Author Archive
V118 cast announced
Courtesy of the 118th Varsity Show
We swear, we’re good for more than posting lists of people, but an important one was made public tonight: the cast of the 118th Annual Varsity Show.
Eleanor Bray, BC ’14, Rebekah Lowin, CC ’14, Alessio Mineo, CC ’14. Jenny Singer, BC ’15, and Sean Walsh, CC ’14, will be this year’s principal actors.
Lowin and Walsh were in last year’s VShow as well—Lowin played Nora, a fame-obsessed first-year who starts a gossip blog, and Walsh played a version of Kevin Shollenberger who doubled at night as pop sensation Ke$ho.
The rest of the ensemble will be made up of Patrick Aloia, CC ’15, Allie Carieri, CC ’15, Ben Goldwater, GS/JTS ’14, Gray Henry, CC ’14, Jane Kim, CC ’14, Devin Lloyd, CC ’15, and Kaylin Mahoney, CC ’15.
Congratulations to all, and good luck with this year’s show.
NY Times reports SEAS faculty revolt
“Columbia University is grappling with a rare faculty revolt against the dean of its engineering school, who has helped the school grow in size and stature since his 2009 hiring, but has also been accused of ignoring professors’ concerns and worsening a chronic space shortage,” reports the New York Times today.
Most of the school’s nine department chairs signed a letter of no confidence, and a majority of the tenured faculty endorsed a letter of their own. Read the faculty letter here. We’ll be posting a news story momentarily with more details.
Update: See our news story here. (We’ll be updating the news story with new information throughout the night.)
See the full faculty letter after the jump: More »
Edit Spectrum next semester!
You’re looking for something to do next semester. We’re looking for seven daily editors. Let’s make it happen.
As a Spectrum daily editor, you’ll run the blog one day a week—writing posts, editing our bloggers, and responding to breaking news—and help set the overall direction of the blog for the semester.
Whether you want to produce rap videos, liveblog the shaft, explore the tunnels, liveblog anything, or just do some straight-up online journalism, we want to make it happen.
You don’t need to have worked on Spectator or in journalism before. You do need to be a good writer with original ideas who can commit one day a week to the blog.
The application is due next Wednesday. Fill it out here.
Agho likely out for season following injury
In Monday’s game against Furman, men’s basketball star player Noruwa Agho left the game with 6:19 remaining after tripping and appearing to injure his left knee. Head coach Kyle Smith now says that Agho is out indefinitely and is highly unlikely to reappear on the court this season.
“We’re planning on not having him anytime in the near future or the late future,” Smith said in an interview.
The precise nature of the injury remains unclear. Dalen Cuff—CC ’06, a former player on the team, and a color commentator for the Athletic Department—said in a tweet that Agho had torn his patellar tendon, according to an intial diagnosis. Others, however, have given conflicting reports, and program officials have declined to comment on Agho’s medical condition.
Sophomore guard Meiko Lyles is expected to replace Agho in the starting five for the team’s upcoming games. See tomorrow’s paper for further details.
CS department network on security lockdown
According to an email from a member of the computer science staff, the department’s network entered a temporary lockdown today in response to “a serious, imminent threat of attack.” Various services on the network have been shut off, and faculty have been advised to back up important data on network computers.
Check back later for updates. Full email after the jump: More »
EC lobby closed
Tipsters report that the lobby entrance to EC is closed for reasons as yet unknown. Residents are being shuffled through the elevator entrance on B3, also known as “the entrance that would be way more convenient in the first place”—meaning that, for the first time ever, there’s a line to get into EC on a Sunday.
Check back soon for updates. Send pictures and tips to spectrum@columbiaspectator.com.
Update: The author confused B3 with B2 in pronouncing it more convenient. B3, the entrance residents are currently being made to use, is in no way more convenient.
Update 2: The closure is due to a sewer backup that has flooded at least the second floor. We’ve had unconfirmed reports of flooding as high up as the eighth floor. (See below.)
Update 3: New reports from EC staff indicate that the cause was in fact a burst pipe in the heating system, and that the only rooms affected were on the fourth floor and below in the townhouses. Affected residents have been found new rooms.
Tian Bu, CC ’13, passes away
Columbia administrators have confirmed that Tian Bu, a junior in the College also known as Tina, died this weekend in River Hall.
Dean Shollenberger notified the student body in an email this evening.
With the death of Tian, also known as Tina by friends on campus, we grieve the loss of a caring and valued member of our community. Tian was a talented writer and a gifted artist and musician. She was involved in Quest, a national leadership organization, and was active in a campus Bible study group.
See our full news story and look for further coverage in tomorrow’s paper.
We at Spectator extend our deepest sympathy to Tina’s friends and family, as well as to anyone else in the Columbia community affected by this loss. Counseling and Psychological Services (212-854-2878) will stay open tonight until 11:00 p.m. For after-hours emergencies, call 212-854-9797.
Students can also contact the Center for Student Advising at 212-854-6378, the Office of the University Chaplain at 212-854-1493, or Nightline at 212-854-7777.
Dean Shollenberger’s full email after the jump. More »
Homecoming in pictures
You can’t go home again. But you can relive Homecoming 2011 through our slideshow! Click here or on the photo below to see yesterday’s game against Penn in all its photographic glory.
And check out tomorrow’s issue for our full coverage of yesterday’s disappointing—some might say heartbreaking—result.