Psychology Department develops suicide risk prediction tool

Columbia’s Department of Psychiatry has developed a new tool that can successfully predict suicidal intent. The Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale is a series of questions that help to determine if a person has suicidal thoughts or behaviors. The scale is innovative because it can be administered in minutes in emergency rooms, clinical settings, schools or primary care offices by anyone trained in the protocol—not just by healthcare professionals. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention after the FDA called on Columbia to develop a standardized suicide risk prediction tool.

LDC subpoenaed

The West Harlem Local Development Corporation which has been working with Columbia in the University's expansion into West Harlem has come under fire recently. New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed the corporation for its records because of the disproportionate amount of money spent on consultants. The corporation has spent 700,000 of the 3.55 million dollars it received from Columbia University, 300,000 on summer job programs for inner city youths and 400,000 for consultants. The mismanagement of Columbia's money calls into question what has been done with the 150 million dollars the group has received from the city to set up community benefit programs. The West Harlem Local Development Corporation has been criticized for being poorly managed, as it has yet to make a website, establish a headquarters, or select an executive director. New York Congressman Charles Rangel supported Schneidermann's decision to investigate the West Harlem Local Development Corporation but has not said openly that he feels the city agency did anything wrong.

Rangel speaks at Columbia, to hold Job Fair at City College

More news about Rangel; the Congressman was in Lerner Hall last Wednesday to deliver the keynote speech at his own Career Readiness Expo. Rangel spoke about keeping up hope amid the nation’s current unemployment crisis.

Rangel will also be hosting a job fair tomorrow, that’s Monday November 14th, in the Great Hall of Shepard Hall at City College. The event will run from 10 am to 4 pm and will feature more than sixty companies, such as Hertz, Microsoft and Delta Airlines. The event is open to Columbia students.

Architecture School partners with Audi

The Columbia Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation announced a partnership with automaker Audi last week in a program called Experiments in Motion. The Columbia school is the newest addition to the Audi Urban Future Initiative, a think-tank tasked with modeling the future of urban environments in order to better engineer products that are tailored to the needs of an evolving society.

Sports Brief

If there's such thing as victory in defeat, this was certainly it. The Columbia men's Basketball team held its own in their first game of seasons against UConn. This is a Huskies team just one season removed from their national championship in 2011 NCAA Division 1 basketball tournament. The final score of 70-57 was hardly a disappointment for the Lions. UConn's star sophomore guard James Lamb scored 30 points and the Lions trailed in double digits almost the entire way, but they limited the Huskies to 69 shot attempts from the floor for the game, and Senior Blaise Staab, who has not played since March 2010, recorded four steals. The Lions have their first two home games of the season against Furman on Monday and American University on Saturday.

Columbia Football continued its historically awful season, giving up a season high 61 points to Cornell this weekend and losing the Empire State Bowl 61-42. Columbia actually led at the half by a score of 34-28, but the porous defense continued giving up big plays. Only allowing up 54 net rush yards, Columbia was plagued by a shaky secondary, and Cornell quarterback Jeff Matthews racked up 521 yards. The defense's no-show overshadowed quarterback Sean Brackett's career day. Brackett racked up 409 yards and four touchdowns. Receiver Kurt Williams also had a career day with 191 receiving yards and three touchdowns. The Lions have one more chance to get their first victory, this time against Brown on Saturday at home. If the Lions don't pull pull off a win against Brown, who currently sit in second place in the ivy league standings, it will be a goose egg in the win column for the Lions this season.

Columbia volleyball wrapped up their season with a 15 and 10 record, and a 9 and 5 conference record, coming in third place in the Ivy League conference behind Yale and Princeton. After losing to Yale on October 28, Columbia spun off three straight victories and looked poised to make a run at the Ivy league crown. However, consecutive 3 sets to 2 losses to Penn and Princeton on the road made the Lions' season just a slight improvement over last year's 8-6 finish.

Postcrypt

St. Paul’s Chapel on Columbia Campus is known for its religious significance and impressive architecture, but it has another reputation in the eyes of some university students. Since 1964 it has been the site of the Postcrypt coffeehouse, a tiny venue in the chapel basement that features performances from students and community musicians alike. "It's sort of word of mouth," says Rose Donlon, co-manager of Postcrypt. "I think the people who want to know about it know about it. You know, we try to reach out and we will reach out more." 

Annika Christensen co-manager of Postcrypt adds: "The chapel is our home, it's really the only place I can imagine Postcrypt being. And the ambience of that little space! When I first came in there I was a freshman I was just completely awed. It's just this little stone room with all these great people and you're all there together listening in this intimate environment to great folk music."

Postcrypt generally has shows every Friday and Saturday. An open mic night is typically held on the first Saturday of every month. Notable artists including Suzanne Vega have performed at the Postcrypt in recent years.

Postcrypt has had its share of controversy in the past, almost getting shut down two years ago after selling alcohol to underage students. Making the decision to stop selling beer altogether rather than hire security to monitor sales, Postcrypt has had to rely on selling baked goods and cider to keep the coffeehouse afloat. Speaking about the difficulty in running a weekly performance venue on a low budget, Donlon said: "It's just a matter of finding people who want to help out and people are pretty interested in helping out here. We always have to make sure the bar is stacked, that there are volunteers, that there's a manager here, but in the end, I love being here, so it doesn't feel hard work."

With the Occupy Wall Street movement underway, folk musicians have come to the Postcrypt singing protest songs, making the coffeehouse a hotbed for political expression as it was in the 60s. "We have certainly been discussing that as a board, whether we will show support or stay neutral," says Donlon. "But we want Postcrypt to be a place where people can voice opinions through music through spoken word-we're trying to get Lit night started actually. The occupy movement is not something we have endorsed as venue, not that it would mean much if we did."

In the spring students can come to listen or perform at the annual Postcrypt Folk Festival. Until then, the Coffeehouse has some notable folk acts lined up for the weeks ahead including Tall Tall Trees and Andrew Rose Gregory of The Gregory Brothers.

Visit Postcrypt's website http://postcrypt.virb.com/ to see who will be performing soon.