News Archive

Look up! As you walk through some of New York’s best-loved public spaces, you’ll see the magnificent work of Spanish immigrant Rafael Guastavino, who, with his son Rafael Jr., figured out how to decorate the grand domes and arches of America’s leading Beaux-Arts architects.

America’s earliest academies, like the nation itself, have a legacy of slavery woven into their very fabric. In his latest work MIT historian Craig Steven Wilder (GSAS’89,’93,’94) examines the tarnished relationship between the Atlantic slave trade and the rise of the American college.

His new book, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities, documents the extent to which the nation’s oldest colleges perpetuated, maintained and benefited from the slave economy. Many were founded on land taken from indigenous peoples, built by enslaved workers,…

For months the crisis in Ukraine has left the media scrambling to explain newsworthy developments that seem to unfold on a daily if not hourly basis. What to make of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March? How to explain Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motives? Are Russia and the West suddenly headed toward a new Cold War? Ever since the anti-government protests broke out late last year in Ukraine’s capital city of Kiev, many journalists in the U.S. and abroad have turned to Columbia’s faculty to provide insight and essential context on the tangled history and politics of the region…

Several full-time and adjunct professors at Columbia and Barnard, in disciplines ranging from dance to history to writing, were awarded prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships for 2014, based on their distinguished achievement and exceptional future promise.

When it comes to the cost and quality of hospital care, nurse tenure and teamwork matters. Patients get the best care when they are treated in units that are staffed by nurses who have extensive experience in their current job, according to a study from researchers at Columbia University School of Nursing and Columbia Business School. The study was published in the current issue of the American Economics Journal: Applied Economics. The review of more than 900,000 patient admissions over four years at hospitals in the Veterans Administration Healthcare System is the largest study of its kind…

James Shapiro is among the best known Shakespeare scholars in the world. His award-winning books include Shakespeare and the Jews (1995), A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (2005) and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010). He is now at work on The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606, to be published in 2016, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. His latest book is a departure of sorts. Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution to Now, just published to coincide with the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth on April 23, 1564, is a 700-page collection…

Columbia University will confer eight honorary degrees and recognize the alumni recipient of its University Medal for Excellence at commencement exercises on Wednesday, May 21.

Robert Mark and George Deodatis, the Santiago and Robertina Calatrava Family Professor of Civil Engineering designed a life-size model of one of the 10-foot spires atop the neo-Gothic cathedral to see if it could withstand vibrations similar to those in 2011 that damaged several pinnacles, flying buttresses and a gargoyle, causing millions of dollars in damage to the structure. No one was injured.

Columbia announced today the 31 teams that have been selected to join the Columbia Startup Lab, one of a growing number of university initiatives engaged with New York City’s burgeoning startup sector and dedicated to fostering entrepreneurial talent. 

James Shapiro is among the best known Shakespeare scholars in the world. His award-winning books include Shakespeare and the Jews (1995), A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 (2005) and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (2010).

School students arrived at the New York State Psychiatric Institute’s Kolb Annex on the Columbia University Medical Center campus March 12 to participate in the annual Community Brain Expo, cosponsored by the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute at Columbia University.

Harold Rosenbaum, distinguished scholar, teacher and choral conductor, is the recipient of the 2014 Ditson Conductor’s Award for the advancement of American music, Columbia University has announced.

Increasing heat is expected to extend dry conditions to far more farmland and cities by the end of the century than changes in rainfall alone, says a new study. Much of the concern about future drought under global warming has focused on rainfall projections, but higher evaporation rates may also play an important role as warmer temperatures wring more moisture from the soil, even in some places where rainfall is forecasted to increase, say the researchers. The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects of both changing rainfall and evaporation rates…

W. Ian Lipkin, MD, John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and director of the school’s Center for Infection and Immunity, was named recipient of Villanova University’s 2014 Mendel Medal. 

Dear Alma,
I know pipe organs are called the king of instruments, but how did St. Paul’s Chapel come by its own musical crown?
—Melody