09-13-12%20web
DESCRIPTION
http://www.columbiaspectator.com/sites/default/files/issues/archive/09-13-12%20WEB.pdfTRANSCRIPT
Vol. CXXXVI—No. 78 Thursday, September 13, 2012 columbiaspectator.com
BY ABBY ABRAMSSpectator Senior Staff Writer
Nightline will stay closed for at least a few more weeks, as the group goes through extra training processes and reviews its procedures at the request of administrators.
The Barnard-Columbia anonymous peer counseling ho-tline, which usually starts op-erating at the beginning of the semester, is still closed more than a week after the first day of classes. While Nightline’s direc-tors had initially hoped to start taking calls within the first two weeks of the semester, they now say their lines may be closed un-til the end of the month.
“We have to write a lot of documents,” said Nightline co-director Lori Goldman, BC ’13, noting that the beginning of the semester is busy for ev-eryone. She and co-director Katie Mukai, BC ’13, as well as Nightline’s advisers, are “just trying to get all our balls in the same court, and it’s taking a lit-tle while,” Goldman said.
Prospective Nightline peer counselors must go through a semester-long training process and take a certification test be-fore being accepted into the group.
As part of the current re-view, all Nightline peer coun-selors will receive training from the Rape Crisis/Anti-Violence Support Center. While Nightline covers rape and other forms of sexual violence in its normal training procedures, the extra preparation will serve as a
refresher, Goldman said.“If, God forbid, something
happens and there was a law-suit, this is just to make sure we’d have the documentation to show that we did everything right. This is just legal docu-mentation of what we’re already doing,” Goldman said.
While Nightline does not publicly release its staff num-bers due to its emphasis on anonymity, Sarah Ngu, CC ’12 and a former Nightline peer counselor, described it as “one of the most selective groups on campus” in a Spectator opinion article, “Coming out,” last April.
Administrators first ap-proached Nightline about re-viewing the group’s proce-dures last spring, according to Barnard Dean Avis Hinkson. Hinkson said that Barnard requested the review, with Columbia’s support.
“As a function of oversight, we believe that regular training is necessary, as does the leader-ship of Nightline,” Hinkson said in an email. “When reviewing their materials we noted a few areas that could be improved upon and requested that they be addressed.”
Goldman characterized the review as a result of an in-creased focus on risk manage-ment throughout the University.
“A lot of organizations are doing this right now, and Nightline is just one of the more obvious organizations that you can see is having a de-lay,” she said.
BY AVANTIKA KUMARSpectator Senior Staff Writer
An error in reporting third-graders’ test scores has led to accusations that a West Harlem charter school engaged in aca-demic fraud, but administrators at the school say that the report-ing error was a simple mistake.
At the New York French-American Charter School’s board of trustees meeting on Tuesday—which was largely focused on other topics—administrators
addressed NYFACS parent Thomas Lopez-Pierre’s accu-sation that the school sent par-ents false test score informa-tion. Lopez-Pierre has said that Assistant Principal Claire Zaglauer sent emails to parents informing them that third-grad-ers performed better on stan-dardized tests than they actu-ally did.
According to Parent Teacher Organization recording secretary Fia Porter, Zaglauer implied in a June 11 email that 86 percent of
third-graders scored proficiently on English-Language Arts exams, surpassing the 75 percent-profi-cient benchmark required by the school’s charter. The reality, though, was that 86 percent of students had passed the test—only about 56 percent scored pro-ficiently, short of the 75 percent benchmark.
Board of trustees member Elisabeth Cros, though, said at the meeting that the email rep-resented a “little mistake” rather than a real source of concern.
In a letter to families last week, Richard Ortoli, the chairman of the board of trustees, said that Lopez-Pierre’s accusation of academic fraud was “completely unfounded.”
“I realized that my first email was not fully accurate,” Zaglauer said at the board meeting, after Lopez-Pierre asked her about the mistake. “I did my best to rectify it.”
Porter, though, said that the
BY ADAM KOLINGColumbia Daily Spectator
A group of police officers gath-ered in front of 3333 Broadway on July 24, but they weren’t there to make an arrest—they were turn-ing a schoolyard next to the five-building apartment complex into a Police Athletic League Summer Play Street.
For nearly 100 years, the Police Athletic League has been creat-ing Play Streets—public spaces designed for children to partici-pate in sports tournaments, play table games, and create cultural art projects over the summer, all supervised by police officers or criminal justice students. But the office of the city’s special narcotics
prosecutor recently pioneered a new way to pay for PAL programs, including the Play Street that was operated next to 3333 Broadway this summer: money confiscated from drug busts.
“We were the first prosecutor’s office to use forfeited criminal pro-ceeds from investigations to sup-port a PAL program,” Kati Cornell, the office’s public information di-rector, said. “It was really a model that our office developed.”
The decision to open the Play Street at 3333 Broadway, which is located at 133rd Street and Broadway, followed an arrest there in March that resulted in the sei-zure of $19,000 worth of drugs and weapons. PAL programs are based on the idea that children who have
productive and supervised play-time are less likely to be drawn to drugs and crime.
Bridget Brennan, New York City’s special narcotics prosecutor, said that the program takes money from the drug trade and uses it to “create positive recreational op-portunities for children.”
“Drug dealers have status in the communities that’s not mer-ited, just because they have a lot of money,” Brennan said. “Effective enforcement isn’t just about mak-ing an arrest and walking away—it’s about helping the community rebuild.”
“It’s what I like to call preven-tion through sports and through
Nightline closed until end of month
MASHBURN, ROBERT J. CARPLES, JEFFREY L. GARCIA, STUART BERGER, IRA DEL PONTE, JOSEPH FOX, JOHN LA GIGLIA, ANTHONY FRIEDMAN, LEWIS M. COHN, ROY SCHMALZ, JEFFREY BENNETT, RICHARD FEDORNOCK, FRANKFORTUIN, THOMAS M. PATTERSON, GEORGE HALL, SHELTON WILEY, MASON HAWKESWOOD, WILLIAM BROWN, JAY VENET, STEVEN GEWIRTZ, GEORGE KISH, TONY FERRI, ROGER COHEN, DAVID H. HILL, CHRISTOPHER LIDA, MARK CONTINI, ALAN LICATA, SAL DIAZ ALEJANDRO, CARLOSGOTTESMAN, EDWARD H. MITCHELL, MICHAEL GARDNER, JAMES BUCHOLTZ, JEFFREY MEDEROS, PETER ISRAEL, FRANKLIN D. MCGINTY, TIMOTHY EDWIN PRESTON, ERWIN DESIPIO, GEORGE, JR. HALPERN, KENNETH S., DE RUGERIIS, JOSEPHSCHUTZ, PRESCOTT KADET, SANDFORD MARTIN, JOHN L. NADELSON, ANDREW OLANOFF, GERALD B. KING, DAN WHITE, ROBIN WILSON, WILLIAM STEINKE, WILLIAM
Fight On
WARD, MATTHEW MCGARRY, SHAWN
RICHARDSON, DAVID MAYERSON, ROBERT PEDUTO, STEPHEN A.
RAMOS, ROBERT PERKINS, ANTHONY
ANDERSON, OLIN RYAN, MICHAEL RATLIFF, NEIL M. BURTON, SCOTT
OPPENHEIM, PHILIP KWALICK, BARRY
DAWSON, KENNETH L.WHITINGTON, G. LUTHER
LERBLACE, PENN VAN RYZIN, JOHN NORTON, JOSEPH
SCHULTZ, GENE SMITH, MARK A.
STUART, OTIS SULLIVAN,
VICTOR THOMAS, JR GREENSPAN, STUART
SCHAEFFER, MARTIN M. SANTOMASSO, EUGENE LIEBERSON, JONATHAN
ROZELI, RON STONEHOUSE, JOSEPH
DOUGLAS, PAUL NEUMEIER, CHARLES
MEDOFF, PETER WIDDOWFIELD, JOSEPH
STARR, RICHARD TOWLEN, GARY O’BRIEN, KEVIN RINALDO, TONY
COONEY, NEIL POST, RICK
WRIGHT, JASONSIRCELLO, GUY SYKES, CURTIS
RANGO, NICHOLAS DONALDSON,
STEPHEN “DONNIE”
CASSIDY, TOM TYUS, VICTOR
ANDERSON, LARZ F., 2ND THOMPSON, DAVID R.
BEDDOW, REID MONROE, RONALD B.
CHENITZ-MANLEY, CAROLE MASSA, ROBERT
AMILI, ADIMU MCALILEY, ROBERT
COX, JOHN GINGELL, BARRY BROWN, JACOB
BARNETT, ALLEN O. FAILLA, RICHARD
ALMEIDA, FELISBERTO COHEN, DANIEL H.
LIST, THEO BELMONTE, THOMAS
DIXON, MELVIN SACHNER, PAUL M.
REVSON, JAMES BARBER, CHARLES ANDREW
BITTERN, ARWIN (AKA ANDREW) COSTE, JEAN-ROLAND
AROMANDO, ANTHONY R. MANFORD, MORTY
BROOKNER, HOWARD CUMPIANO, HIRAM
BOYD, BRIAN ABREU,
DANNY WILLIAM JOHNSON, ROSS
LANGDON, BRUCE DUNN, JAMES
AUSTIN, DAVID CRAIG BROWN, CHARLES
The magazine of the Columbia Spectator13 September 2012 / vol. 13 issue 1
theeye
Rediscover the art of the New York City subway system, pg. 14
The story of AIDS at Columbia by Will Hughes
THIS WEEK IN THE EYE
CATHI CHOI / EYE ART DIRECTOR
ACT UP | Pick up a copy to read Will Hughes’s story on the history of AIDS at Columbia.
SEE 3333, page 2
BY CECILIA REYESColumbia Daily Spectator
Andrew Ghazi, SEAS ’13, doesn’t consider himself a morn-ing person. But that didn’t stop him from enrolling in Applied Data Mining, one of the 8:40 a.m. classes being offered for the first time this semester.
“I didn’t have any other choice,” Ghazi said. “It was the only one that fit into my schedule.”
Before this semester, the earli-est start time for lecture classes was 9:10 a.m. But as the University’s student body has grown over the last decade—there were about 61,000 course enrollments in 2011, up from 41,000 in 2001—classroom space on the already-crowded Morningside Heights campus has become scarcer, leading adminis-trators to look for ways to distrib-ute it more effectively.
In early 2011, a committee charged with examining the class-room space crunch recommended
starting classes at 8:40 a.m., so as to allow for the creation of an ad-ditional morning lecture period. The committee also recommend-ed creating a new lecture period at 7:40 p.m., adding a seminar pe-riod at 8:10 p.m., and scheduling more Friday classes. University Registrar Barry Kane announced in March that those changes would be implemented this semester, gar-nering mixed reactions from the student body.
Still, some students who chose to enroll in 8:40 a.m. classes have taken the early start time in stride. Ellie Kirk, CC ’16, said that she prefers to have earlier classes, be-cause they enable her to use her day more efficiently.
“I know that if I took a later class I would sleep later and just laze around my dorm,” said Kirk, who is enrolled in an 8:40 a.m. class. “I think it’s important to get started with the day. Hopefully, this will motivate me to not go to bed too late during the week.”
Sarah Thompson, CC ’16, switched from Frontiers of Science into an 8:40 a.m. University Writing section. She said she was not excited about waking up early, calling it a “necessary evil” but adding that she wasn’t against Columbia offering classes that early.
“If people are willing to take a class earlier, they should be al-lowed to,” Thompson said.
Math professor Alexander Drewitz is teaching two sections of Calculus II, one at 8:40 a.m. and one at 10:10 a.m. He said he was surprised that more students signed up for the earlier class than for the later class.
“There were a bit more than 90, though I don’t know the details of what the previous schedule was like,” he said. “I mean, I’m hoping I’m not making myself unpopular here, but I think 8:40 is OK.”
Barnard French professor
SEE CLASSES, page 2
Miller Theatre starts off the semester with a bang with simple sets, incredible vocals, and new renditions of early music styles.
Baroque-inspired opera stuns audiences
Learn how to manage your digital files at a personal digital archiving workshop hosted by Columbia librarians.
523 Butler, 1 p.m.
After a less than impressive first half, the Lions scored two second half goals in route to a 2-1 victory. Senior Brendan O’Hearn scored the winning goal for the Lions late in the half.
CU improves in second half, beats St. Peters
WEATHERA&E, PAGE 3 OPINION, PAGE 4 SPORTS, BACK PAGE EVENTS
Today
82°/ 63°
Tomorrow
86°/ 66°
At 3333, drug bust money funds kids’ athletics
Charter school administration responds to accusations
Students adjust to first 8:40 a.m. classes
Gone in a Flash?
Peer counselors to receive extra sexual violence training
Bob Sun urges more transparency on University committees.
Decoding the bureaucracy
James Yoon asks for more emphasis on public health.
Limited medicine
SEE NYFACS, page 2
8:00 a.m.
9:00 a.m.
10:00 a.m.
11:00 a.m.
12:00 a.m.
1:00 p.m.
2:00 p.m.
3:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.
5:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.
7:00 p.m.
8:00 p.m.
9:00 p.m.
9:10 a.m. - 10:25 a.m.
10:40 a.m. - 11:55 a.m.
1:10 p.m. - 2:25 p.m.
2:40 p.m. - 3:55 p.m.
4:10 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.
5:40 p.m. - 6:55 p.m.
1:10 p.m. - 2:25 p.m.
2:40 p.m. - 3:55 p.m.
4:10 p.m. - 5:25 p.m.
5:40 p.m. - 6:55 p.m.
7:40 p.m. - 8:55 p.m.
8:40 a.m. - 9:55 a.m.
10:10 a.m. - 11:25 a.m.
11:40 a.m. - 12:55 p.m.
old class periods new class periods
*Graphic describes 75-minute lecture classes onlyGRAPHIC BY YUMA SHINOHARA
BREAKING DOWN THE NEW CLASS PERIODS
DOUGLAS KESSEL / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MOVING FORWARD | NYFACS board members Elisabeth Cros, Andolyn Brown, and Richard Ortoli attend Tuesday night’s meeting.
“I woke up with a fever, and a headache behind my eyes, and within three days I had lost ten pounds... And I knew what was going on.”
PAGE 2 NEWS / SPORTS SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
AYELET PEARL / SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
SUMMER FUN | Local children took part in Police Athletic League activites next to 3333 Broadway.
our curriculum,” Richard Guevara, PAL’s director of field operations, said. “We have a prosecutor who has been savvy enough to recog-nize that the same drug money that was stifling the community can be taken off the streets.”
Maria Gomez, who has lived at 3333 Broadway for 37 years, said that the Play Street came during a period of decline for the complex.
“They used to have a cleaners and grocery store in here. They used to rent out the community room for parties and events,” she said. “But they never had anything for the kids.”
“Now they play baseball and
basketball instead of being out doing”—Gomez paused—“other things.”
Twelve-year-old Craig Whitfield said that he was grate-ful for the program.
“It was fun—we played games, we went on trips, they treated us nice,” Whitfield said. “At the end of the day, they brought us cupcakes and soda. I miss them already.”
“It’s a good program,” 12-year-old Bryant Acevedo added, stand-ing next to Whitfield and wearing a PAL T-shirt. “There used to be fights, but PAL prevented prob-lems. It helped a lot of people.”
Guevara called the program at 3333 Broadway a success.
“We’re not necessarily measur-ing the crime stats,” he said. “At the
end of the day, we’ve done our job if the kids remember the summer with PAL and made a connection with at least one officer.”
Still, it’s unclear whether the special narcotics prosecutor will be able to continue fund-ing PAL programs. There’s no guarantee that the schoolyard next to 3333 Broadway, for in-stance, will host a Play Street again next summer.
“We never know whether or not we’re going to have those kinds of funds available,” Brennan said. “I hope other organizations might adopt a Play Street. Businesses in the area might be able to sustain it. Maybe Columbia University could adopt a Play Street.”
Kids say Play Street has helped community3333 from front page
errors were too troubling to dismiss completely. According to Porter, the year’s first Parent Teacher Organization meeting, although intended to be a meet-and-greet, ended up being fo-cused on the exam scores.
“Recently there has been a great deal of discomfort and questions about the reporting of test scores,” Porter said. “The test scores were erroneously reported to the parent body.”
“The first email is absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally erro-neous,” she added.
Porter also said she was con-cerned that the error was “not understood, acknowledged, or explained.” She said parents were entitled to a higher level of transparency, especially given recent turnover in the school’s administration. (Zaglauer and Principal Edith Boncompain are recent hires.)
“That’s the current kind of question that hangs over the ad-ministration,” Porter said. “Why not? Why was this situation not acknowledged?”
Porter added, however, that she hoped parents would move forward from the issue. She called Boncompain a “tremen-dously positive force” and said that the “questionable decision-making” that the test score re-porting signified would not de-termine NYFACS’ reputation.
“Although this is troubling for parents, it’s not the focus of the beginning of our school year,” Porter said, adding, “We have other business to deal with, and that’s the education of our kids and the growth and improvement of our school.”
At the meeting, Boncompain expressed regret that parents were “focusing on negativity.”
“We’re trying hard to be a team together and showing what it is to be a team,” Boncompain
said, adding, “I don’t agree with people being disrespectful and aggressive.”
In response to parent ques-tions at the meeting, Boncompain and Zaglauer also detailed steps the school is taking to improve, including adopting a new math curriculum, ordering new text-books, and continuing Saturday morning enrichment classes.
“The energy is very posi-tive,” Boncompain said. “We got a chance to go round the class-room every day … Things are go-ing smoothly.”
Cros said that it was “exhaust-ing to waste our time on adult problems.” She added that the combined leadership of Zaglauer and Boncompain, given their dif-ferent backgrounds and qualifi-cations, would help improve the school.
“They are passionate about education, that’s all,” Cros said.
School admins look to focus on studentsNYFACS from front page
Isabelle Jouanneau-Fertig, who teaches Review of French Fundamentals at 8:40 a.m., ex-pressed enthusiasm about stu-dents having more scheduling choices this semester.
“The more choices for students and the more choices for teachers, the better,” she said. “Students know what they’re getting into. Not once have I had a complaint about early classes.”
Kane, too, said that he hasn’t
heard any complaints about ear-lier classes, noting that “the new schedule is all about creating more options, not requiring any particu-lar scenarios.”
“Adding more official time slots to the academic day, regardless of when these are scheduled, is an action meant to spread existing courses over more times, thereby creating more favorable options for students,” he said in an email.
Still, Thompson said that con-tinuing to expand the academic day—it now lasts from 8:40 a.m. to
10:00 p.m.—does not seem like a viable solution to the space crunch on campus.
“It’s not uncommon for univer-sities to start at 8:00, so I can see it coming down to that,” Thompson said. “But I wouldn’t take that class.”
Ghazi agreed, noting that some students are still upset with the changes to the schedule.
“This is already making peo-ple mad,” he said. “Earlier classes would not be a good idea.”
Longer school days combat space crunchCLASSES from front page
other way and earned a free kick through the counterat-tack. Freshman midfielder Kyle Culbertson aimed for the center of the penalty box, and senior de-fender Brendan O’Hearn headed the ball onward into the top corner.
“When you have fresh legs and a fresh mind, and you’re playing against guys who have been on the field for 70 minutes, and they’ve played—the same back four for them has played every second of every game,” Anderson said. “So we understood and did our home-work, and we knew what it was ultimately going to look like.”
“I think we showed a lot of character, and we fought hard,” he added.
Columbia next plays Saturday night, hosting Delaware at Columbia Soccer Stadium.
SOCCER from back page
Lions win on late header
find that other influences of physical health are ignored. Students have only sugar-laden and carbohydrate-based food options in almost all of Columbia’s cafés—most notably in libraries.
Where are the high-fat, high-protein options? The amount of time wasted due to sugar crashes over the years must be enormous. I would expect that it’s no coincidence that compa-nies like Google, which certain-ly must perform internal studies of employee efficiency and sat-isfaction, promote more active offices and provide a variety of healthy foods.
It might seem absurd to con-sider these problems, and many more, the aggregate result of some centuries-old philosophy.
But if they are not, then we have observed a systemic lack of good judgment.
If the mind is not held to be entirely separate from the body—if the modern under-standing of consciousness as an electrochemical phenomenon existing entirely within a mate-rial world is actually accept-ed—then how can we all justify treating the corporeal with such disregard? Especially given our recent obsession with “student wellness,” we should adopt a fuller view of what it means to “well,” a view that contains both mental and physical health.
Alex Jones is a Columbia College senior majoring in philosophy.
He is an internal editor for Bwog.com, a whiskey aficionado,
and takes great delight in the procurement of pearls of wisdom.
JONESfrom back page
Columbia fails to promote student’s physical fitness
BY REUBEN BERMANSpectator Theater Critic
It has been the fate of many an opera to be presented to the viewer in some form of sterility, lacking any animation or will, a subject for the edgy avant-garde to dissect and reconstruct. Far too often, a director will play the part of Doctor Frankenstein and try to breathe new life into that which was deceased, but instead create a mockery of the original. Such was the fate of The Metropolitan Opera’s “Faust” last year. However, there are the rare performances that return mas-terpieces from the dead in the form of angels rath-er than monsters. Le Poème Harmonique, which specializes in early music, creates such a miracle with its performance of “Venezia: From the Streets to the Palaces” this week at Miller Theatre.
Replicating the interior of a 17th-century the-atre, the production scorns technological advances of all kinds. Lit only by candles and played on pe-riod instruments, including a lirone, a colascione, and a theorbo, the 10 performers —four singers and six musicians—simulate the passion and revelry of Carnival in the streets of Venice, the city that gave life to the opera of the people. Through a care-fully selected program of early Baroque masters, which include Claudio Monteverdi and Francesco Manelli, the founder and artistic director of Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre turns a collection of songs into a living narrative about a chaotic night in a spectacular city. Juxtaposing
songs and madrigals about the joys and troubles of new love, the sorrows of romance and com-panionship scorned, and the simple pleasure of festive merrymakers, Dumestre builds canals of melody and piazzas of poetry upon the stage of Miller Theatre.
Although there were no sub- or super-titles to translate the Italian, none were needed on Wednesday night. The singers elevated them-selves above static performance, becoming actors and interpreters of their own words. They walked about the stage, with the exaggerated gestures and expressions of Baroque theater, allowing the joy or sorrow of their lines to be expressed fully in their actions. While two of the singers, the soprano Claire Lefilliâtre and the tenor Jan van Elsacker, performed solo pieces, the most evocative melo-dies were those sung by the whole company, es-pecially those which included the energetic and humorous Serge Goubioud. The musicians were also given their opportunity to shine in a beau-tiful sonata, composed by Dario Castello, which brought out the engaging and appealing talents of violinist Johannes Frisch. As they held their instruments in hand for the final bow, Le Poème Harmonique reaped the reward of a brilliant recre-ation of a bygone age —thunderous applause from an appreciative audience.
“Venezia: From the Streets to the Palaces” will have its final performance on Friday, Sept. 14 at 8 p.m.
Opera at Miller is melodic triumph, creating 17th-century theater experience
BY JULIEN HAWTHORNE Spectator Art Critic
Though handling an exhaustively common cat-egorization, two alums, Leticia Wouk Almino, BC ’08, and Katie Shima, CC ’05, might just avoid the pitfalls of examining modernity in their new exhibitions, now on display in the Diana Center.
Rather than take on the tone of angsty indignation, the exhibits, respectively titled “On Edge: 16 Squares” and “Living Machines,” both make implicit statements about the intersection of technology and public life. To their credit, neither artist allows her disposition to overwhelm her work, and each approach is intel-ligent enough to warrant attention and consideration.
“On Edge: 16 Squares” is an architecture photogra-phy exhibit that examines the public squares of four cities in Portugal and Brazil, all four of which were capitals at some time. Almino uses the public square in Lisbon as her primary study and shows the trans-formation of the public square across three Brazilian capital cities: Salvador, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia.
She argues that though these squares may have once been centers of public life, they now reflect a power dynamic in which an ordinary person walk-ing through the square feels alienated and exposed.
“The public square is no longer a place of welcom-ing, but of surveillance,” Almino said.
Almino attributes the barren atmosphere primar-ily to the introduction of the automobile, pointing out that a public square in Rio de Janeiro has a highway running through it that pollutes the visitor’s view and divides the space. The general emptiness of the public square has to do with class migrations associated with growth of the automobile industry. “With the auto-mobile comes the highway and the suburban sprawl,” Almino said. “The rich move to gated communities
and are removed from city life. People may walk across the square to get to work, but that’s all.”
Though Shima is an architect and her work in-corporates architectural design, “Living Machines” is a collection of a dozen digital reproductions of ink drawings that recall science-fiction illustrations rather than blueprints. The pieces synthesize the natural and the industrial, depicting highly intricate machinery interspersed with images of water, leaves, and earth.
The drawings remind the viewer not only of the natural processes that have been replaced by technol-ogy, but also of the all-embracing industrial infrastruc-ture that most people don’t notice.
“We couldn’t have this standard of living without major industries,” Shima said. “But I think that most people are entirely unaware of those processes.”
The designs intrigue and overwhelm the viewer. Though small on paper, they employ monumental design that, like the architecture of the public square, engulfs the human being and makes him or her feel small. A tree’s or flower’s simple sketch entails thou-sands of industrial activities that most cannot grasp. People see the results, but the infrastructure is con-trolled and understood by a select and privileged few.
The exhibits will be on display until Oct. 5. [email protected]
Architecture exhibit explores public life in drawings, photos
PHOTO COURTESY OF MILLER THEATRE
HIGH NOTE | The performers of Miller Theatre brought humor, energy, and emotion into their interpretation of “Venezia.”
SEPTEMBER 13, 2012 ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT PAGE 3
At Any Price
SoA professor Ramin Bahrani has been making a name for himself over the last 10 years in the indie world. Bahrani’s new-est film focuses on an enterprising Iowan farmer (Dennis Quaid) whose business
ventures and personal decisions cause huge problems for his devoted wife
(Kim Dickens) and racecar-lov-ing son (Zac Efron). Early
buzz at the Venice Film Festival pegs “At Any
Price” as worth looking out for.
SmashedDirected by James Ponsdolt, “Smashed” tells the story of a mar-ried couple (Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead) whose only trait in common, alcoholism, may be lost when the wife decides to quit drink-ing. The recently released trailer looks very indie-tastic, boasting a kind of un-expected wit and charm about the sub-ject matter. I’m particularly looking forward to seeing more of Winstead’s character, as the trailer does a great job of teasing out the apparently phenom-enal performance with which she’s been winning over critics everywhere.
BY WINN PERIYASAMYSpectator Staff Writer
As Columbia undergrads wrap up their first week back in Morningside Heights, sev-eral Columbia alumni are experiencing one of the biggest weeks of their lives thanks to the 37th annual Toronto International Film Festival. Started in 1976, TIFF is a 10-day film festival “dedicated to presenting the best of international and Canadian cinema to film lovers,” according to its website. Considered by many to be the most influential film festi-val of the year, TIFF has featured the world or North American premieres of such films as “Chariots of Fire,” “American Beauty,” “The Wrestler,” and “The King’s Speech.” Columbia alums have become a staple at TIFF in the past, with last year’s festival play-ing host to films by Deborah Chow, SoA ’03; Bogdan Apetri, SoA ’06; Larysa Kondracki, CC ’01; and Ellis Kirwin, SoA ’04. Check out some of this year’s contenders.
COURTESY OF “WHEN I SAW YOU”
OH, CANADA | “When I Saw You” is one of several films by Columbia alums to be featured at the Toronto Film Festival. The film focuses on the life of a family of Palestinian refugees.
Mea Maxima Culpa
“Mea Maxima Culpa” focuses on the controversial history of pedophilia in the Catholic Church, exploring the issue from the first signals of sexual abuse by clergy members in the 1970s in the States, to the reactions and cover-ups—pointing the finger at the modern day Vatican City itself. The way that the trailer shows the deaf children—now grown men—tell their stories is heart-wrenching in the worst way. The bal-ance between those personal accounts and analysis of their effect on the church and the world could make this a documentary worth remembering.
When I Saw YouAnnemarie Jacir, SoA ’02, is showing her second film (and second work to be selected as Palestine’s entry for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar) focuses on Ghaydaa, a single mother, and Tarek, her free-spirited, curious 11-year-old son. In the film, the two find themselves living in a refugee camp after being separated from Ghaydaa’s husband and Tarek’s father, Ghassan, following the occupation of their West Bank camp. The trailer alone makes Palestine look both gorgeous and relat-able in a way that I’ve never seen in film before and the bright-eyed, determined performance Mahmoud Asfa (Tarek) brings to the character makes him look the kind of child actor who can really make you believe in the material and the message behind it.
ImogeneDirected by Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman, “Imogene” focuses on the title character (Kristen Wiig), who, after faking a suicide to try to win her ex back, finds herself in the custody of her gambler mother (Annette Bening). Festival reactions have been mixed, but it will cer-tainly be interesting to see how Wiig and Bening, two of the best actress-es today, play off each other in this dramedy.
Toronto Film Festival Round-up
“The public square is no longer a place of welcoming, but of surveillance.”
—Leticia Wouk Almino, BC ’08
BY OLIVIA LANSDALE
The other day, when I overheard people talking about a “student impostor,” my first thought was that they were referring to some kind of personality type. My second guess was that people were having friends attend their classes. I never dreamed anyone would try to get an education through that kind of subterfuge. I didn’t know what to think.
My first reaction was to laugh. I thought of the line in “Mean Girls,” “she doesn’t even go here!” and imag-ined what it would be like to discuss deception in the Iliad with her in Literature Humanities. It was like learning that there are people out there who practice graffiti knitting (“Granarchy”: look it up). But only so much of it was funny. There’s a difference between joining a team of nightly “yarn bombers” and sleeping on a textbook in a subway station: The former is quirky. The former has friends. While I’ve never disguised my way into a place of higher learning, there was a time in my life when, like Birva Patel, I felt desperate and alone too.
It was all because I was trying to get into college. Throughout high school, college was the only thing on my mind. My list of coma-inducing extracurriculars took up a third of a single-spaced Word doc. I don’t believe it’s fair to compare my pretense with Patel’s—feigned interest is hardly as big a problem as feigned identity—but I can’t stop thinking about it.
Even if the impostor was here on a dare, when someone’s desire for anything—much less a particular school—is so extreme, then that person is experiencing something serious. A lot of us like to humble-braggedly talk about the “insanity” that is Columbia, myself in-cluded. But when you look at Patel, you can’t deny that most of us are fine. All the same, it’s worth revisiting the classic definition of insanity: repeating an act ad absur-dum and expecting a different result.
In high school, I was obsessed with concerns for the future. As much as I’d like to say I work hard here out of genuine interest in every course I take, I can’t. I’ve passed up opportunities to study things like 16th cen-tury Italian poetry in favor of courses I judged more “practical,” like “Introduction to Geographic Informa-tion Systems”, which would theoretically help me find oil. (I have no actual interest in finding oil.) All my work in high school got me where I am, but what’s the point if I’m only treating college as High School Two?
I pity Patel, but I’m also grateful to her. She’s re-minded me of how lucky I am to be here—and that I don’t have to pretend to belong. Ask anyone at coun-seling services and they’ll tell you that one of the most frequent statements they hear is “I have no idea why admissions let me in.” Many of us don’t know what we want to do after college, what we want to major in, or even whether we chose the right school. It’s danger-ously easy to assume that everyone else has got it fig-ured out. Columbia is overflowing with opportunities, and regardless of whether or not you have a sheet of paper proclaiming the admissions office’s belief in you, it’s easy to feel lost. We see people speaking up in class, or heading tables at the activities fair, or performing in showcases, and we begin to doubt ourselves. We may think, “Gee, I wish I could do that,” or even “I wish I felt that passionate about something.”
But it’s imperative that we have faith that we’ll find our way. Next time you feel low, look at your CUID. It’s real, and it gives you access to an entire commu-nity that’s willing to help. If there’s anything concrete we have to learn from our fraudster, it’s that having too many choices trumps having none.
The author is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing and sustainable development.
laura diez de baldeon
Lessons from the student imposter
At Columbia, many undergraduates become involved in sophisticated
biomedical research. In engineering labs, students eagerly build substitutes for dysfunctional tissues and organs. At the medical center, researchers learn to manipulate the genotype of mice to find the cure for neurodegenerative dis-eases. Our school is an institution that derives considerable influence from all its academic publications.
As a member of this research pow-erhouse, I can understand the heavy emphasis on basic science research in Columbia’s under-graduate education. But it is misleading to teach under-graduate students that the advancement of human health depends solely on new cures and discoveries on disease pathways. Improving a person’s health is not akin to solv-ing a problem on a biology midterm. A person’s socioeco-nomic status, ethical and moral beliefs, and geographi-cal location contribute as much to his or her health as a physician’s biomedical intervention.
For this reason, the United States is beginning to revamp how health care is being delivered across the na-tion. Against many odds, the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act maintained its legal standing when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it constitutional. This deci-sion raised people’s attention to the fact that affordability of health care remains a huge hurdle for many under-served communities.
While increased access to health care for millions of uninsured Americans is an achievement, health reform is far from complete. We spend more on health care costs than any other country, even though we rank only 38th in the world in life expectancy. In fact, we spend roughly 17 percent of our GDP, or about $2 trillion, on health care alone. This overspending is a rooted in a culture of medi-cine, which focuses only on the disease without looking at the whole patient. Doctors are paid on the number of
tests they run on patients, rather than the duration of time that they can keep their patients healthy.
Contrary to the reasoning behind the massive spend-ing on health care, the treatment of disease is only part of the health system. Thomas Frieden, the incumbent di-rector of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, argues that clinical interventions constitute only a small fraction of the factors that impact an individual’s health status. Changing one’s built and natural environment, health behavior, and socioeconomic status have a far greater impact than access to services provided at a hos-pital. Nevertheless, institutions like ours continue to fo-cus narrowly on finding the cures of tomorrow, when we already have the tools to prevent millions of people from falling sick today. Since 1964, the National Institute of Health has granted full-tuition grants and living stipends to M.D./Ph.D. students in 44 U.S. medical schools.
Like the NIH, Columbia recruits undergraduate stu-dents to conduct research in the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship. An imbalanced focus on strictly biomedical solutions encourages our country’s health system to wait for individuals to fall sick until it inter-venes. We need to change our “sick care system” into one that prevents disease, promotes health, and reverses systemic causes of morbidity in our population.
As the needs of the country’s health system are chang-ing, it is time for Columbia to open more pipelines to recruit a broad, diverse generation of students into our health workforce. Currently, there is no public health major or concentration offered at Columbia College. Only two courses at the Mailman School of Public Health are open to undergraduates on the Morningside cam-pus. Located now at the medical center on 168th Street, Mailman restricts non-public health students from tak-ing any other courses. The lack of an undergraduate pub-lic health program acts as a barrier to recruiting students outside the traditional pre-medical track. Usually, this field is an option for doctors who decide to add a master of public health degree during medical school or halfway
into their careers. However, Columbia students who pursue fields other
than the traditional biomedical sciences have many inno-vative ideas to contribute to health reform. For example, we need economics and political science majors who can bridge the gap between doctors and our nation’s health policymakers. Effective policies encourage communities to sustain responsible practices, such as routine check-ups to detect illness before it progresses. We need area studies, anthropology, and ethnic studies majors who can understand non-Western cultures and effectively advo-cate for concerns of minorities, in order to achieve equity in our society. Finally, we need majors in sustainable development and environmental science, since they can identify factors in our physical environment that cause poor health in industrial communities that are subject to environmental injustice everyday.
In preparation for a fully accredited undergraduate public health major, I propose that Columbia establish a satellite site for the Mailman School on the Morningside Heights campus. If public health faculty members are present on campus, they will be willing to teach un-dergraduates and collaborate with professors in other academic departments for interdisciplinary research. The field of public health actively recruits people with diverse educational and personal backgrounds, in order to understand human health as comprehensively as pos-sible. With this enhanced understanding, we can control the spread of disease and promote health beyond the concrete walls of a hospital or a laboratory.
In short, let us aim to generate a workforce of health professionals who can think in an interdisciplinary man-ner. If we do so, we will help our country avoid bankrupt-cy from our massive health spending.
James Yoon is a Columbia College senior majoring in environmental science and concentrating in biology.
He conducts research in the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Yooniversity runs alternate Thursdays.
Why Columbia needs a public health major
Regardless of whether or not you have a sheet of paper proclaiming the admissions office’s belief in you, it’s easy to feel lost.
Yooni-versity
JAMES YOON
PAGE 4 EDITORIAL & OPINION SEPTEMBER 13, 2012
Here’s a meaningless statement: I am a member of the Columbia College
and School of General Studies Committee on Instruction. Most students have no inkling of what it is or does—myself included. The first I heard of the COI was when I submitted an application for it, having found the link hidden in the subpoint of a Columbia College Student Council email—not exactly the best way to reach and inform students.
There is no good reason why a body like the COI should be opaque. On the contrary, we should know that students (theoretically) have a voice in a group that has decision-making power over the most important aspect of college: academics. We should know that it has the power to approve or reject classes, majors, and entire programs of study. And we should also know that the student representatives (e.g., me) are un-elected, and, in practice, have no accountability to CCSC or anyone else.
I write about the COI because it’s what I’m familiar with, but it is just one of many acronyms in the uncurated mess that is our academic bureaucracy. Have an issue with Frontiers of Science? It’s up for review before the COSI (Committee on Science Instruction) this year. Unhappy with the Global Core course offerings? The COGC (Committee on the Global Core) is constantly developing reforms. Think that it’s unfair that international admissions are now need-aware? Take it up with the CAFA (Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid).
The point is that Columbia has organs that can and do address most of the pressing and perennial issues facing students—only, they are not much use to us if we don’t know they exist. It becomes impossible to air grievances or float important reforms in any sort of productive manner, given the obscurity under which much of the University’s machinery operates. Take, for instance, our ambivalence towards many aspects of the Core. I do not think I am too far off the mark in saying that we value it and want it to thrive, which is why we, year in and year out, have discus-sions on how to improve it and keep it relevant. There have been town halls, meetings with individual administrators, and of course late-night conversations in dorm hallways, out of which have come some interesting and promising proposals.
We have spoken of removing the Global Core in favor of integrating non-Western texts in an extended ver-sion of Contemporary Civilization, of replacing Frontiers
with a more rigorous and field-specific introductory science course, of exchanging the current chronological approach to texts for a thematic one. These are all ideas worth further exploration by the community—students, faculty, administration, alumni—yet the furthest they ever seem to get is a quickly-forgotten Bwog post or a note in the minutes of CCSC, for the simple reason that we do not know how to approach those who actually have the power to make these changes. Precisely because it is not clear how our opinions are to be heard, when the admin-istration rolls out policies affecting student life, we can only complain that decisions are made unilaterally, with little thought for us. Whether this is actually the case or not, that we are able to make the assumption in the first place speaks to a dearth of trust between students and the University, hindering productive dialogue and leaving a sour taste in more than a few jaded students’ mouths.
The whole Columbia community would benefit from in-creased transparency on the part of the University. There is certainly no shortage of student interest in participating in the discussions that will make Columbia better, but we need to be given the information and tools to do so. The number of applications for a spot on the newly-formed Educational Policy and Planning Committee (over 60) are indicative in more ways than one, given that we know almost nothing about its real scope or powers besides what faculty, who are themselves unsure, tell us. The operations of any “commit-tee” or “task force” that could potentially impact student affairs should be made public to students, even if we have no direct representation on the body. Clearly defined roles for advisory and executive committees, greater student involvement in the decision-making process, and public minutes would all improve the tone of discourse—and al-low everyone to get more done. The University must make a real effort to engage students in matters relevant to their well-being.
There will always be legitimate reasons to keep some things confidential. The onus, however, should be on the administration to prove why the information should be kept secret, not on the students to prove why they should have access to it. If Columbia is serious about involving all members of its community in academic policy, it should be as transparent as possible. Anything less degrades students’ perception of administrators, and makes it impossible to have an intelligent and constructive dialogue.
Bob Sun is a Columbia College junior majoring in history and biology. He is a member of the Committee on Instruction.
Terms of Engagement runs alternate Thursdays.
Keeping things transparent
Terms of Engage-ment
BOB SUN
CONTACT US 2875 Broadway, 3rd FloorNew York, NY [email protected]: @ColumbiaSpec
PHONE & FAXDaily Spectator (212) 854-9549 Business (212) 854-9550 Business Fax (212) 854-9553EDITORIAL POLICYFor more information about the Columbia Daily Specta-tor and editorial policies, visit www.columbiaspectator.com/about.
CORRECTIONSThe Columbia Daily Spectator is committed to fair and accurate reporting. If you know of an error, please inform us at [email protected] & QUESTIONSFor general comments or questions about the newspaper, please write to the editor in chief and managing editor at [email protected].
DEPUTY BOARDNews EditorsJeremy Budd, Yasmin Gagne, Ben Gittelson, Jillian Kumagai, Gina Lee, Margaret Mattes, Casey Tolan Opinion Editor Grace BickersArts & Entertainment EditorOlivia Aylmer Sports EditorsSteven Lau, Alison MackeMultimedia EditorsNaomi Cohen, Nino Rekhviashvili Spectrum EditorSara GarnerCopy EditorEmily Sorensen Photo EditorsHannah Choi, Alyson Goulden, Douglas Kessel, Ayelet PearlPhoto Training DeputyDavid Brann Graphic Design EditorYuma ShinoharaDigital OutreachMarilyn HeSales & MonetizationWes Rodriguez, Ethan Yee Finance & StrategyNoah Kolatch, Jiaqi Liu, Bruno Mendes, Kinno Norojono Development & OutreachAudrey Greene, Amanda Kane, Kristine Musademba
EDITORIAL BOARDNelson Castaño, Jennifer Fearon, Dylan Glendinning, Marcela Johnson, Steele Sternberg, Virgilio Urbina Lazardi
ASSOCIATE BOARDNews EditorsAbby Abrams, Lillian Chen, Avantika Kumar, Emily Neil, Jessica Stallone, Melissa von MayrhauserEditorial Page EditorsLuke Foster, Jessica Geiger, Joohyun Lee, Sonalee Rau, Alan Seltzer, Steele SternbergArts & Entertainment EditorsStefan Countryman, Alison Herman, Charlotte Murtishaw, Lesley ThulinSports EditorsMuneeb Alam, Melissa Cheung, Eli Schultz, Josh Shenkar, Eric WongCopy EditorsAbby Abrams, Laura Allen, Peter Andrews, Natan Belchikov, Augusta Harris, Sebastian Hendra, Megan Kallstrom, Natalia Remis, Andrea Shang, Ben Sheng, Rosa SmithPhoto EditorsMaria Balsinde, Linda Crowley, Hannah Montoya, Jenny Payne, Kevin RoarkPage Design EditorsLillian Chen, Diana Ding, Sarah Greenberg, Margaret Mattes, Regie Mauricio, Karen Nan, Malida Tadesse, Ryan Veling Graphic Design EditorsBenjamin Bromber-Gaber, Celine Gordon, Sinjihn SmithIllustrations EditorIone WangStaff Development Youjung Jun, Aigerim SaudabayevaSales & MonetizationShaun Ang, Erin Chuah, Nora Long, Rebecca Pottash, Jessica SkoczylasFinance & StrategyEmily Aronson, Andrea Bonilla, Dat Dang, Jesse Garrett, Alex Ge, James Horner, Frankie Lam, Kevin ZhangDevelopment & OutreachMarquerite Horikawa, Maren Killackey, Rukmini Mahurkar, Danielle Ng, Moriah Schervone, Malina Welman, Diarra White Wenxin Yan
MANAGING BOARD
The 136th year of publicationIndependent since 1962
HENRY WILLSON Photo Editor
TREVOR COHENDirector of Sales & Monetization
SARAH DARVILLE Editor in Chief
TALA AKHAVAN Staff Director
ALEX SMYK Publisher
MAGGIE ALDEN Managing Editor
ANDREA GARCÍA-VARGAS Editorial Page Editor
SAMMY ROTH Campus News EditorFINN VIGELAND City News Editor
MAYA FEGAN Design Editor
ABBY MITCHELL Arts & Entertainment Editor
ABIGAIL FISCH Head Copy Editor
JAKE DAVIDSON Online Editor
DANIELA QUINTANILLADirector of Finance & Strategy
CORPORATE BOARD
LANBO ZHANG Editorial Page Editor
ROB FRECHDirector of Development & Outreach
REBEKA COHAN Sports EditorMYLES SIMMONS Sports Editor
ASHTON COOPER The Eye, Editor in Chief
CATHI CHOI The Eye, Art Director
MEREDITH FOSTER The Eye, Managing Editor, Optics
ISAAC WHITE Design Editor
ANNELIESE COOPER The Eye, Managing Editor, Features
STEPHEN SNOWDER Spectrum Editor
WEDNESDAY NIGHT STAFFCopyMaya Becker, Abigail Golden, Matthew ShoreDesignMoriah Schervone
The Columbia Daily Spectator accepts op-eds on any topic relevant to the Columbia University and Morningside Heights community. Op-eds should be roughly 650
words in length. We require that op-eds be sent exclusively to Spectator and will not consider articles that have already been published elsewhere.
Letters to the Editor should be no longer than 350 words and must refer to an article from Spectator or The Eye, or a Spectrum post. Submissions should be sent to
[email protected]. Please paste all submissions into the body of the email. Should we decide to publish your submission we will contact you via email.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2012 CLASSIFIEDS PAGE 5
KITTEN SEASON IS HERE!The Animal Project needs good fos-ter homes for cats and kittens. You care for kitties until they find forever homes—or adopt a pair yourself. Call (212) 567-5206.
COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA
Work from your space. Looking for in-dividual to help build and maintain start up educational website. Good pay. P/T. Contact Jordan (718) 627-6767.
PSYCHOTHERAPISTSensitive, empathetic therapist for in-dividuals and couples dealing with rela-tionships, college/career issues, par-enting, infertility, adoption, third party reproduction. Sliding scale fee. Con-tact Phyllis Lowinger, LCSW at (212) 666-3400. Email: [email protected]
$$SPERM DONORS WANTED$$Earn up to $1200/mo and give the gift of family through California Cryobank’s donor program. Convenient Midtown lo-cation. Apply online at: SPERMBANK.com
ENGLISH TUTOR (ESL)Focussing on pronunciation, accent re-duction, also vocabulary, grammar in speaking and writing. Will correct your errors in our conversations with full explanations. For grad students, fac-ulty, spouses. Mature NYC-born man, Ivy educated, on CU campus. Reason-able rate. Flexible schedule. Henry Tu- tor: [email protected]; (212) 787-0964.
UNWANTED CLOTHES PICK-UPDoor-to-door pick-up of you unwanted /gently used clothes and small items. Prompt, reliable, inexpensive. Call (646) 241-1633..
APARTMENT TO SHAREResponsible person to share fully fur-nished apt in central Riverdale. Rent includes utilities and cable. (917) 617-0405.
2 BR CO-OP APT FOR SALE$175K for a 2 BR co-op apt located on 160 St betw B’way & Amsterdam Ave. Hardwood floors, spacious lay-out. Clos e to public transp. Income re-strictions apply. To view, please call Brian at (212) 831-1368 or email to: [email protected]
4 BR CO-OP APT FOR SALE$355K for 4 BR, 1 bath co-op on 136 St betw Riverside & B’way. The apt is spacious and provided charming accommodations. 10 ft high ceilings, hardwood floors, laundry in basement. Close to public transp, CU, Riverside Pk. Income restrictions apply. To view, please call Brian at (212) 831-1368 or email brianresales @gmail.com
PROFESSIONAL EDITING by Colum-bia Ph.D. Dissertation and academic style expert (APA, Turabian, MLA, etc.). Typing services available. (877) 922-9422.
PROFESSIONAL EDITING service.Editing of essays, theses, dissertations, etc. by professional editor and writer. Reasonable rates. Email [email protected]
CLASSIFIED AD RATES:$8/00 per first 20 words.
25¢ each additional word.Ad in all boldface $4.00 extra.
All ads must be pre-paid.2 business day deadline.
Call 854-9550 for information;or fax ad to 854-9553.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 • PAGE 6
SPORTS
My editors
didn’t want another column de-scribing the apathetic at-titude towards sports so com-monly found in Columbia’s undergradu-ate students, and I agree with the topi-cal embargo, but I consider that condition of apathy only a manifestation of a primi-tive metaphysical belief even more widely found on campus. Permit me my explication.
Everyone always remi-nisces about strolling onto College Walk for the first time as a prospective student, look-ing across South Field at the warmly glowing palace that is the Butler Reference Room, and thinking to themselves, “There. In there I’m going to think big thoughts.” We envis-age all the great ideas of the Western canon steaming off the pages of old, fragile texts—the air thick like an intellec-tual opium den.
To what degree, if ever, we might achieve this innocent ideal isn’t the concern, but to establish that, Columbia, and our roles as students within, is defined by engagement in intellectual activity.
What I’d like to suggest, is that this studious character-ization of our universal nature belies an absurd metaphysical belief from the 17th century.
You see, there was once a man named Descartes, and he had this pesky habit of chal-lenging everything with stolid, methodological skepticism. You’ll have to excuse me as I hurriedly, with unforgivable omission and gross misinter-pretation, recount the old CC interpretation that more than half our student body current-ly lacks.
Descartes was skeptical of his perception of external objects big and small, of his bodily extension, and, finally, of his own thoughts. With the help of philosophy’s most prolific deus ex machina, God, Descartes worms his thoughts, body, and some of the exter-nal world back into certain existence.
Here’s the part about which I and many of Descartes’ con-temporary philosophers were concerned: Because Descartes so thoroughly deconstructed the metaphysical layers of ex-ternal perception and internal thought, it became apparent that mental phenomena differ qualitatively and/or substan-tially from the external world and even from one’s own physical body. Simply: The mind and body can be fully conceived, in part, as entirely separate. I think we all be-lieve that.
Seriously, I do. We find the manifesta-
tions of this belief in many corners of our community, the primary example of which is our dilapidated and em-barrassingly sized gym. One only need look around for an unscientific sample size of the student body to find that many, if not most, are sallow and “skinny fat” at best. Our curriculum (rightly) consid-ers some subjects so important that all students are required to learn them, but physical fitness is relegated to a measly two electives.
Is it not important that all students know how to run properly? Or know how to throw a ball? Do we not care if the basic skills of physical fitness are broadly ignored? And yes, of course, the lack of interest in spectator sports is another manifestation of the deficient consideration we give to the corporeal side of things.
Even as we move outside of the category of “things that make you sweat,” we
Columbia’s philosophy of fitness
Armchair Athletics
ALEXJONES
BY JOSH SHENKARSpectator Staff Writer
Light Blue field hockey (3-2) continued its recent trend of impressive play with a 4-2 home victory over Hofstra Wednesday afternoon. After losing their first two games of the season on the road, the Lions have now won three con-secutive home games.
“Overall, I’m really pleased with this win and our style of hockey,” head coach Marybeth Freeman said. “We’re doing a really good job of playing com-bination-style hockey and cre-ating attack opportunities, and we’re finding a way of finishing up front by being in good re-bound positions.”
The first half was close and competitive, and both sides
had numerous shots and scor-ing opportunities. Hofstra opened the scoring with a goal from star freshman for-ward Lauren del Valle just under four minutes into the game. But Columbia senior back Katie DeSandis tied the game by scoring with under four minutes in the first half.
While the second half was similarly competitive, the Lions did a much better job of converting their scoring oppor-tunities. Senior forward Molly Andrews scored three minutes in to give Columbia the lead, and junior forward Liz Malone gave the Lions a two-goal cush-ion in the 63rd minute. Hofstra sophomore forward Jonel Boileau cut the deficit to one with less than eight minutes left to play before DeSandis
added another goal in the 65th minute.
One key factor in the Lions’ win was their conversion of penalty corner opportunities, as DeSandis scored two goals off of them. Freeman attributed the success in that area to the time her team spends practic-ing set pieces.
“We do put a lot of time in practice sessions working on them and working on the details so we are able to ex-ecute in our game situations,” Freeman said. “It’s something that we focus on, so when we get those opportunities, we have to capitalize.”
The Lions will begin Ivy play this weekend when they travel to Brown on Sunday. The game will start at 1 [email protected]
LILY LIU-KRASON FOR SPECTATOR
STAR SOPHOMORE | Columbia sophomore Paige Simmons had two key assists in Wednesday’s 4-2 victory against Hofstra, the Lions’ third consecutive victory.
Lions control second half at home, earn third consecutive victory
BY MUNEEB ALAMSpectator Staff Writer
At halftime, Light Blue men’s soccer (2-3) looked like it was headed for another disappoint-ing result. The team did not have a single shot on goal, while Saint Peter’s (2-4) had registered three. The Peacocks’ most dangerous at-tacker, sophomore Noah Sadaoui, was getting numerous scoring opportunities.
But during all of this, an-other factor was at play: fatigue. Excluding goalies, at least seven Peacocks had played every min-ute, but only four players had done the same for the Lions. Three of Columbia’s top offensive threats—junior midfielder Henning Sauerbier, senior midfielder Nick Scott, and junior midfielder and co-captain David Najem—only came into the game in the 33rd minute (for undisclosed reasons) and were relatively fresh. Sure enough, the Light Blue got better and better as the second half progressed and emerged with a 2-1 victory.
“I think you had fresher legs on the field,” Columbia head coach Kevin Anderson said. “I think we used the depth of our roster to the best of our ability, and I think that that depth, particularly in our front group of guys, showed.”
It seemed to play a role in the opening tally of the game for the Light Blue. Sophomore mid-fielder Andrew Celsus played a ball to sophomore forward Kofi Agyapong, who passed to Sauerbier. Sauerbier tried to get into a shooting position but was tackled and only managed to poke the ball back to Agyapong. Agyapong then cut past a defender, cut to his left around the charging goalie, and slid the ball into the net before a defender could recover.
“I was told by my coach that I should try to have the ball in the middle, and when I get it I can just do what I do best, which is to take people on,” Agyapong said. “And so when I saw the ball there, I just took it. Every time I try to score, the defender comes, and so then I have to cut it and put it in.”
The lead lasted only a little over five minutes. Sadaoui, while
registering shots, had not yet been able to get off a quality clean look. But he took advantage of a recent sore spot for Columbia: play re-starts. A free kick from the right was headed down by the Lion defense, but not very far. The ball came to Sadaoui at the top of the box, and he ripped a shot into the lower left corner of the net for his sixth goal of the season.
Despite the goal and seven shots, Sadaoui was played well by the Lions defense. He wasn’t able to create offense with the ball and instead had to rely on being in the right place at the right time.
“They [the back four] did a great job of tracking him, making sure the other center backs were picking up when he was moving across the line,” Columbia fresh-man goalie Kyle Jackson said. “I think we did an overall great job of just staying organized. Everyone did a really good job.”
In his first career start, Jackson made six saves, including two that required him to charge an oppo-nent who had broken in behind the Lion defense.
“We’ve got 26 guys on our team, and everybody’s job is, when your number’s called, to perform to the best of your ability,” Anderson said. “Kyle showed you that tonight, as one of 26 guys, that we can count on him.”
Even after conceding the goal, Columbia continued to show more energy. A desperate, sliding pass block prevented Sadaoui from finding himself on a breakaway. Najem played a through ball that found a teammate behind the de-fense but a little too far towards the sideline to create a good op-portunity. Celsus pressured the Peacock defense with some speed and then found Najem, whose shot from inside the box was blocked by a defender who had fallen to the ground.
But finally, in the 79th minute, a goal.
Off a long throw-in, Sadaoui got the ball and took a hard shot towards the lower left corner, but his attempt was blocked by a team-mate. The Lions then rushed the
Light Blue lineup rotation helps team avoid fatigue
SEE JONES, page 2 SEE SOCCER, page 2
Gabby Kozlowski Anna Scipioni
• Year:Senior• Hometown:Voorhees,NJ• 1goalinCU’s2-0win
overBucknell(Sept.8)• 2goalsinCU’s8-3win
overLaSalle(Sept.9)
• Year:Freshman• Hometown:Palmyra,PA• 1goalinCU’s2-0win
overBucknell(Sept.8)• 1goalinCU’s8-3win
overLaSalle(Sept.9)
Ivy Player of the Week Ivy Rookie of the Week
INFO COURTESY GOCOLUMBIALIONS.COM