The biggest news of the week is definitely that I busted out my winter coat and scarf. Besides that, though, there was a lot going around campus and the city. In case you missed it, here’s a quick breakdown of this week’s top stories.

Some administrator/student conflicts were resolved this week, or at least worked toward resolution. Student leaders in the arts said they had a productive conversation with Melissa Smey, the director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre, about what they described as a disengagement between arts administrators and students’ creative pursuits. GS administrators said they were working to expand housing options for students, who are not guaranteed housing. And Nightline, the anonymous peer counseling hotline, reopens tonight after an administrative review kept it closed for the first month and a half of the semester.

As long as we’re talking about nightly news, Harlem played host to the city’s first nighttime farmers market on Thursday evening—jazz musicians and pumpkin patch included.

Columbia has a lot of dean searches on its hands. Nicholas Lemann, who for the last decade has led the Journalism School through a changing media industry, announced on Wednesday he would step down at the end of the year. That evening, SEAS students turned out at a town hall to discuss the search for their new dean.

There’s a lot of development happening in the neighborhood. Two high-rise apartment buildings will still be built on the property of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, even though the previous developer quit. A new locally owned business had its grand opening in Columbus Square today, adding a new face to the big-business development. On Wednesday, locals turned out at a community board meeting to support plans by Alamo Drafthouse—a company that serves meals and beer to your seat and plans themed menus based on the film—to restore the Upper West Side’s Metro Theater. And Manhattanville may not be new, but here’s a breakdown of how the University scored the city’s first-ever Platinum certification in LEED-Neighborhood Development.

On the academic front, the Nobel Laureate in chemistry is a two-time Columbia grad who definitely understands cell hormones a lot better than I do. Thirty new professors were hired full-time in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences this year, and students heard from the economic advisors to presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, CC ’83.

And if you didn’t see this awesome video that includes a kangaroo hopping through St. John’s, you’re missing out.

That’s all for today. Tweet Spec stories you missed @ColumbiaSpec with the hashtag #icymi.