Memories tagged “Campus”

1968: Year of Decision I am a Vietnam Veteran, a college graduate of the Vietnam Era, and a professional journalist. That should establish either some kind of credibility or culpability. The Vietnam War began when I was l7 years old...

Columbia College 1967

1979 I was a freshmen the fall of 1979 in Carmen Hall. During that time the upperclassmen would yell up to us: “Four more years!” I didn’t quite get what they meant at first, but I soon understood.

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1983

9/11/2001 September 11, 2001 will go down in American history as one of its most tragic days. But despite the all the horrors witnessed, the tears shed, and the fears we felt that day, I witnessed a moment that will...

Columbia College 2003

A Civilian Freshman in Hartley Hall (June 1944) Graduating high school in early June 1944, I entered Columbia College to begin my freshman year the 2nd week of June. We freshman were on the fourth floor of the dorm, and...

Columbia College 1949

A Happy Baby at Columbia It’s funny I’ve been asked this question as I was just thinking of it the other day. My favorite place to relax on campus, and I did it A LOT, was at the…(can’t remember the...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1991

A Just Education When I was a freshman I led a panty raid on Barnard. We had at least 100 guys storming the Barnard dorm in search of underwear. (What trophy could be more valuable?) In the pandemonium I hit...

Columbia College 1958

A Kid from the Bronx–Part 1 I arrived at the College in September 1952. At that time, a large percentage of Columbia “Men” (remember those dark days before women were admitted?) lived at home in the city or nearby suburbs...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1982, Columbia College 1956, School of General Studies 1976

A Peaceful Visit I was a student in the Combined Degree Law School - Business School Program and went to Columbia Law and Graduate Business Schools year round for three years–from when I was discharged from the U.S. Army in...

Graduate School of Business 1968, School of Law 1968

A Perfect Columbia Day Of all the days that linger in my memory, one from my graduate study at Columbia stands out in particular. It was my doctoral defense with visiting professors from Michigan, Yale and Columbia P&S. I could...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1974

A Perfect Match Made in the Dormitory Back in 1960, the Carman Hall dormitory had just opened and was still known as New Hall. The college and the dormitories were all male and the rules did not allow unchaperoned women...

Columbia College 1964, College of Physicians and Surgeons 1968

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

A Wonderful and Baffling Mix As one of seven kids in a Philadelphia working-class home, I never expected college, but a National Merit Scholarship made it feasible. My Princeton visit convinced me I’d be a misfit there (tall blonde guys...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1971, Columbia College 1969

Acorns and Tai Chi I have a few Furnald stories. I remember once making my bed late one morning and finding an acorn in the sheets. Thinking nothing more than, “That’s weird,” I threw it out the window and shut...

Columbia College 1990

Adversaries, Old and New In 1964, I was a staff announcer at WKCR and was assigned to do the halftime newscast at the Columbia-Princeton basketball game. For some reason, I could not do the newscast from the WKCR studios in...

Columbia College 1965

AN ORIGINAL SAM Some of you will remember Sam. When I arrived at Columbia after the spring 1970 riots, he was sitting on Low Library steps or at the Broadway Gate selling his color abstracts. They were always of fanciful...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1972

Ani DiFranco, Neil Young A high school buddy came from out of town for a few days and saw posters on campus for an Ani DiFranco concert in Wollman Auditorium (may it rest in asbestos-abated peace). Needless to say, having...

Columbia College 1994

Armageddon In early September, 1952, I arrived on campus as a sophomore, a transfer from the University of Oklahoma. It was my first visit to New York. It was the Saturday before the Monday that Orientation of New Students would...

Columbia College 1955

Arriving Early In the fall of 1956, a fellow student and I arrived at Colubmai as the first two students to attend engineering school on the Combined Plan from Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. Neither of us had been out...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1958

Beautiful Site Although many of the gardens on campus are lovely throughout the year, my family and I especially appreciate the beds of Columbia Blue iris that bloom just once each year around the base of Low Library. A long...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1990

Beauty Beneath No one would dare call Earl Hall a beauty. It may actually be among campus’s bleakest buildings; ironically, it is the geographical mirror counterpart–if memory serves–to the Maison Francaise, one of the loveliest. Neither I nor anyone I...

Columbia College 1978

Beauty on Campus I was on campus from Aug 1986-May 1990. I spent most of time on the steps overlooking the beautiful quad. Every day (weather permitting) for four years, I’d spend multiple hours on the steps just to the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1990

Beauty Spot You asked for a favorite beauty spot on the campus. They are all gone! On my last visit, the beauty spots of my Columbia days are now covered with buildings.

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1940

Beethoven’s Fifth I lived in a John Jay single my first year, on the fifth floor. My room was in the middle of the hallway, and on one end was Ben Middleman’s. Ben had great and varied musical tastes he...

Columbia College 1997

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

Best Sports Event I Saw In the spring of my sophomore year, 1988, I asked the Office of Sports Information how to try out for the position of Lion mascot. The answer was “You got the job!” The lion suit...

Columbia College 1990

Best Sports Event Seen Actually, this was an event heard and not seen. The momentous occasion when Columbia College’s soccer team made it to the finals of the NCAA championships in my final year at CC. It was a game...

Columbia College 1986

Boy Meets 616 One of the highlights of my Columbia housing experience was sophomore year when an acquaintance from a Barnard linguistics class asked if I would be interested in joining a Japanese special-interest house. I had just started studying...

Columbia College 2003

Calling Cambridge One day in the late 1960s the folks in Carman Hall, Suite 604–the suite right behind the open area in front of the elevators–got a private phone connected. Later that day someone came to use the campus phone,...

Columbia College 1969

Campus Spirituality? To be honest, at that point in my life, spirituality was not on my agenda. I have examined it later on. I would say though that learning about and therefore becoming comfortable with my family’s cultural, and religious...

Columbia College 1986

Car Alarms Near East Campus In the late 1980s, New York City seemed to have more car alarms than cars. By the time I arrived in Mornignside Heights in 1986, car alarms rang with such frequency that they rarely, if...

School of Law 1989

Carman 3 “Campus Side” Having visited campus twice before entering the College, I was quite ready to move into Carman for the complete co-ed experience. When I got my room assignment for 304B Carman, I was disappointed with the low...

Columbia College 1988

Carman and the Freshman Line The first memory that I have of Columbia is getting into a long, snakelike line on the sidewalk of 114th Street outside Carman Hall with my parents after grabbing a parking spot somewhere in the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1988

Carman’s Wall of Sound As a freshman member of Columbia College’s last class to be admitted as an all-men cohort (women transfers graduated with us), we who lived in Carman Hall were likely also the last to experience a certain...

Columbia College 1986

Carol Schulz Carol Schulz was my Korean language instructor for just two and a half years during my Columbia College days, but was my “mother away from home” for nine of the 10 years that I was on the Columbia...

School of Law 1992, School of International and Public Affairs 1992, Columbia College 1987

Civil War Draft Riots - Prof. Shenton Professor James Shenton’s lecture on the Civil War draft riots that took place in New York City in 1863 was an exceptional experience for the several generations of Columbia students who heard it...

Columbia College 1982

Co-ed Bathrooms I remember moving into Furnald dorm for my junior year and realizing for the first time that not only was the floor co-ed, but the bathrooms were, too. I noticed that in the stall next to me the...

Columbia College 1994

Columbia 20, Princeton 18 It is Homecoming Day, 1988. Columbia’s valiant eleven haven’t been victorious over Princeton in years… twenty-five since I was a freshman. Somehow, the year 1945 rings a bell. The Lions have tried all afternoon on a...

Columbia College 1968

Columbia Just Keeps Getting Better My children and I live so much closer to NYC than we have in quite some time. We visit the city often and always visit Morningside Campus, where I point out various spots and narrate...

School of General Studies 1982

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

Commuting at High Speed The dorms were full of midshipmen and v-12ers, and I lived in Hempstead, whence I commuted every day, running for the 7:20 train on the LIRR, then fighting my way into the B’way train that took...

Columbia College 1945

Compare and Contrast I was a sophomore, taking the Art Humanities course, and had little prior exposure to great paintings. Halfway through the semester, we were assigned papers and given an instruction sheet. The sheet gave us some points to...

Columbia College 1966

Declaiming in Johnson I remember well the day I moved into Johnson Hall (now Wien). It was a Sunday morning, one of those blue-sky days you just about never see in the city, and everything about the campus looked magnificent....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1977

Divine Intervention in Hamilton Hall The construction of the International Affairs Building involved heavy blasting, which was supposed to be scheduled to coincide with intervals between classes. Frequently, the blasts came early. Given the religious and philosophical themes in CC...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976, Columbia College 1970

Documents to the People In April 1968, the turmoil on campus led the University to close Butler Library. The Library School was on the top floor of Butler. With the library closed, we were unable to attend classes. A group...

School of Library Service 1968

“Don’t go there” When I attended Columbia, my core Catholicism after 13 years of Catholic schooling was weakish, but still strong enough to send me into the arms of the Newman Club, and to keep me attending Mass on Sundays...

Columbia College 1967

Dorm Life It was a warm, beautiful, late-spring day, and we were studying for finals. As I looked out of my Livingston Hall 2nd floor window, a pretty co-ed walking by caught my eye. I yelled a hello to her....

Columbia College 1958

Dormitories then, apartments now Furnald, in the early 1960’s, had the wood panelling, the fireplace, the overstuffed lounge chairs, and the red brick elegance of McKim, Mead, and White, along with a view of resident comfort which is absolutely stark...

Columbia College 1966

Dormitory Life After a period of commuting, my parents changed our apartment and my brother opened a dental office in my bedroom. It was a good reason to move into the dormitory. I shared my room with a classmate who...

Columbia College 1951

Envious Regrets I went through the college as a young 16 year old, still living at home in Washington Heights, focused on a pre-med education and adolescent socialization. I helped out on the Columbia Review, wrote humerous poems for the...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953, Columbia College 1949

Experimental Art at Prentis Hall One memory sticks out beyond others in my Columbia experience: a series of crazed, semi-unofficial parties in Prentis Hall on 125th St. Home to Columbia’s world-class computer music center as well as the industrial sculpture...

Columbia College 1995

Facilities Manager I spent my first and only summer on campus after completing my freshman year. I had decided not to return to Cleveland, so as to avoid working in the mall or at a restaurant waiting tables. Of course,...

Columbia College 1998

Favorite Place (Not) to Study My favorite place to relax was the gardens at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine. I would bring my books along to seek some solace in the serene greenery of the gardens, the occasional...

Columbia College 1990

FBeeOtch My freshman year, 1995/96, I began deejaying at WKCR the last year that the radio studio was located in Ferris Booth Hall. I did one of the overnight time slots, and the hour from three until four am was...

Columbia College 1999

Financial Aid: Thanks, `55 Without substantial financial aid, I would not have been able to attend college. About a third of my education was underwritten by a most generous scholarship sponsored by the Class of 1955. Whenever I meet a...

Columbia College 1965

Financial Aid Quite simply, I could not have even considered coming to Columbia but for having qualified for a Ford Foundation grant in 1952. The program sought high school juniors a year or more younger than their classmates (I had...

Columbia College 1956

Finding Columbia University In Bulgaria It is strange how going to an art museum in Sofia, Bulgaria makes one think of Columbia’s Henry Krumb School of Mines…. I have been coming to Bulgaria for almost 20 years. The late Prof....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1973

Finding Furnald During my first year at Columbia, my home was 929 Livingston, a double with a view across the John Jay airshaft. If you got really close to the window and moved over to one side, you could see...

Columbia College 1965

Flashy New Dorms The new East Campus facility was a great living experience with suites and a nice kitchen and communal area. We had great parties (who didn’t?) and romantic adventures (who said college wasn’t a learning experience?). But most...

Columbia College 1983

Fluffy Little Clouds . . . So I’m living in Furnald Hall during my sophomore through senior years (which was a feat in itself, since everyone seemed to want the large rooms in Furnald!) between 1989-1992, and typically had a...

Columbia College 1992

Forging Friendships on the Road to Columbia Being a part-time graduate student from the business community in New Jersey, my Columbia “social life” consisted of long, afternoon commutes into the city and somewhat shorter drives back home. The many hours...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1987

Freshman Dorm Life Lessons My religious experience at Columbia began from my first day moving in to John Jay hall as a Freshman, where I lived adjacent to an Orthodox Jewish student, a Muslim, a Buddhist and an atheist! I...

Columbia College 1989

Freshman Orientation in Furnald Hall Coming from an extremely conservative immigrant family, I was not allowed to live in the dorms my freshman year. My parents claimed that it was an unreasonable expense, given that we lived just across the...

Columbia College 1992

Freshman Week Hosting: Opening a Door At the start of my senior year, my Freshman Week host duties mainly involved meeting each night with several dozen fresh-faced denizens of an upper floor of Carman Hall. At 11:30 p.m. they were...

Columbia College 1972, School of Law 1977

Freshman Year 1968 We formed a terrific group of friends in Hartley Hall in 1968, a time when we slept on bunk beds, doors had to be open when a girl was in the room, and the hallway floors were...

Columbia College 1972, Graduate School of Business 1976

From MSW to MRS While a second year student at the School of Social Work, I was living in Johnson Hall. I would do my laundry once a week, & on a particular day while I was folding clothes, a...

School of Social Work 1974

Furnald Fun Who doesn’t have a story about the dorms? I remember trekking up all those flights of stairs in my Columbia boxers to move into Carman 13, the band that practiced down the hall and only seemed to know...

Columbia College 1995

Furnald Hall: The Jewel of Broadway Say what you will about the less-than-sanitary shared kitchen and co-ed bathrooms in Furnald Hall: it was still a jewel to me and a fabulous place to live during junior and senior years. Finally,...

Teachers College 1990, Columbia College 1989

Furnald Snowball Fight - 8th takes on 7th If I’m not mistaken, it was one of the President’s holidays in February of my senior year. I was the 8th floor residence counselor with a room right across from the TV...

Columbia College 1978

Furnald Lots of events and people made my three years in Furnald so memorable, but to many of us who lived there it beat anywhere else on campus because of a grand old Columbia figure named Ben Jerman. Ben spent...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1974, Columbia College 1973

Geiger Counters One moment from my four years in the Columbia dormitories that I will never forget was during my freshman year (1986-1987 academic year). Campus security, who had discovered that radioactive material had been stolen from the physics department,...

Columbia College 1990

Ghana Be Good During my junior year (Spring 2003), I left for what would eventually become a life changing experience. I had originally been scheduled to study in South Africa, but at the suggestion of a couple of friends, I...

Columbia College 2004

Government Defined Professor Rothstein taught Government 101. His most brilliant lecture included a piercing analysis, the definition of government broken down to its lowest common denominator: “That group which has ‘legitimate’ access to violence.” The lecture occurred in 1963, right...

Columbia College 1966

Greatest Sports Moment The greatest sports moment that I witnessed on campus was last seasons Men’s Basketball victory over Princeton at the buzzer on 2/18/06. This came after beating Penn the night before and on the induction night for the...

Columbia College 1994

GS Hangout During the late 60’s and early 70’s, a group of about 10 of us from GS, along with a few grad students, used to hang out regularly at the West End bar. There was a long banquette that...

School of General Studies 1973

Hang Time - Learning in the Lab When I went to Columbia, my favorite place to study was the lounges in what was then the new science building attached to the Engineering building. The building was relatively new and no...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1982

Hartley Hall 1958 This is the beautiful room of Andy Kubishen and Frank Zmorzenski. It was only like this for the picture (to show our parents). We were roommates for sophomore and junior years. There were a few problems with...

Columbia College 1960

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

How Did I Ever Graduate?! In grad school, I fell in with the wrong crowd. Well, it wasn’t exactly a crowd–let’s say, the wrong tiny little group of misfits. Cockroach-fashion, we made minimal appearances during daylight but prowled around endlessly...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1977

How I Kept Warm During my first year at Columbia I lived in Ruggles Hall. The main steam pipe went right through my room. It was so warm that I had to keep the window cracked open all winter long....

School of Law 1983

Howard I spent thirty minutes a week with Professor Howard Stein in his Dodge Hall office, where he taught me as much about life as about playwriting. Thank you, Howard.

School of the Arts 1990

Hudson View After transferring from a school with cinderblock housing, metal bunk beds, and views of the nothingness of the middle of Indiana, I found myself in an end room of Maxwell Hall overlooking the Hudson. It was 1971. Not...

School of Public Health 1973, Teachers College 1982, School of Nursing 1972

Hunan Heat in NYC Ah, the powers of the Dumplings in Red Hot Oil at the small, dark, rather dingy Hunan restaurant at the corner of 96th Street and Broadway! They’d call to my roommate and me late at night...

School of Library Service 1971

I Remember I remember blasting David Bowie and Aerosmith to get pumped up before a wrestling meet. I remember the sounds of James Taylor and Jorma Kokonen during those intimate moments at Hartley Hall, and the beat of NYC’s own...

Columbia College 1979

ISLAMIC EXPERIENCE Earl Hall was the hub of Friday noon congregation (JUMMAH) for the small group of Muslim students, Faculty and staff. Muslim worship requires ablution (WUDU cleaning of body parts with water) before attendance. The small crimpy restroom was...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1981

IT’S SNOWING I experienced snow “for the first time again” when, at my freshman dorm (John Jay), the whole floor went out to baptize my next door roommate (who was from India) with a good old fashioned snowball fight. We...

Columbia College 1989

James Farmer and the Cable Guy In senior year I arranged for James Farmer, head of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to speak at Columbia. I reserved a large corner room in Hamilton Hall, infomed “Spectator” and WKCR, and...

Columbia College 1963

Jet Lagged When I first arrived in Paris, I was tired from my long trip from New York to Reykjavik to Luxembourg, then a train ride to the Gare du Nord. At Reid Hall I was told I couldn’t check...

School of General Studies 1975

JJ7 24/7 365 420 Ask Class of 2004 residents of the seventh floor of John Jay Hall about JJ7 and a wry smile will quickly adorn their faces. JJ7, as we affectionately called it, was our introduction to Columbia–and what...

Columbia College 2004, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2004

John Jay Allegiance I began my Columbia tutelage on John Jay 11, room 1127, to be exact. I will always remember move-in day - maneuvering those bulky, orange moving bins from the elevator to my little slice of Columbia. My...

Columbia College 2003

Krum Elbow The part of the Columbia campus that I most enjoy remembering was the Columbia boathouse at Krum Elbow. It was, it seems, inaccessible by land, sited in an isolated rural area across the Hudson river from Poughkeepsie. The...

Columbia College 1950

Life at Johnson Hall I arrived at Columbia University and Johnson Hall in August/September of 1975. This was the first academic year that Johnson Hall was coed. Previously it had been a women’s graduate dorm. I believe two or three...

Graduate School of Business 1975

Live Jazz Memories Among the memorable jazz moments that still resonate are hearing John Coltrane from point blank range at Birdland, Randy Weston and Mose Allison at the Five Spot, Herbie Mann at the Village Gate, Ella Fitzgerald at Lewisohn...

Columbia College 1966

Livingston Hall: All Three Varieties As a NYC freshman in the (in)famous Dudley’s Follies class, my parents and I thought that living away from home made sense. Rather than live in the almost brand new NEW HALL (nu?), for whatever...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1968, Columbia College 1964

Livingston Hall Freshman year I opted for the cheapest room I could find, which as I recall was $190/semester. It was a double with bunk beds in Livingston Hall. At left is a picture of the room with my roommate....

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1973, Columbia College 1969

Look Up My spiritual experience at Columbia was, in a word: awful. Before becoming a student at Columbia I was baptized and confirmed in the Episcopal Church. I grew up in Huntington, Long Island, New York. This was a great...

School of General Studies 1978

Love Letter to Alma Mater Columbia is indeed a special place. Every time I walk across College Walk, a feeling of family comes across my heart and a sense of opportunity comes to mind. I first set foot on 116th...

School of Law 1990

Love of Cities Attending Columbia ignited my love of cities. I grew up and attended architecture school in suburbia, with only periodic ventures into any nearby city. Moving to 113th Street and immersing myself in the preservation program was a...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1995

Lunch Date The day I’d like to relive is the day I had lunch with my wife on the top floor of Hamilton Hall. I was in my third year of law school. We were newlyweds, having married at the...

School of Law 1998

Meaning of Commencement Before Columbia, graduation ceremonies were meaningless exercises. In elementary and high schools, everyone who kept their warm bodies in their seats for the required time was guaranteed a spot at the commencement party. So I questioned the...

Columbia College 1979

Meeting the President’s Wife I arrived on campus in the fall of 1952 as a scholarship student. I waited on tables at Johnson Hall for meals and took extra jobs for income. One of my first jobs was to wait...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1957, Graduate School of Business 1970, Columbia College 1956

Moving In Day at Carman My first year at Columbia, I lived in Carman, which was a brand new dorm. Moving in went smoothly until the door to the room got stuck closed - with my mother inside. We spent...

Columbia College 1990

My “Artsy” Experience In my 7 years at Columbia, my “artsy” experience both on and off campus was significant. On campus, I had a memorable classes in art history, music and in Shakespeare. I also took a class in textile...

Graduate School of Business 1974, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1971

My Dorms My first dorm room was in John Jay. It was not so cold during the winter break compared to my friend’s room behind the FBH building. JJ is very private environment. Not much chance to bump into others....

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1997

My Favorite Campus My favorite times to hang out on the Columbia campus were in the summers. From the times when the South Field was slippery with the dew of the humid mornings to the times when the night sky...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1978

My Favorite Place at CU To me, Columbia is most beautiful at 7:30 in the morning. During my time at Columbia, I spent many a weekday morning up at 7 to get to some Manhattan internship by 8:15 am. It...

Columbia College 2006

My Favorite Place When I was at Columbia, I was on the Health Science Campus at 168th St. which is not known for it’s “beauty.” At that time, the School of Nursing was located in Maxwell Hall, and we had...

School of Nursing 1980

My First Day Commuting to Columbia My life is now a fast paced blur of events as I run though the treadmill of life with work, family, and the kids, however, first memories of Columbia are still sharp and forever...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989

My Heart Remembers with a Great Fondness It was in the spring 1959 after the semester had ended and the summer school semester had yet to begin when I had a surge of affection for C.U. I walked on to...

School of General Studies 1960

My Other Life: A Journey When I hear someone say “I wish I were in 21 again; life was so easy,” I always respond: “You can take 19-23. I’ll stay who I am now!” I came to Columbia-SEAS at the...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 2001

My Roommate? What Roommate? My first semster living in a Columbia dorm was also the first time I’d ever had to share a room (other than bunking with my older brother at home as a kid). Naturally, before arriving on...

Columbia College 1969

My Shoes Wore Thin! In the Program in Occupational Therapy, we often traveled many miles per day: from 186th St. on the west side to TC campus on 116th St. and south to 23rd St. and First Ave., many days...

Teachers College 1960

My Strangest Library Experience It was a cold February afternoon. Actually, as all Columbians know, there are few February afternoons around campus that are anything but cold. So it’s probably sufficient to say that it was a February afternoon. I...

School of General Studies 2003

My Thesis or My Life During graduate school, I lived on the 29th floor of Haven Tower 2 at the Health Sciences campus. One winter morning, around 4am, one of my three apartment-mates burst into my bedroom and told me...

School of Public Health 1997

Never Mess with a Football Player In my Sophomore year, I was assigned to Ferris Booth Hall. My next door neighbor was a member of the football team and quite large. Ferris Booth was still being renovated, and there were...

Columbia College 1962

Nu? Hall In those glorious days of yesteryear when New Hall was unfinanced and therefore unnamed, women were prohibited from the dorm. Surprisingly, this even applied to Vassar women, as I discovered one rainy day when I smuggled such contraband...

Columbia College 1964

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

Oh, those wonderful dorms Gosh, how do I miss them? What do I miss most? One of the best things was the view from East Campus. I liked staying up late and socializing in Carman: playing spades and hearts, chess,...

Columbia College 1999

On Broadway My most “artsy experience” was in the summer before my senior year, when I ended up taking a class called “The New York Theater Experience.” I was hoping that it would be an easy way to see free...

School of General Studies 2003

Opera in Hartley Hall My sophomore Arts Humanities professor described van Gogh as “passion nearly out of control.” I took that line to bed with me in my Hartley dorm and had the following dream: I’m on the stage of...

Columbia College 1961

Opus Dei at Columbia I was intrigued that you would want to know about our religious experiences. During my four years there, I remember Columbia University feeling like the most God-forsaken patch of pagan indifference on the planet. Perhaps I...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1976

Pains and Pleasures of Dorm Life It was painfully obvious from the first day that I met my first-year roommate that we were different. She had a shaved head, had piercings and tatoos all over, and drank out of a...

Barnard College 1998, School of Public Health 2002

Paul Tillich: The Ameba While an undergraduate, I lived off campus with my parents, but I came to many of the Earl Hall events. I was very excited to attend an informal gathering with Dr. Tillich. I really don’t rememember...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1964, Columbia College 1959

Perfect Columbia Day Submitted by Rod Allee, GSAS ‘97, American Studies A gorgeous early summer day in 1992. There was a breeze, slow and thorough, that afternoon. The brown haze had been blown clean beyond memory, leaving a shocking azure,...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1997

Planning a Life In 1956, Joni, my recently-departed beloved, and I began planning our life late at night on the steps of Low Memorial Library. From time to time we would stay late enough to get nudged by security. Later,...

Columbia College 1960, Graduate School of Business 1992, School of Public Health 1993

Porpoises and Philosophy It was the first lecture in a graduate course on German philosophy between Kant and Hegel. Dieter Henrich, a visiting professor from Germany, was giving the packed lecture hall an introduction to the subject, when a person...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976

Proust on the Lawn One of my favorite recollections from my freshman year is going out onto the (great) lawn in front of Furnald Hall in late spring (finally warm weather!) with my copy of Proust’s “A la Recherche du...

Columbia College 1971

Quentin Anderson Ruminating on St. Augustine’s Confessions, the great Professor Quentin Anderson sat at the head of the boardroom table, we twelve or so sophomores tucked around in confidence of his sage and gentle pronouncements on the humanity lessons of...

Columbia College 1980

Relaxing on Sunday Mornings My favorite place to relax at Columbia was on Low steps. My wife (she is now anyway), Rebecca (‘93) and I would go to Columbia Bagels on Sunday mornings and ask “What’s hot?” The employees would...

Columbia College 1993

Religion at Columbia I was a graduate student in sociology in the 1960’s. My wife and I, both white, lived in Woodbridge Hall at 115th and Riverside. Before we met, she had joined Church of the Master, a largely African-American...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1969

Roar Lion Roar Beyond question, my favorite day/night at Columbia was Saturday January 18, 1964. I was a member of legendary coach Jack Rohan’s first recruiting class and after playing freshmen basketball I moved up to the varsity as a...

Columbia College 1965

Rolled-up Carpet Freshman Year, Carmen Hall, 8th floor (1983) Jon, John, & Steve find a rolled up carpet in a dumpster and say, “Hey, that would look great in our dorm room.” They get in the elevator and try to...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1987, Graduate School of Business 1991

Running for Warmth Coming to Columbia from Cleveland in 1984, I was pleasantly surprised to find the temperature relatively balmy in New York, with the buildings trapping heat and generally knocking down the wind. So after growing up on the...

Columbia College 1988

Scowl (A Lament, with Apologies to Allen Ginsberg) Scowl (A Lament, with Apologies to Allen Ginsberg) I. I’ve seen the best minds of my generation silenced by manufactured fear, Banalized by materialist want, marginalized by a creeping sense of anomie,...

Columbia College 1975, School of International and Public Affairs 1991

Securing a Seat at Commencement 1980 Desmond Tutu was to have been the Commencement speaker in 1980, but he was unavoidably detained, apparently assisting the police with their inquiries back in South Africa. I forget who spoke in his place....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1980

September 12, 2001 I was in my apartment, one block from Ground Zero, when two planes destroyed my neighborhood. My husband and I (who, incidentally, had gotten married in Columbia’s Chapel) walked uptown seven miles to his mother’s house. The...

School of the Arts 2001

Sex and the Switchboard I lived in John Jay and Hartley when I was attending Columbia. In those days, there were telephones in the hall on each floor of the dorms, and they were connected to the outside world through...

Columbia College 1956

Shivering at Columbia Arriving at JFK in January of my first year at Columbia, just back from the winter holidays, the flight attendant announced that it was -35 degrees with the wind chill in New York. At first, I hoped...

Columbia College 2003

Shooting Stars I still vividly remember the freezing November morning that I spent on the steps in front of Alma Mater. It was around 4 a.m., and we were still working at Avery Hall, researching and designing. By 5 a.m.,...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 2003

SILENCE & LIGHT I remember two experiences which happened before, and after my graduation at Columbia. Although both were secular events I remember them as profound and at least for me religious experiences. The first experience was an individual one....

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 1993

Ski Jump on Low Steps After a once-in-a-decade snowstorm in the heart of New York, my teammates and I decided (brilliantly, I might add) to venture with our ski gear out to the Low library steps. After all, we weren’t...

Columbia College 2003

Snapshot of Paris My semester at Reid Hall in Paris seems like a fog, with twinges of red wine and cafe cremes. The short five months blur together in my memory. All that remains are fleeting images of dinners with...

Columbia College 2004

Snooze I used to love the Architecture library as it had particularly comfortable easy chairs to take a snooze in between classes, since I had an early class on Tuesdays and a huge chunk of downtime until the next one....

School of General Studies 1990

Snowed In If I could relive one day in my experience at Columbia it would be a day in February 2003 when school was cancelled because of a heavy snow storm. I think the central campus was more active that...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2007

So THAT’S What Life Is About! I came to Columbia largely sheltered from the real world, with little experience other than sitting on a stoop with my friends or immersing myself in books. As a freshman, I was assigned to...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1956, Columbia College 1954

So What I remember in ‘78 and ‘79 going regularly to hear the Columbia group “So What” playing at Carman. I thought they were the coolest guys on campus – cooler than the Count Basie guys at the West End....

Columbia College 1979

Something New for Astronomy Class My defining moment at Columbia involves neither my arrival on campus nor meeting a Barnard co-ed. In fact, I was not even on campus when it started, but home eating dinner when a reporter on...

Columbia College 1960

Southern Californian Not Ready for Real Cold My reaction to the first cold days I experienced in Morningside Heights were a little like Dorothy’s initial response to being in Oz: “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.” In fact, I...

Columbia College 1962

Speedway During my junior and senior years, I resided at the College Residence Hotel on West 110th Street with several other College men. The apartment was close enough to campus to enable us to enjoy Columbia life, but we also...

Columbia College 1983

Spirituality During My Years at Columbia At the ripe old age of “over 40,” I began my long term full-time graduate work at TC in 1991. That work was the culmination of a lifelong dream to attend Columbia. Early on...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1997, Teachers College 1993

Stakes Is High to the Red Headed Stranger The first thing I heard when I stepped into my suite at Carman Hall was the album Stakes Is High by De La Soul. The last thing I heard at Columbia, leaving...

Columbia College 2001

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

Succeeding the Focused Way When I was an undergraduate in occupational therapy, part of our classes were at the medical center and part at Teachers College. I lived on the main campus. I found that returning to college after a...

Teachers College 1967

Suite Accident In my final year of residence, I was entitled to live in the suites located on 113th street. The hallway of my suite was too narrow for a closet door to open completely and be placed back against...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1997

Summers spent … wisely? I spent two summers taking classes on campus: the first time, between my 2nd and 3rd years, so that I could spend the following fall in Paris and still complete my two majors; the second time,...

Columbia College 1999, School of Law 2003

Sunday mornings at Columbia Chapel An Episcopalian friend of mine, whom I had already known as an undergraduate at Ohio State and who was getting her masters in English Lit at Columbia, sang in the choir of the Columbia Chapel....

School of Library Service 1957

Surviving the Winter Growing up in California, my father was a fresh air fanatic. He insisted that you should always sleep with a window slightly ajar for some fresh air. That worked fine in California, but it created some problems...

Columbia College 1988, Teachers College 1992

Talking Back to the TV (and the Movies at the Nemo) I lived on the ninth floor of Livingston Hall in my freshman year (1958-59) and on the second floor for a few months at the start of my sophomore...

Columbia College 1962

Taps Columbia was probably more interesting than other university campuses musically not just because it was in the middle of a thriving musical marketplace but because musical things happened so serendipitously and had such unexpectedly pleasant consequences. As a freshman,...

Columbia College 1967

T.E.R. Singer’s Class It was a very hot day in June, 1959. We all were seated in Butler Hall, on the top floor, waiting for the professor to arrive. There was no air conditioning, and no fan in the room....

School of Library Service 1962

Thank You Ford Hall I was ecstatic when I was accepted into the Fall 1985 class of Arts Administration students studying for MFA degrees in the School of the Arts. The only problem–no on campus housing available for students who...

School of the Arts 1988

The Anabaptist Vision One of the more momentous, though still little-known, lectures ever given at Columbia was delivered by Harold S. Bender on December 28, 1943, in the Men’s Faculty Club. The occasion was the annual meeting of the American...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1980

The Beauty Part For me, now celebrating the 50th reunion of the College’s class of 1956, the most beautiful site on campus was and remains the Casa Italiana in general, and its Teatro in particular. I was honored to serve...

Columbia College 1956

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 Big Chill Are you kidding? “Big Chill??” I came to the College from Minnesota, where men are men and only whooses put on parkas when the temp drops below zero (Fahrenheit). Winters in New York City were a tropical...

Columbia College 1965

The Casuals The Casuals were a New Wave band c. 1980 who often performed in the crowded front room of that wacked-out fraternity on 114th St that kept having spectacular drug busts. Band members were all Columbia College undergraduates, though...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1980

The Chopped Liver Malted When WKCR was located in Hamilton Hall Annex in the 1950s, there was a coffee shop across Amsterdam Avenue called Columbia Chemists. Every afternoon, the WKCR regulars would repair there for a cup of coffee and...

Columbia College 1959, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1961

The Closing of the Ring Although I am now a New Yorker again, I have lived and worked on six of the seven continents. I was a commuter, a subway student, for the first three years of my Columbia experience...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1950

The Columbia Riots of 1968 In the fall of 1967 I entered the School of General Studies, following a three-year stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia. I won’t say that the spring of 1968 was my happiest time...

School of General Studies 1974, School of Library Service 1976

The Gate During the spring of my sophomore year I moved into a room on the 2nd floor of Hartley, a forced exile from my beloved McBain that I did not take too well. I took it even less well...

Columbia College 1996

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 Hogan Life I was studying in Russia when I got the news that I and my friends had managed to snatch a suite in Hogan Hall. Ah Hogan, the King of Dorms and lucky Seniors’ pride! My own room...

Columbia College 2002

The Hungarian Pastry Shop At the beginning of my sophomore year at Columbia College, in 1989, I decided to study Russian. Within a week of starting my first-year Russian class, taught by a charming graduate student whose name escapes me,...

School of Law 1996, Columbia College 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 Invisible Student You don’t know me. I was an invisible student, one of many who worked their way through Columbia. As the lights came on in the dorms, I left for my job as usher at Radio City Music...

Columbia College 1947, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1948

The Lectures Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my beloved Columbia University. I was drawn to share my anecdote when I read the question, “What’s your favorite part of campus?” I started thinking. As a graduate...

Graduate School of Journalism 2005

The Lesson of the Wrong Train My first significant Columbia experience occurred a month or two before my freshman year began, during the summer of 1959. A family friend invited me to visit the campus and gave me directions: take...

Columbia College 1963

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 Misfit There I was: a nice southern girl (so I thought) at a nice green-campused southern university with a nice southern roommate, and I was miserable. Academically, I was happy, but socially - well, the year was 1974, and...

School of Nursing 1978

The Prettiest Part of Campus Columbia has a beautiful campus. In particular, the view from the windows of the East Asian Library looking out at night onto the lighted trees in winter is breathtaking.

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2005, School of General Studies 2002

The Pub Relaxing in the basement of John Jay in the Pub was a frequent activity. Of course, back then, the Pub was a real pub. When another graduate and I recently visited campus, how things have evolved – having...

Graduate School of Business 1978

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

The Thrill (and Agony) of Winter at Columbia As a member of the Women’s Swim Team at Columbia from 1983-1987, I vividly recall both the thrill and agony of the arrival of wind, snow and ice on the CU campus....

Columbia College 1987

This Is a Real Fire, Folks I was head resident of Furnald Hall when I heard this one. In addition to fire drills, in which counselors would herd grumpy Furnald folk out of the building, we would occasionally have real...

Columbia College 1972, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1974

To Thine Own Self Pay Heed If I could travel back in time to 1974 and translate my regrets into good counsel to my freshman self, I would say go ahead and be a “grub.” “Do all the problem sets...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1978

Trying to Study When I was an undergrad, a lot of my mental energy, maybe too much of it, was expended in search of the perfect place to study. As an easily distracted student, I was always looking for a...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 2001, Columbia College 1998

Unusual Memory of the Columbia Library Fresh out of West Virginia for the first time in my life, I was a twenty-two year old library school student at the School of Library Service, Columbia University, in the winter of 1945-46....

School of Library Service 1947

Up on the Roof Carman Hall was horrible: a cinderblock high-rise. But its roof was one of the finest spots in New York City, with views of the Hudson, the midtown skyline, and–on a clear day–the Statue of Liberty.

Columbia College 1973

Use What You Can Find I was living in an off-campus apartment on East 95th Street, and it wasn’t well heated - or so I thought. Actually, it was par for the course in NYC. I looked at the radiators...

School of General Studies 1975

Water in the Dorm At the beginning of February 1958, the start of my second semester at Columbia, a bed became available in a 3-bed attic room on the 10th floor of Hartley and I bid adieu to my hour...

Columbia College 1961

We Did Have Music! When I started Columbia in 1965, there was an abundance of local musical talent, both on and off campus. Folk stuff had been popular and “The Walkers” were the hottest rock band in Ferris Booth Hall....

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1973, Columbia College 1969

Wein Hall As a member of the women’s basketball team, I was required to stay on campus during Christmas Break. During my sophomore year, I lived in Wein in a single with my best friend across the hall. Campus was...

Columbia College 1995

What New York Had That Warmed Me Most I live in Ohio’s snowbelt, now. In my memory, New York, with streets on which the snow seemed to melt like magic, was warmth itself. All fall, I loved taking the bus,...

School of General Studies 2002

“What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This?” Among the endless forms required of first-time registrants in 1959 was one asking “Religious Preference.” I don’t know if “none” was an option, but to leave no doubt...

Columbia College 1963

Where the Heck Is It? I was the first boy in my family to go to college since my great-grandparents emigrated to this country – something that may have been true for more than a few of my classmates, I...

Columbia College 1956

Wien Hall, Tacos, and a Toilet: One Year in the 11th-floor Janitor’s Closet 86 square feet. There is really no way to understand the true meaning of the size without spending a year in my sophmore-year dorm room. During the...

Columbia College 2002

Wild Turkeys on Campus I have fond memories of morning coffee on the back porch of the Monell Building for international climate research at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO). On one occasion, I spent a few moments with two charismatic...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 2005

Window Stops I lived in the Schapiro residence hall the year that it first opened. It was (and I hope still is) an excellent dormitory. Perhaps the most bizarre experience of my life at Columbia was when URH had a...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1989

Winter in New York What I remember most about my first Columbia winter was how it stopped me in my tracks. Spring break 1993 became “stay-in-the-dorm, give up on travel, and sleep” time. But it fulfilled all those magical idealized...

Columbia College 1996, Graduate School of Journalism 2001