Results tagged “columbia”

College presidents in New York are making bank. Last year, three of the top 10 highest-paid private-college presidents nationwide received million dollar paychecks from New York’s most elite instititions, the Post reports. According to a report by the College Board, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute president Shirley Ann Jackson earned $1.6 million in 2007-08 while Columbia University's president, Lee Bollinger brought in $1.38 million and NYU's John Sexton $1.3 million. In all, 23 college presidents across the country topped the $1 million mark, nearly double the number from 2006-07.

Air pollution from cars and cigarettes can lower a child's IQ. That's the finding of a new study that tracked mothers and their children living in Washington Heights, Harlem, and the South Bronx.

Suggestions that Harry Potter actress Emma Watson might attend Columbia University in the fall sent a collective shiver through the campus' online community today. Columbia alumnus-founded gossip blog JustJared.com posted a piece shortly before noon speculating that an entry in the school's online phone directory might belong to the 19-year-old starlet, who had toured the college last October. An hour later, Columbia's student-run Bwog picked up the story and set off a frenzy among the students. Comments on the site and Facebook statuses quickly popped up to rejoice in the news—"Emma Watson at Columbia??? Columbia - 19078096 Other Ivies - 0"—which only got worse as other gossip sites began re-posting JustJared's scoop. Their bubbles may be bursting, though, as it seems the directory entry may actually match a different Ms. Watson, and the actress herself has yet to confirm. But fortunately for Columbians, even if their hopes for NYU-style undergraduate celebrity fail to apparate, they can always return to their old pastime: stalking James Franco in the university library.

You may have known that the Real Housewives of New York was off the air, but Kelly Killoren Bensimon is talking like the cameras are still on her. Okay, so they were, for this 35-minute-long Obsessed TV interview that NYMag points out. Wondering how this one got into Columbia? She just asked nicely and batted her eyelashes, duh. Bensimon, who graduated from Columbia's School of General Studies at age 30, explains, "A friend of mine said you should really go to Columbia, they have an amazing journalism department there. And so I actually went to the school and I said to them, I said, 'You know, if you take me, I, you know, you just gotta give me a chance, and if you take me, then I will be the best student, I will do whatever it is, whatever you need whenever you need it. I promise you, you know, I will not be a mistake.' And this man, the dean, was like, 'Who are you? Like, what? No, no, no. We have a process here. You have to fill out an application.' And I was like, 'No no no, It's nice you have an application, I've already sent that in, but I want to go here, and I really really wanted to go there.' And he let me in." Totally not a mistake, right, Dean?

It's time to run down the various commencement speakers around town—please let us know about others in comments (or email us at tips[at] gothamist[dot]com). This Wednesday, New York University will have its commencement at Yankee Stadium—and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will give the commencement address. Clinton will also be the commencement speaker at Barnard College's ceremony next Monday.

There's just no justice for dudes in this world: Last week a judge threw out a lawsuit against Columbia University over the school's practice of offering women’s studies, but no corresponding courses for men who want to study themselves. Judge Lewis Kaplan followed the recommendation of a magistrate judge and dismissed Roy Den Hollander's lawsuit, rejecting his "central claim that feminism is a religion... Feminism is no more a religion than physics, and at least the core of the complaint therefore is frivolous." Of course, if you know your Den Hollander, you know he's not about to let some treacherous, man-hating judge get the last word. He tells City Room, "The only thing frivolous and absurd is men looking for justice in the courts of America. When it comes to men’s rights, judges act with an arrogance of power, ignorance of the law, and fear of the feminists."

Crusading men's rights lawyer Roy Den Hollander has vowed to fight on in his battle to force Columbia University to drop its women’s studies program, after a magistrate judge’s recent recommendation to dismiss his case. You may recall Hollander from such previous hit lawsuits as the fight against ladies' nights and his suit against the federal government's Violence Against Women Act.

Did Morningside Heights relocate below the Mason-Dixon line or something? Yet another noose has surfaced at Columbia Teachers College, where a black teacher previously found one hanging on her classroom door in 2007. This time the perpetrator went sent the hate two-dimensionally, in the form of a noose drawing. It was sent to the same professor, Madonna Constantine, but she isn't even at Columbia anymore, having been fired last year amid unrelated allegations of plagiarism. But the hate doesn't stop there! Three other 8x12-inch envelopes containing drawings of swastikas were sent to Jewish professors, so they wouldn't feel left out. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has assigned the investigation to the NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force, and Teachers College President Susan Fuhrman sent an e-mail to students and faculty urging everyone to cooperate in the probe. Columbia's student-run blog has that e-mail, and notes that the 2007 noose culprit is still at large.

Almost half of all accidental subway fatalities happen to riders with alcohol in their bloodstreams, according to a study by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, which looked at data on subway deaths between 1990 and 2003. 145 of the 315 accidental fatalities during that time period were found to involve some degree of alcohol, though the report doesn't specify how blotto the victims were, if at all.

With just four days (!) left until Election Day, Columbia Professor, and friend of Barack Obama, Rashid Khalidi has been swept into the fray.VP candidate Sarah Palin claimed Khalidi was a spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which Khalidi (who met Obama while at the University of Chicago) denies. And there's that tape of Obama at a 2003 going-away party for Khalidi that the McCain campaign wants to see (another attendee criticized Israel; the LA Times refuses to release the tape, citing a promise to a source). Khalidi is featured in a NY Times article today, and Columbia provost Alan Brinkley says, “In a field that is often politicized, he is respected by people on the right as well as the left.” And former Columbia student Ariel Beery said, "In terms of his role as a professor, he was excellent. He was provoking, he always allowed for different opinions, he had an open zone where people could voice their disagreement."

A group of residents in a massive building at 3333 Broadway (at 135th Street) are filing a class action lawsuit against the owner of the building, which until 2005 was in the state’s Mitchell-Lama program for moderate-income housing but is now charging market-rate rents. The residents say the owner had not properly notified them of the change to market-rate housing, and they say they're being systematically harassed to move out so higher-paying tenants can move in.

The cost of tuition at Columbia and NYU has passed the $50,000 mark; a year at NYU now costs $50,182, including room and board, up 5.9% from last year. And Columbia now sets you back $51,866, the Sun reports. But according to NYU professor Amy Ellen Schwartz, it's actually a sweet deal when you look at the big picture: "What is true about understanding the college market, is that the economics are very complicated. In the more expensive universities the actual value of the education spending is even more than tuition. If you ask me, is it worth $50,000? You probably get $100,000 worth of education at somewhere like Yale." What a pity she's stuck slumming it at NYU.

The NY Sun ponders the "mystery" of Barack Obama's Columbia years. While most of his life is mentioned in his speeches or his DNC biopic, "one chapter of the tale remains a blank — his education at Columbia College, a place he rarely speaks about and where few people seem to remember him." His campaign hasn't released his college transcript, which adds to the intrigue (FWIW, President Bush got C's at Yale--and John Kerry's Yale grades were lower!) and suggests, to some, that he's holding back in case people accuse him of benefiting from affirmative action. What is known: He transferred there from Occidental College (but didn't get housing, so lived off campus on East 94th), his grandparents visited him while he was in NYC (photo) and he says he spent most of his time studying.

Not content with suing Manhattan nightclubs for discriminating against men on Ladies’ Night, or suing the federal government over the “unconstitutional” Violence Against Women Act, lawyer provocateur Roy Den Hollander has filed a class-action lawsuit against Columbia University for offering women’s studies courses. Hollander says the lawsuit at last completes his blockbuster “trilogy of antifeminist lawsuits,” according to City Room. A rumored prequel has him suing the Gynecological & Obstetrical Society for refusing to give him a Pap smear.

The mystery of what happened to 25-year-old Columbia student Toby Cohen is still somewhat of a mystery, even to him. After word came in that he was found yesterday, the NY Sun is reporting on some of the finer details today. When the family called Columbia with fears he'd gone missing, they found out their son had withdrawn in the last month. Cohen, who had left his epilepsy medication at home the night he went missing, was discovered in upstate New York. More specifically, he was "found swimming in a reservoir in Carmel, N.Y., with bruises on his face and legs and disoriented from missing doses of medication." He has no recollection of how he got there, or of any recent events, but is expected to make a full recovery.

Earlier this morning we pointed towards the Daily News article reporting a missing Columbia student. The 25-year-old Toby Cohen had allegedly left his girlfriend's apartment this past Sunday night, took $200 out of an ATM and headed back to his Washington Heights home. He then left his wallet and medication for "a life-threatening medical condition" in his apartment. After two frantic days, a friend of Cohen's just told us some good news -- Cohen has been found healthy, and his family is currently picking him up. No other details have come out yet, but it's nice to hear the story didn't end tragically.

Madonna Constantine, the Columbia Teachers College professor whose office door had a noose hanging on it, was suspended indefinitely for committing plagiarism. The NY Times characterizes the move as a firing, noting a letter from Teachers College says, "We are terminating Madonna Constantine’s employment with Teachers College for cause, subject to a hearing before a faculty committee. In the interim Professor Constantine is suspended, effective immediately.”

Well, this has gotta hurt the Columbia students who were complaining about having Schools Chancellor Joel Klein as their Class Day Speaker: Yesterday afternoon, BWOG reported Barnard College finalized its Class Day speaker line-up, which will feature New Yorker editor David Remnick, tennis icon Billie Jean King, Harlem Head Start organizer Thelma C. Davidson Adair, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg. One BWOG commenter wrote "Columbia College = completely buttzowned."

A 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged with second-degree manslaughter in the Friday night death of a Columbia graduate student. According to a Daily News source, the boy bragged to his 15-year-old friend before chasing Ming-Hui Yu, "Look what I do to this one."

Columbia University’s 17-acre, $7 billion dollar expansion plan (which was approved late last year) has some up in arms, and standing firm.

Members of a marching band from South Carolina were still years from entering high school when the attacks of 9/11/01 occurred, but the band arrived in New York City this week to visit a Red Hook Engine and Ladder Company that received a replacement truck in 2002 purchased with funds raised by White Knoll Middle School students and the residents of Columbia, SC. Ladder 101 of Red Hook had its truck destroyed in the attacks and all seven of its members were killed when the towers came down.

UPDATE: It appears I may have been punk'd. Bwog is reporting that there was no vote to ban JuicyCampus by Columbia's student council. The university magazine talked to a student council VP of Policy who "claims that a mischievous tipster must have sent in a fake tip to Gothamist and the [New York] Post." No tip was received at Gothamist, but the Post was the source of this afternoon's item, along with background from The Spectator.

The man who fell into the uptown tracks at the 116th Street subway station - and was saved by a Columbia maintenance worker who saw him from the downtown side and crossed the tracks - has finally spoken out. The 46-year-old NJ resident relayed his message to rescuer Veeramuthu Kalimuthu, via the Daily News, "Thank you for saving my life. I came less than 60 seconds from being run over."

Juicy Campus, the multi-college message board where students anonymously post malicious comments about each other, is facing legal action in New Jersey, where prosecutors have subpoenaed the website’s records. The NJ Attorney General is trying to bring the site down on a technicality of sorts, by accusing Juicy Campus of violating the state's Consumer Fraud Act – because while the site claims it doesn't allow offensive material, there is no way for users to report or dispute slanderous comments.

The abrupt elevation of Lieutenant Governor David Paterson to the top seat in NY State government should mix things up a bit in Albany and NYC. First up is the state budget, and with a grim economic outlook and behind-the-scenes transitions, he said yesterday, “We cannot afford to waste another second. We have a budget that is due and a deadline to meet.”

Juicy Campus, the multi-college message board, has been generating controversy at Columbia University because of the site’s discussions, which feature edifying topics ranging from “Fattect [sic] Girl that Looks Good at Columbia ” to “Males at Columbia – Dickless Wonders.” Michelle Diamond, president of the Columbia student council, has been exploring the feasibility of blocking the site from the University web servers. Alternatively, Diamond may initiate a campus-wide "pledge" against Juicy Campus, in which students would vow never to wallow in such vulgar discussions like “Sorority Rankings – Here’s What I Think.” Here's an example of some of the high-minded Ivy League discussions going on at the site:

After a year-plus long investigation, Columbia Teachers College has sanctioned a professor for plagiarism. And the professor happens to be Madonna Constantine, the professor who found a noose on her office door last fall.

Last year, the federal authorities had been looking for Esther Elizabeth Reed, a woman who faked her way into attending Harvard, Cal State and most recently Columbia University, by using a dead woman's identity. Reed was on the lam, but this past weekend's murders at a mall outside Chicago led the police to Reed, who had been living in the very same town the killings occurred.

...for being totally rude! It's actually not the kind of #1 ranking Bollinger would prefer, as it's for Time's Top 10 Awkward Moments of 2007 list. As Bwog points out, Bollinger deftly bypasses "David Hasselhoff, David Vitter, Rosie, Paris, Miss Teen South Carolina, Caroline Giuliani, and (wait for it) BRITNEY SPEARS" for his introduction of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last September, calling him a "petty and cruel dictator." Ahmadinejad earns the #2 spot on Time's...

A Columbia grad student, Arun Wiita, and the New York Civil Liberties Union brought a lawsuit against the NYPD last Thursday. Over the summer, Wiita was photographing a subway station entrance and its surroundings at 207th Street and 10th Avenue as part of an ambitious 10-day photography project. He was detained by police, handcuffed and held for 30 minutes; now Wiita is "seeking compensatory damages and reimbursement of legal fees." He believes that his South...