General Studies Lounge - ARCHIVE 2006-2011

Along with other members of the student councils of the four undergraduate schools I am putting together a Columbia University-wide Calendar. The number one thing students want from a calendar is that it informs them of interesting, relevant events described with accurate details. This is an effort that builds on the experience General Studies has enjoyed with its calendar by bringing in any number of other calendars from other schools, student groups, the Columbia administration and organizations like CUArts and Miller Theatre etc.

Presently the test university-wide calendar has 21 calendars on it. Even with that number of calendars the richness of the Columbia community can be felt immediately - For instance, I just learned that the Vietnamese holiday of Tet starts Thursday and that the Triathlon club is having a workout Saturday. Awesome.

I would love to hear your feedback, observations, complaints, bugs you find and more, email me anytime.

The University-wide Test Calendar

Andrew Delbanco, who I consider to be one of the finest professors at Columbia has co-written an editorial in today's New York Times concerning financial aid:

Ivy-League Letdown

By ROGER LEHECKA and ANDREW DELBANCO
Published: January 22, 2008

LAST month, Harvard reached into its deep pockets — its endowment is $35 billion — and changed the way it calculates student financial aid. The aim, its press release says, is “to make Harvard College more affordable for families across the income spectrum.” Last week, Yale, whose $22.5 billion endowment is growing even faster than Harvard’s, followed suit. Yale’s president, Richard Levin, said he didn’t want students to have to choose “between Yale and Harvard based on cost.”

Read More at the New York Times

The CUArts Ticket and Information Center in Lerner launching this January is just the beginning! We here at The Arts Initiative are committed to creating new ways for students to connect to New York City's vast wealth of arts and culture. Our goal is that by 2009, by enrolling at Columbia and Barnard students. you will find yourselves fully enrolled in the artistic and cultural life of the city. We hope to build convenient and affordable access to a wide-range of programs and events as well as easily accessible material to link your academic work to performances/events around town. We're also working on a funding program/tool to make it easier for your professors to incorporate NYC arts into the syllabus.

We're well on our way with the initial planning, but we really need student input. YOUR input.

We would like your help in finding students to sit on an advisory group that will give us feedback on the programming we're creating. We're preferably looking for first-years, sophomores and juniors who have a strong interest in the arts and will be here to see and guide the fruits of their labor. The advisory groups will be two separate committees (one faculty, one student) of about 8 - 12 members each, and members will be required to attend three meetings between now and March in which:

1. We'll lay out the 2009 idea and solicit responses and fresh ideas
2. We'll present a version incorporating suggestions from both groups and get further comment and
3. Give a final presentation of the plan.

Interested students should send a cover letter, resume and at least one faculty recommendation to myself, Chad Miller, at cam2015@columbia.edu. Deadline for submissions is Monday, November 26th. We're looking forward to hearing your feedback, so join us.