Memories tagged “Butler Library”

A Season in Ruggles I arrived at Columbia in September of 1971. My room was in Ruggles Hall, behind John Jay Hall, across 114th St. from Butler Library. I had contracted for the cheapest room available. It was 9 feet...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1980

Before a Seminar At Columbia, when you have an hour and a half before your next seminar, there is always a place to go. I imagine Universities–of Nebraska or Main or Iowa or New Mexico–and think their “places to go”...

School of the Arts 2006

Best Library Moment Sophomore year I was living with my ex-girlfriend and my best friend, Vince, in a 3-person suite in East Campus. It was close to mid-terms, and the tension in the suite was rising as exams got closer....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1990

Bomb Squad In the 1960s I worked in the Special Collections section of Butler Library while going to school at Columbia. We received a gift of many films reels from the estate of Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North, etc.)....

School of Library Service 1970, School of General Studies 1968

Busta Rhymes Concert I was only a senior in high school, visiting my future alma mater. It was pouring, but the steps were packed with black umbrellas and plastic ponchos. And there was Busta Rhymes jamming in front of us....

Columbia College 2002

Columbia Universtiy and Orhan Pamuk Columbia University and Orhan Pamuk October 24, 2006 Columbia Universtiy in New York City became home to two new Nobel Laureates early in October this year when Prof. Edmund Phelps won the prize in economic...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1964, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1970

CU through a Newcomer’s Eyes For most people, the image of giant steel gates evoke terrifying feelings of confinement. When I first walked through the gates of Columbia University, I was overpowered with a completely different emotion. For the first...

Columbia College 1998

Dozed Off In the 1960s I worked in Special Collections in Butler Library. We had a room called the Papyrology and Epigraphy collection where we stored the ancient texts. One afternoon, we let in and locked inside the room a...

School of General Studies 1968, School of Library Service 1970

Eclipse I think it was in 1972 that we had an eclipse of the sun (an astronomer could check this). I was studying upstairs in Butler Library where the old SLS (now defunct!) used to be, looking out across the...

School of Library Service 1973

Farewell to Student Life It’s one of my definitive memories of graduate school. I’d been struggling for a week to complete my final master’s essay to get my M.A. in English (as a part-time student, I had always intended for...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1988, School of General Studies 1985

Heart of a Campus I arrived at Columbia as a graduate student in the fall of 1963. Though I’d visited New York a number of times, I hadn’t really experienced life in a big city and certainly not life on...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1965, School of Library Service 1975

Hiding in the Stacks I completed my degree in 2002, but spent most of my Columbia experience at the university in the mid-70s. Air-conditioning was not a ubiquitous pleasure then, and finding a cool and quiet place to study might...

School of General Studies 2002

Life in NYC Sometime in the fall of 1969 during my graduate school attendance at GSAS, I came across graffiti scrawled in the men’s room of Butler Library pleading “Free the New York 8 million.” As a lifelong resident of...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1969

Oddly Collegial In the fall of 1986 I somewhat reluctantly entered the School of Library Service. In the five years since graduating college, I had considered law, theater, journalism, wildlife ecology and clown school. I’d worked in libraries through college...

School of Library Service 1987

Stretch & Bobbito Moving from my hometown, Wheeling, West Virginia, to Manhattan to attend Columbia was an eye-opener in innumerable ways. But more than anything, it was the music that made me glad I had made the journey. During my...

Columbia College 1998

The Best Thing Happened to Me in FRONT of the Butler Library It was an early spring-like Saturday morning in the fall of ‘04. I was brand new to June Cross’s news reporting seminar. I had always heard stories of...

Graduate School of Journalism 2005

The Herodotus Quiz When my father helped me move to New York to begin my graduate studies at SIPA, we took a walk across the main campus, a rare moment alone for the two of us. He quizzed me, history...

School of International and Public Affairs 1992

The Ike and I As a student at The College of Pharmacy (68th St. and Broadway), I was in my sophomore year. We had to go to Pupin Hall on the campus for physics. During a lab period, we were...

College of Pharmaceutical Sciences 1952

The Lows and Highs of Campus Beauty An urban university campus is not the first place in the world that comes to mind when I think of locations that have the capability to move the soul, but Columbia has these...

Columbia College 1990

The Sexy Manuscripts It was back in 1957, when I was on campus taking my MS in Mechanical Engineering. I had some time between classes and decided to explore Butler Library from top to bottom. I took an elevator to...

Graduate School of Business 1967, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1958, Graduate School of Journalism 2002