Columbia

We hear that three of the editors of n+1, the most important literary journal of our generation, will be teaching as adjuncts at Columbia's MFA program this fall. (More bang for your $35K!) Ben Kunkel, Marco Roth, and another—we think Mark Greif? This line has some static—will be tag-team teaching a class on political writing. Or apolitical writing! One of those. —Choire

[Photo via]

Attention, war-haters: tomorrow from 11:00 to 3:00, Columbia students will be holding a cell phone telethon for peace on College Walk. "Together, Columbia students will show that the student voice is not only passionate, but ready to fight for real, not symbolic, action to end this war." Real, not symbolic, action! Sort of like a cell phone telethon, only, you know, actually the opposite of that. Okay, but for real (not symbolic) we're happy that Columbia students are making the ultimate class-skipping sacrifice in order to support our troops, and we're sure that every penny of the $6,550 they aim to raise for UNICEF—one cent for every death caused by the war in Iraq as of March 20!—will make a big difference. We just hope that no one shows them this week's Shouts and Murmurs column, which kind of rains all over their class-skipping activist parade.

Our feverish excitement about Fash Week has led us to peek into some darker nooks and crannies of the internet than usual; here's a nugget we turned up about socialite Claire Bernard, who mingled with the 'Tinz et al at that One Scottsdale/Vogue Italia party last night.

Meanwhile, One Scottsdale, the latest luxury mega-mall, celebrated Fashion Week far from its Arizona home--like any good tourist--with drinks at Amy Sacco's Bette. Amongst the crowd, co-hosts Tinsley Mortimer and Theodora Richards greeted friends like Annie Churchill and Claire Bernard (taking a night off from doing homework for her MFA at Columbia).

Earlier:Breaking: Creative Writing MFA Student Unconvinced Of Own Brilliance

It's not news that the Modern Love column is typically an example of the Times turning into the world's creepiest personal ads section. But this weekend's entry was probably one of the off-the-charts ickiest; it concerns Columbia student Ashley Cross, whose affair with an accused rapist changed her mind about a lot of things:

During this time my friends couldn't fathom why I supported him, much less continued as the willing girlfriend of a convicted sex offender. But for me the experience had fundamentally altered my previously programmed reaction to stories of alcohol-fueled date rape on college campuses. No longer was my response autopilot compassion for the girl. No longer would I assume the guilt of intoxicated boys in the company of intoxicated girls everywhere.

Well, "my 2007 is going swimmingly" era has ended, but I will bounce
back. I hope. My next Voice column (running in next week's paper
though probably online tomorrow evening) will be my last, according to
a phone call I just got from the editor in chief David Blum (they are
hiring someone else to write those weeks but I don't know who that is
though I guess we'll all find out very soon).

Earlier: 'Village Voice' Hiring Pool Remains Incredibly Diverse, Provided You Went To Columbia

We've always been slightly confused/mildly curious about who joins a frat or sorority at Columbia--we always assumed Greek life was more for schools in the middle of nowhere, where people had nothing better to do with their time than do haze their fellow students in the middle of a cornfield--and now we sort of have an answer. Bwog--the Columbia blog for the student magazine, the Blue & White--has a feature where they profile two students each week as a sort of personals service, and this week they've done us the favor of profiling a sororitard and a frat guy. After reading the words of wisdom to emerge from their mouths, we've come to the conclusion that Columbia frat guys and sorority girls are just as boring as their counterparts at "lesser" schools. Oh, and they have awful taste in music. more »

In the past, we've certainly had our suspicions about the horniness/party animalness of Columbia co-eds. We'd assumed, based on a potent mix of vicious stereotypes, personal experience, and stories in their paper of record, that Columbia students were just dorks whose idea of a raucous good time was reading excerpts from dirty poems aloud. But according to the Daily News, we were so, so wrong. Apparently, Columbia is a regular 24/7 bacchanal (if by bacchanal you mean "average American college")! They don't just show homemade, boring porn on their school TV channel, they have "clothing optional" parties and an S&M; club! And just listen to this scandalously ribald quote:

One hostess, who staged a Halloween-themed 'Naked Witches & Warlocks Party' last month, called it a 'great unshackling from the clothing that so defines and imprisons us.' But it was a 'sex-neutral event,'she said.

Students in Morningside Heights have recently discovered the fine art of throwing parties, according to their campus rag. It's too bad that their parties sound like possibly the lamest things ever, in the history of all of man:

Theme parties have become more and more popular in suites and dorm rooms-students say the more intricate the theme, the better.

"People have definitely been getting creative this year with the ideas," said Cliff Horton, CC '07.

Horton, who has hosted such parties as a hat party and a Martipalooza, in honor of his friend Marti, said the trick is to get people talking.

"The best themes get people talking about each other," he said. "But it has to be easy to execute."

More from that quiet Ivy school uptown:

The Columbia College Republicans are at it again. On the heels of an event they hosted Wednesday, during which the founder of a group that patrols America's borders was attacked and forced offstage by angry protesters, the group is slated to host an even larger event next week, this one featuring two ex-terrorists and a former Nazi.

Now, to be fair, those ex-terrorists (Zachariah Anani, who is Lebanese, and former PLO member Walid Shoebat) have both committed attacks against Israel but are now on Team Jew, opposing the creation of a Palestinian state. The former Nazi, Hilmar von Campe, was a member of the Hitler Youth and served as a soldier but now feels really bad about it. The three will be lecturing against the dangers of indoctrination -- fitting, seeing as they're there on behalf of the baby GOP.

Columbia Faces New Challenges by GOP Group [NYSun]
Earlier: Minuteman Event at Columbia Ruined by Brown People

Jim Gilchrist, the founder of anti-immigration group the Minuteman Project, spoke at Columbia last night for all of two minutes until members of the school's Chicano Caucus stormed the stage, fists a-pumping. What followed was the sort of absurd melée that only a college activists can perfectly execute: punching, kicking, banner-grabbing, and for closure, screaming and chanting at no one in particular. One waspy student said the Chicano protest was "a poor representation of Columbia's intellectual capabilities. These people are animals..." But aren't they all?

Update: Because the children won't stop emailing, we'll note that the Chicano Caucus is claiming they had nothing to do with the events -- i.e., the protest -- that caused the event to be canceled. The Caucus does, however, take responsibility for being the chief organizers of the protest. Hm. Big difference there, kids.

Read This Now: Minutemen Mobbed [Bwog]
Protesters at Columbia Take Over and Trash the Stage at a Minutemen Rally [Metadish]
Minuteman College Talk Gets Violent [NYDN]
Earlier: Satan Punks Out Under Rule of Law

Lord knows we took plenty of fucked up, jackassed photos when we were in college, so we're happy to see that Bee Shaffer, spawn of Anna Wintour, is enjoying a typical undergraduate experience at Columbia. This photo from her Facebook profile, however, is sending a dangerous message. It's not that Bee's holding cigarettes -- it's that she's holding, of all things, Newport Lights. For shame, rich girl. For shame.

There's an interesting report today on a Columbia undergraduate publication's punnily and speech-impedimently named blog, the Bwog, regarding an old trove of slush-pile submissions to The New Yorker's poetry department:

[I]t was with much fanfare that the interns were told that they were finally going to throw out the box. But first wouldn't they be so careful as to go through the submissions and remove all the self-addressed stamped envelopes? Why? To save the stamps, of course. Yes, the poetry editor of the New Yorker had her interns cut out each and every 37 cent stamp they could find, even though these stamps on their own were useless without a two cent supplement to compensate for the 2006 cost of postage.

Midway through their task she stopped them. Touched by the hand of reason? Of common human decency? "I just wanted to make sure... neither of you has a blog, right?"

Oh, silly poetry editor, everyone has a blog now.

UPDATE: Someone claiming to be the Columbia student-slash-New Yorker intern from whom this tale arises now says it's all a misunderstanding; nothing like this happened. Alas.

Meter Money [Bwog]

There is no more important training for a young journalist than a lesson in how to hold your liquor. And there is no better way to learn to hold your liquor than at an open bar you can't get from. Hence the annual Columbia J-School booze cruise, at which this year -- this is our favorite part -- it seems the cocktailing will begin at 4 p.m. Of course, while an open bar would be ideal, the j-school currently charges its students a mere $38,500 in tuition and fees, and so it can afford only a cash bar. And, even better, a "cash food bar" -- unless students shell out six bucks for the buffet, they're stuck with only "chips and salsa, and crudite with herbed dipping sauce." Dress is "reporter semi-formal," which seems easy enough until you remember how reporters dress, and the full email announcement is after the jump. more »

Sig Gissler, the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, announces the winners. Actually, and disappointingly, he merely announces the winners are being announced. The World window, behind him, is the highlight of the experience.

If you pay attention to such things, you come to learn that the announcement of the Pulitzer Prizes each year follows an oddly quaint ritual. The prizewinners are announced in April, they are announced at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and they are announced at Columbia University. Oddly, they are not announced first on the Pulitzer Prizes website; they are not announced by a televised ceremony; they don't move over the AP wire at precisely the appointed time. Rather, they are announced at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism's ceremonial World Room, which contains the stained-glass window from Joseph Pulitzer's old New York World, and one would imagine there is some sort of puff of white smoke, or herald trumpets, or something portentous, to mark the news. This year, we headed up to Columbia to find out.

From an email sent to Columbia's job-recruiting email list with the subject "JPMorgan Recruiting Event for LGBT Students":

At JPMorgan, diversity matters. And we are very much committed to souring and retaining the best and most talented LGBT candidates.

We should make clear we have nothing but the greatest fondness for sour gay finance types. (They're much more pleasant than the sunny, I'm-rich-and-happy ones.) But, still, we can't help but wonder what word Morgan was trying to write and typo'd. Maybe scouring gay candidates? (But why would you need to scour an already fastidious group?) Sorting the candidates? (Well, of course, but one never makes the rush process so explicit.) Scoring the candidates? Actually, "This is a valuable opportunity ... to meet and mingle with some senior managers at our firm." Scoring seems about right.

Complete email after the jump.

Hello! magazine reports that gangsta-rapping starlet Natalie Portman stopped by Columbia University on Monday to give an undergraduate lecture on counterterrorism. She went to Harvard, you know, which means she's in the position to educate the children of the lesser ivies on all matters of international import. Writes a student:

Ms. Portman's cameo in Professor Stuart Gottlieb's Terrorism and Counterterrorism class was part of a MTV-U promotion for her latest flick, V for Vendetta, in which her character mounts a revolutionary campaign against a totalitarian government and generally blows shit up.

A sampling of the truths Ms. Portman imparted in the 20-minute Q&A; session following a somber Frontline documentary on Al Qaeda, Guantanamo and the CIA's counterterrorism tactics:

- "My immediate reaction is that torture is wrong."

- "I don't think it's right to take down the Twin Towers."

- "Censorship is bad."

That's what $30k-plus in tuition gets you: substitute teaching from junket-happy starlets.

Breaking News: Natalie Portman at Columbia [The Bwog via Egotastic]
Natalie Portman Shows Her Class in Academic Role [Hello!]

The view down Broadway from 116th Street.

See, when the MTA isn't running, people in Westchester drive to the city. When everyone in Westchester drives in, the West Side Highway in a disaster. When the West Side Highway is a disaster, drivers cut over to Broadway early, way in Upper Manhattan. And then Broadway sucks, too.

Have fun taking your finals, Columbia kids.

A few more shots after the jump. more »