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Columbia University Trustee H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest (LAW'58, HON'09), a benefactor whose previous gifts of more than $100 million place him among Columbia’s most generous donors, has made a new pledge of $30 million to support the construction of a multi-arts venue on the University’s Manhattanville campus. The gift was announced Nov. 17 at Columbia College’s Alexander Hamilton Dinner honoring Lenfest. It is the largest gift ever made for the arts at Columbia and the new venue will be named the Lenfest Center for the Arts in his honor.

“The breadth of Gerry Lenfest’s…

In the first statewide climate change outlook for New York, scientists say that the state may suffer disproportionate effects in coming decades compared with other regions, due to its geography and geology. The report paints a harsh picture, including possible extreme temperature and sea-level rises, downpours, droughts and floods. The changes are projected to affect nearly every region and facet of the economy by the 2080s, from ski resorts and dairy farms to New York City’s subways, streets and businesses.

The 600-page report and a shorter synthesis were released today…

A boy with leg braces and crutches rests against a fire alarm. A woman hangs laundry from a clothesline strung across an airshaft behind a row of tenement buildings. Pushcarts line a crowded street in lower Manhattan.
 

Dirk Englund is developing technology that tackles one of the most pressing problems of the Information Age— keeping information secure.

Columbia men’s basketball Head Coach Kyle Smith has a long history of leading his teams to victory. While a junior at Hamilton College, his team had a 26-1 record and was ranked #1 in the NCAA Division III. Later, as an associate coach at St. Mary’s College of California, he oversaw that school’s surprising ascent into the Sweet 16 in 2010.

For the first time this fall, entrepreneurial-minded engineering students are living together in Res. Inc., an initiative of the Engineering School in which 72 students—45 of them first-years—share more than kitchen space in their suites on the eighth floor of Hartley and Wallach halls.

When Kenneth T. Jackson began teaching his course "The History of the City of New York" 37 years ago, he decided to take his students out of the classroom to grasp the full impact of the urban environment.

Health costs exceeding $14 billion dollars and involving 21,000 emergency room visits, nearly 1,700 deaths, and 9,000 hospitalizations are among the staggering impacts of six climate change-related events in the United States during the last decade, according to a first-of-its-kind study published in November 2011 edition of the journal Health Affairs.

(Editor's Note: Every year, Columbia honors veterans by sponsoring a float in New York City's Veterans Day parade, which this year is Wednesday, November 11. The University is proud to recognize its 652 student veterans, the most among our peer institutions.)

Columbia student veterans, ROTC members and others in the University community marked Veterans Day with the first of what will be regular flag raisings by a student color guard on the University’s main campus. Each week, the color guard will raise Columbia’s American flag Monday morning and lower it on Friday evening.

Kelly Posner is trying to save lives. As director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment, she led a team from Columbia’s Department of Psychiatry in developing a tool that successfully predicts suicidal intent.

Anyone who uses multithreaded computer programs—and that’s all of us, as these are the programs that power nearly all software applications including Office, Windows, MacOS, and Google Chrome Browser, and web services like Google Search, Microsoft Bing, and iCloud—knows well the frustration of computer crashes, bugs, and other aggravating problems.

Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) announced today that Cyndi Stivers has been appointed the editor-in-chief of the publication.

Rep. Charles Rangel and other political and community leaders from throughout Harlem, Inwood and Washington Heights joined Columbia University Medical Center’s leadership Monday to formally welcome Drs. Rafael Lantigua and Dennis Mitchell to their new positions as Dean’s Special Advisors for Community Health Affairs.