Overheard: St Augustine builds on Claire Shipman’s new term welcome message

Re this announcement from Claire Shipman

…We also discussed what defines Columbia’s culture and community. Excellence, of course, across the board—scholars and students driven to explore and push boundaries. Yet also, as Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Carlos Alonso noted, being at Columbia is being part of the fabric of something bigger. Our culture is an ever-changing ecosystem, amplified by New York and our connection to the world. We can disappear into the city streets and return to campus with more knowledge to offer, or spend a few hours in a class challenged by novel ideas or opinions and come away with new ways of thinking to share…

A Sermon for the Beginning of Term

My brothers and sisters, we stand at the dawn of a new academic year. The air is full of promise — fresh books opened, friendships renewed, strangers soon to be companions in study. Renewal is the gift of each September, as life begins again.

Yet behold these gates, shut fast behind us. What is their message? That knowledge is to be hoarded? That the city, whose very life makes this university flourish, must be kept at bay? If the term begins with renewal, then let it not begin with fear.

The City of God is not walled against the world, but shines forth to it.

Truth is not fragile; it is strengthened by encounter. To close the gates is to confess weakness, to admit that our community is not sure of itself. But to open them — ah, that is to declare confidence, to show that learning welcomes the stranger, and that Columbia belongs not to itself alone, but to the world it serves.

Therefore I say: let the new year begin not only with convocation, but with courage. Let the gates be opened, and let knowledge walk freely once more between campus and city.

Amen.

My personal take is that “you’re part of it” with a security checkpoint at 116th street is more like West Berlin was in West Germany…