This page is dedicated to stories about Columbia's campus and community. From student, staff, and faculty profiles to interesting events happening on campus and in our surrounding neighborhoods, here is where you can find the latest about what's happening on and around Columbia's campuses.
Story Highlight
It’s a perfect fall day in New York City: the air is crisp, the leaves are crunching, and a variety of wild plants are giving it their last go with a final explosion of color before season’s end. But as Adam Blumenberg, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC), will tell you, some of those plants deserve a second look before taking them home.
Pokeweed, with its purple berries, can cause gastrointestinal distress. Jimson weed, with its spiky seed pods and white flowers, can cause severe delirium. Ginkgo leaves, when ingested in large amounts, can cause seizures.
Blumenberg is an emergency physician and board-certified medical toxicologist at CUIMC, where he cares for patients who have been poisoned and teaches the next generation of doctors. He also happens to make two podcasts about poison. We’d say this makes him a pretty good person to interview in this mysterious season.
COLUMBIA HISTORY
Columbia started classes in the new Morningside Heights campus in October 1897. On this brand new campus, the engineering students finally had ample classroom and laboratory space in their two new buildings: the School of Mines (now Lewisohn) and the School of Engineering (now Mathematics). But did you know that there used to be a full-size locomotive engine underneath Havemeyer Hall?
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Out and About
More Stories
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Check out our updated 2025 list of restaurants, markets, bakeries, pet stores, and more for when you return to campus this fall.
Anya Schiffrin, co-director of the Technology, Policy, and Innovation Concentration at SIPA—and lifelong Upper West Side resident—shares her favorites.
From NYC songs for a forthcoming playlist to your "only in New York" moments, we want to hear from you to help inform our back-to-school guide.
From major research breakthroughs to Emmy nominations, Columbians had plenty to celebrate this past month.
Columbia's Warrior-Scholar Project Academic Boot Camp is more than just a preview of what college life might look like for veterans and current service members—it is a call to action.
How students are leading a campus food movement through Gourmand.
From America's reliance on punishment to the art of the career pivot, these five Columbia-affiliated podcasts tackle urgent questions shaping culture, society, and identity today.
From Pride Month to Juneteenth and major awards, Columbians had plenty to celebrate this past month.
How Lecturer Wally Suphap Turned His Three-Degree Columbia Journey Into a Legacy for LGBTQ+ Students
Wally Suphap (CC'01, LAW'04, SOA'23) is a Lecturer in the Discipline of English and Comparative Literature and the Vice President of Columbia Pride.
