capital punishments. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently put out a statement calling for the release of Tajbaksh and both the State Department and Columbia University are doing what they can to support his case.

Sports Roundup

Earlier this week, ten Columbia student-athletes were named Academic All-Ivy League for the fall season. In order to be eligible for the Academic All-Ivy League squad, a student-athlete must have at least a 3.0 GPA and be a team starter or key reserve. On the competitive side of sports, the Columbia basketball team dropped it's fourth match of the season, losing at Stony Brook, 63-60. The Lions went on a 14-3 run in the second half to bring the game within two points, but failed to make a shot on the games final possession. The Lions will try to get back to a .500 record when they play at Wagner on Tuesday.

Lost and Found

Losing items such as cellphones, laptops or even IDs can be a stressful situation and, for many Columbia students, one without a real solution.

"If a wallet or phone is lost I haven't seen many options of recovering it."

"Yeah I guess I'd go to public safety or maybe print out some flyers and put them around."

"If you lose something at Columbia it's probably gone."

Located on the first floor of Low Library, Public Safety's Lost and Found headquarters is open 24 hours a day and besides helping students locate their lost possessions, offers services to prevent the loss or theft of valuables.

"It's a great lost and found program and we engrave the computers here and we mark the cellphones inside the battery. We mark it with a special police ink," explains Ricardo Morales, Manager of Crime Prevention Programs.

"My past experience a lot of students lose IDs and things like that so once you lose them they send you an e-mail and you can go pick it up so I felt it was pretty effective."

Despite the services offered, the presence of theft on campus still has many students doubting the likelihood of being able to retrieve lost or stolen items.

"I just think it's really hard to find. Like if you lost one laptop it would be really hard to find the person who took it. So I think it's kind of not worth it."

"I think particularly laptops and MP3 players would not be easy to recover because they would just not be recover-able."

But Public Safety officials see a different side of students and they continue to provide services for students to be able to locate their items.

"We have good people here. People with good hearts. They find wallets full of cash, turn it in to public safety so now when the owner comes in and they're surprised they say, 'Oh my god somebody did turn it in that's great!'"