Columbia Responds To Global Crises

 This week, Columbians came together to address the recent crises in North Africa and Japan. Both the Graduate Business School and the School of International Affairs hosted informed and passionate debates, bringing the experts and the answers to Columbia. First, Lisa Anderson, President of the American University in Cairo, came to speak at SIPA. The event was titled: "The Arab Uprisings: A View From the University on Tahir Square."

Anderson just lived through the national revolution. To the large crowd of political scientists, professors and students, she related the historical moment: "We started getting cell phone videos of the building with snipers on the roof. The security people who had snipers that night on much of the buildings in Tahir Square actually did get into the campus, go on the roof, started taking stones and stuff, throwing them into the protest. And you can see from the video that there were shots fired...you have to presume they were firing into the crowd"

But when it came time for Q & A, the SIPA crowd was most eager to question the President about the next potential revolution - in Libya. Columbia College senior Adam Seiff asked "Should we read your comments to imply that there is a human right to democracy, and that this human right should be enforceable by the international community?" Seiff was referring to Anderson's recent Bloomberg article entitled, "Obama’s Libya Inaction Risks Missing Opening for Democracy." Anderson is now well known for her support of multilateral intervention in Libya.  

SIPA student Todd Levinson kicked off the discussion of Libya's future asking: "Do you see there being an ability, in Libya, do you see there being a possibility for talks? It sounds like the rebels want Gaddafi gone, and Gaddafi isn't gonna go." Anderson emphatically answered no, not while Gaddafi is in power. Her future predictions on Libya "are predicated on Gaddafi's departure." She continued, by predicting: "Ghaddafi is very likely to die, rather than be either permitted to leave the country or to enjoy internal exile...That's how angry people are."

While SIPA debated Libya's future, three experts from the Columbia community gathered at the business school to debate the consequences of Japan's Earthquake. 

Speaker David Brenner, Professor of Radiation Biophysics at Columbia is an expert on radiation. He discussed the health consequences of Japan's reactor meltdown. 

Assessing the damage, Brenner expects fatalities among the workers in the nuclear power plant, but very minimal cancer risks for the surrounding population. He responded to popular questions, including whether to expect health consequences in the US. "Well, the short answer is absolutely not. It is inconceivable that the plume could possibly travel the Pacific Ocean without being completely dispersed. The answer has to be no."

Professor of the Japanese Economy at the Columbia Business School, David Weinstein, explained the economic impact of the disaster: "Over the next month or so, you'll see part shortages and supply chain disruptions, but I think the conclusion is that while the human toll is truly horrible, fortunately the aggregate economic impacts are likely to be much less severe."

While the speakers each expressed a positive outlook for Japan's future, it was Professor of Political Science Gerald Curtis who filled the crowd with a sense of optimism. Curtis said, "The opportunity in this crisis is that there is a potential to mobilize the extraordinary strengths of the Japanese, to not only rebuild Tohoku, but somehow to get Japan moving again."

If there was consensus among the speakers, it was scathing criticism of the Tokyo Electric power company. Curtis warned, "The American Press Conflates the Government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company. That is a big mistake. Because TEPCO - their behavior throughout this crisis has really been outrageous...TEPCO is a big problem." Yet each expert conceded that a solution to the TEPCO problem remains to be solved.

Columbia certainly rose to the occasion this week when SIPA and the Business school did their part to bring the debate and analysis of historic political revolution and natural disaster right here to campus. 

Campaign Kickoff

Student Council Election season is upon us! On Monday night, the Engineering Student Council elected two executive board members: Nate Levick, SEAS ’12 as President and Logan Donovan, SEAS ’13 as Vice President. Congrats to them - The race for the final three ESC positions will conclude with next week's vote. CCSC's election board has also just released its candidates for the next academic year. Election Voting kicks off April 11th.  

Changes to housing and room selection

John Jay Lounge is usually just a freshman hangout spot, but beginning on Tuesday, March 29, Columbia’s undergraduate students will flock to the room for the annual suite selection process.

Vice President for Student and Administrative Services Scott Wright explains how this process will work.

"Students will have various appointment times. We will start with the seniors and then work backward through the sophomores. For general selection, the way this will work, anyone who enters into suite selection but does not end up finding a room or suite that they and their suitemates want to pick into always has the option of dropping into general selection. General selection appointment times will be issued once we know exactly how many people are in general selection, how many dropped from group into general, and then that is done 100% electronically. So, no matter where you are or what you are doing, you have a certain window (I believe it’s a nine minute window, but again, sometimes that is modified just slightly) where you will have the right to select a room without the person with the next worst lottery number intruding in," Wright said.

Speaking of lower lottery numbers, Rising sophomore Christian Rodrigo Munoz has number 3000, the lowest.

"While I’m looking it up I ask what the lowest you can get it this year. 3000, oh right. I texted a friend and bet her five bucks that I would get 3000, finally reached wherever it was, and I got 3000 and five bucks!" Munoz said.

Munoz wants to get a room here, in Ruggles. Wright shared news about some changes that could affect his, and your, chances.

"The biggest change that we have for this year is the new open housing program. That is the program where students of different genders are allowed to occupy a double room together. It is limited; it’s a pilot program. We’re going to see how it goes for the first year. So, its limited to six buildings, five of which are in suite style buildings and one of which is a traditional corridor style building, that being Wien. That was probably the biggest change. Students had been lobbying for that for about the past two years, and we finally got everyone together and got approval to put that in place," Wright explained.

"The one other change we also have is that there are no longer EC exclusion suites. So the five person suites that used to have an exclusion for the (typically) sophomores, will just be distributed according to the point value of all five members of the group. From a process point of view, those were the only changes for the room selection process for this year," Wright said.

When it is your turn to come to John Jay lounge to choose where you’ll be living next year, make sure you’re prepared.

Michael Steele at Columbia

Former chairman of the Republican National Committee Michael Steele spoke in the Jerome Greene Hall in Columbia law school on Tuesday. The event was organized by the Columbia Political Union and was co-sponsored by twelve other students groups including College and Law school republicans, model congress, the student governing board, and the black students organization.

Steele spoke about the need for bipartisanship as well as the challenges he faced representing a republican party which had not historically seen much black leadership. Following the hour long speech, Steele then took questions from students at the university. Some were not thrilled with Steele's answers to those questions. Sara Jacobs, head of the Columbia Political Union said of Steele's performance in an interview with the Spectator: "He dodged more of the tough questions, which is natural of any speaker.”

Weather Report

The Tenure Debate

Michelle Rhee - Chancellor of Washington's Public Schools is currently attacking tenure and, by extension, the powerful teacher's union. Her proposed reforms use private sector solutions like "performance based bonus compensation" as a substitute for tenure. Despite its status as a private university, the tenure debate has now come to Columbia. Kevin Dougherty, associate professor at Teachers College was quoted in New Jersey's Gannet publication this week defending the notion behind tenure and citing its long history. It is yet unclear whether the public school issue will be shared by private universities. 

Sports Update

The Columbia fencing team had an impressive showing at the NCAA championships finishing third in the ivy league and seventh overall out of thirty schools, an impressive feat for a team with no male seniors. Sophomore Lydia Kopecky placed seventh at the event and earned second team All American honors.

Columbia women's lacrosse were thumped by Dartmouth this Saturday, losing 15 to 7. The Lions are 0-3 against ivy league opposition so far this season, but will soon have a chance to pick up their first conference win when they play Penn next Sunday.

The men's tennis team continues their skid, dropping two more over the weekend to Illinois State and St. John's university at the Dick Savitt tennis center. They have now lost six in a row after starting the season 6-4. The team plays their first conference games against Dartmouth and Harvard next weekend.

Baseball Season Takes Off

The Columbia Lions baseball team had its home opener on Saturday, a double-header against the Holy Cross Crusaders.  As per traditional college double-header rules, the first of two games would be seven innings, while the second would be scheduled for nine.Columbia starting pitcher Pat Lowery looked to get his first win, having begun the season 0-2.Bottom second runners on second and third, Mike Fischer gets an RBI ground-out to put Columbia on the board. The inning would continue after a botched run-down attempt and an RBI single from Jon Eisen, and Columbia would be up 3 at the end of 2.

Top of the third, Holy Cross would answer with a big inning of their own, assisted by three fielding errors from the Columbia infield. Eric Oxford who was three for four on the day notched a single to right to put the Crusaders within one.Meanwhile Holy Cross’s John Pedrotty settled down. He finished with five strikeouts on the day, and gave up only one earned run in seven innings. Lowery on the other hand, would begin to unravel, giving up runs in the fifth and the sixth inning, the latter a result of yet another fielding mistake.

Nick Ciardiello went three for three on the day and no hit was bigger than his rope to left which put Holy Cross ahead.Columbia would not be rattled by their close loss in the first game, and came out of the gate strong scoring in the first inning off a double from designated hitter Alexander Aurrichio. Columbia’s Geoff Whitaker was lights out, pitching seven scoreless frames and striking out six. Columbia would continue to put the hurt on Holy Cross pitching, scoring four runs in both the fifth and sixth innings.

The final score, 11-1 proved that Columbia Lions could hit and pitch against a solid team in Holy Cross. They play one more double-header against Holy Cross this weekend before hosting Dartmouth and Harvard in double-headers the following weekend.