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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As Pride Month begins this June, there's no better time to celebrate Uptown LGBTQ+ history.
![Illustration of a Colorado River toad in front of the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT molecule that its body produces (credit: David Lankri from Hintau Aliaksei images. [Toad/Shutterstock and Molecule/Adobe Stock])](/sites/news.columbia.edu/files/styles/cu_crop/public/content/frog-venom-treatment.jpg.webp?itok=rYXMwO20 "Illustration of a Colorado River toad in front of the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT molecule that its body produces (credit: David Lankri from Hintau Aliaksei images. [Toad/Shutterstock and Molecule/Adobe Stock])")
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The Campbell Award is presented to a graduating student at each School who shows exceptional leadership and Columbia spirit.
