News Archive

Teodolinda Barolini was beguiled the first time she encountered the poetry of Dante’s Divine Comedy in high school. The daughter of an Italian poet, who hoped one day to become one herself, she was trying to memorize T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, which starts with a stanza in Italian from the Inferno.

Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library has acquired the archive of pioneering ballet dancer, artistic director and choreographer Arthur Mitchell.

“I believe that dance, and the arts more broadly, can be used as a catalyst for social change—this is why I started the Dance Theatre of Harlem,” said Mitchell. “With these materials now at Columbia, artifacts of American dance history and African-American history will be accessible to young scholars, academics and the general public, furthering this push for change.”

Freshman orientation, 2011. Steven Bennett was playing cello in his dorm room on the 15th floor of John Jay Hall when he heard a knock on his door. When he opened it, another student with a broad grin exclaimed, “Cello!”

Before they graduate from Columbia’s School of the Arts, M.F.A. students in the theater producing and management concentration are required to put together a project that has some connection to the University.

Pardlo won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry this week for his second book of poems, Digest.