Memories tagged “Columbia College”

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

50th Class Reunion On May 18-19, 1999, the Class of 1949 celebrated our 50th graduation ceremony. On May 18, 1999, I was nominated to give out the 1999 graduation pins to all the seniors of the graduating class of 1999...

Columbia College 1999

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 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

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

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

Combat Veterans I entered Columbia College in 1946 along with many combat veterans of World War II. I was 22 years old and one of the youngest veterans in my class. I had flown missions over Germany in B-17’s with...

College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953, Columbia College 1949

Entering College I was a graduate of Lafayette H. S. in Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1942. World War ll had started, and I enlisted in the Army Air Corps as an Aviation Cadet. After flying as a Bombardier with the...

Columbia College 1949, College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953

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

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

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

My Best Teacher Even though it has been over 50 years since I was graduated from Columbia College, it took me less than a split second to come up with my “best teacher” nomination: Professor Boris Stanfield. Why? More than...

Columbia College 1955

Oh, Do I Remember! In 1968, Bernard W. Nussbaum - my distinguished classmate and dedicated donor to the Columbia College Fund - decided to run for political office. So, he mustered the shock troops, Ernie Brod and this correspondent to...

Columbia College 1958, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1976

Post World War ll Years Dear Editor, I entered Columbia College in February 1946 as one of many World War ll combat veterans. The G. I. Bill of Rights paid for most of my tuition, thank goodness. I also earned...

Columbia College 1949, College of Physicians and Surgeons 1953

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

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

Spiritual Culture Shock I came to the College in the fall of 1972 as an eager music major. Having already worked as a pastoral musician (organist and choir director) in the Catholic church since the age of 12, I considered...

Graduate School of Business 1978, Columbia College 1976

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 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

Using Old Tradition to Create a New World Columbia’s reputed “traditional” core curriculum was one of the things that drew me to the school. Throughout Lit Hum and CC, I fully appreciated that we were engaging with texts that were...

Columbia College 2004

Visiting Art Galleries as an Undergraduate Columbia College in the City of New York was the way it was put to us. New York City is a great resource for Columbia students, and as a college student majoring in art...

Columbia College 1963

Where Am I NOw? Coming to New York City at the age of 17 from Memphis was a great challenge - one that my mother said ruined me for life - but in my opinion it made my life. I...

Columbia College 1948

Who Owns New York? Every time the cadets scored they stood up across the field to taunt us, waving their clean and pressed white handkerchiefs. But at four in the afternoon we had the last wave. I was a freshman...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1961, Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1952, Columbia College 1951