Memories tagged “Religion”

1980 My brother Ted also went to Columbia, and though he is an education major, he really loves music. He was the producer of the coffee house at St. Paul’s Chapel. I went there with boyfriends, family, and friends to...

Program in Physical Therapy 1982

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 Sensitive Topic While studying anthropology at Columbia University I learned to think. In the late 1960’s remarkable human beings such as Joan Vincent, Abraham Rosman, Marvin Harris, Margaret Mead, and other smart, bold, kind, and devoted men and women...

School of General Studies 1970

A Spiritual Tale from the Mansion I started Columbia School of Social Work as a newly married, college graduate from Minnesota. The challenges of living in the city, starting graduate school, and married life were exciting and amazing. Learning to...

School of Social Work 1963

A Student’s Story My first year in a CC class upset my applecart. Catechism instruction did not prepare me for the daily debates. Occasionally I made a point. The one I remember is “omission can be as much an offense...

Columbia College 1951

Already a Quarter of a Century? There are so many people who pass through our lives, like breezes on their way to the sea - they might jostle us, or soothe or please us before they disappear, or they may...

School of Social Work 1980

Back to “Seven Storey Mountain” This will be brief. Some time at Columbia (two years at Barnard), around 1944-46, I became acquainted with the writings of Thomas Merton. I read “The Seven Storey Mountain” and particularly enjoyed his recollections of...

Teachers College 1959, School of Nursing 1949

Brilliance Personified The best teacher I had at Columbia was Professor Lloyd Motz. Beyond teaching a very interesting course in Astronomy, he gave me a real-life personification of what it was to truly be an intellectual. In every class I...

School of General Studies 1975

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

Chrysalis of Awareness: The First Step in World Change Columbia provided the environment for the most dramatic growth I have experienced, immersed in a culture of diverse and amazing colleagues undergoing similar growth and guided by the luminance of engaged...

Columbia College 1990

Columbia Books to Live By Many books from my Columbia days have had profound impact on my appreciation of Western and Eastern civilization and on my worldview. One of these was a book from Professor Robert Thurman’s class, Buddhist Ethics,...

Columbia College 1990

Columbia Spirituality: Buddhism As a Theravada Buddhist by family tradition, I arrived at Columbia with a cultural exposure to layperson Buddhist practice, as well as a superficial understanding acquired through the excuse of getting out of bible study class at...

Columbia College 1990

EMBA Religion Religion, spirituality and the Columbia EMBA program are words few string together. Ironically, a humbling realization of the dedication and unimaginable sacrifices made by program participants and educators alike, in retrospect, has brought me profound clarity. The Columbia...

Graduate School of Business 2002

Experiences of Religion at Columbia – Fond Memories of Paul Dinter I imagine anyone who had the opportunity to be part of the Catholic community at Xavier while Fr. Paul Dinter was the Catholic chaplain will remember that time fondly,...

Columbia College 1989

Faith in studying I identify as Protestant and was very happy to find an event entitled GradPraise during my first week at Columbia. GradPraise turned out to be a meeting that occurred each semester and involved students from all of...

School of Social Work 2002

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 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

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

My Spiritual Pilgrimage at Columbia I was a fairly nominal Christian when I entered Columbia. During my second year, another engineering student, having heard via the grapevine that I was supposedly a Christian, invited me to his room each night...

Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science 1951

New Religion I was at Columbia at a special time - the late 60’s. I was a good Jewish boy from Brooklyn. Due to certain life style influences, my pre-existing religious beliefs were totally fragmented. I became newly spiritual based...

Columbia College 1971

Openness My spiritual experience at Columbia was exceptional. I was born and raised Catholic and as an adult struggled to combine my personal values with the dogma of the church. During my final year at the School of Social Work,...

School of Social Work 1999

Psychological Religion During my time as a graduate psycholgy student 1948-52 I took completely elective courses on the Old Testament the New Testament. With another grad student I sat in on a course on Genesis given at Union Theological Seminary....

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1952

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

Religious Life as an Undergraduate As an undergraduate (1954-58) I went to services, including a few at St. Paul’s (at one, Billy Graham waved his gilt-edged Bible and impressed my friends who were interested in theater), some at Union Seminary’s...

Columbia College 1958

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

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

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

Studying Spirituality I took a course at Barnard in 1983 called “Religious Ritual”–because I was personally interested in the subject and because I had heard of Elaine Pagels, who normally taught it. Unfortunately, she left Columbia just before the course...

Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1989, School of General Studies 1984

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

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 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 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

Timeless Meaning The rigors of the Core Curriculum saw to it that I read what seemed like an infinite number of pages of the collective wisdom of Western Civilization. Unfortunately, I have a far greater appreciation for that now than...

Columbia College 1993

To Value Difference As an African-American male, feelings of isolation and hostility abounded during my years at the College. Misrepresentations of historical contributions of my forefathers and foremothers permeated my “classical” education and gave ongoing foundation to the insanity of...

Columbia College 1993, Teachers College 1997

Watching X-Files With No Lights On Ah, the memories of freshman year on Carman 10. We were an eclectic group of athletes and computer geeks. East coast sophisticates and west coast bunnies. There were econ majors and philosophy minors. Future...

Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation 2001, Columbia College 1998

“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