Dear Students,            

After two years of discussing some of the concerns voiced by faculty, students and administrators that the existing Major Cultures requirement did not fully meet the educational goals of that portion of the Core Curriculum, I am delighted to report that, in the spring of 2008, the Committee on Major Cultures, the Committee on the Core, and the Committee on Instruction approved a revision to the requirement, and propose to begin more focused discussions with students and faculty about the way to move forward in further reshaping the requirement and considering its relation to the Core writ large.

The Committee's first step was to change the name of the requirement from Major Cultures to Global Core, and to eliminate the B and C course lists in favor of one single list of approved Global Core courses, which is essentially an expanded List A of the Major Cultures requirement. The new Global Core requirement applies only to the class of 2012. Continuing students may choose to satisfy either the Major Cultures or the Global Core requirement.

The Committee also formulated a new mission statement that more accurately describes the curricular goals of the requirement, as you will see below in the revised statement from the College Bulletin for 2008-2009.

For Students in the Class of 2012

The Global Core requirement consists of courses that examine areas not the primary focus of Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization and that, like other Core courses, are broadly introductory, interdisciplinary, and temporally or spatially expansive. Courses in the Global Core are organized around a set of primary texts or artifacts, which may range from texts of literate traditions to media (e.g. film), ritual performances or oral sources, produced in the regions of the world in question. Global Core courses fall into two categories: those that focus on a specific culture or civilization, tracing its appearance and/or existence across a significant span of time and sometimes across more than one present-day country or region; and those that address several world settings or cultures comparatively (and may include Europe and the West), in terms of a common theme, a set of analytic questions, or interactions between different world regions.

Students must complete two courses from the Global Core List of Approved Courses for a letter grade.

The concerns that motivated these changes are not new. From the inception of the Major Cultures requirement, the need for small courses has been embedded in the discussions had by faculty and students over the years.  In some cases, that need has been met. Students express satisfaction with many of the Major Cultures courses; as we move forward, we expect that the best discussions in those classes will continue. Primary texts remain the underpinning of the Global Core requirement, but we have expanded the description of primary texts beyond written texts to include, among others, art, oral sources, and ethnography. Ever since its formation in 1919, the Core Curriculum has evolved to meet the knowledge demands of a world that continues to grow more complex and more integrated.  The move towards a more comprehensive Global Core requirement continues that tradition of change and responds to the contemporary moment of unprecedented cultural and economic integration across the globe. The Global Core requirement offers expanded opportunities to explore the complexities of the 21st-century through comparative study; for example, courses may explore the interconnectedness of root cultures and their evolutions and influences in different parts of the world, cross-cultural comparisons, and topical comparisons, such as migration and immigration.

In the 08-09 academic year, there will be no immediate substantive changes in the courses that meet the Global Core requirement (i.e. no new courses have been developed specifically to meet the requirement). As a first step towards laying the foundation for discussion about the kinds of courses that reflect the goals of the Global Core requirement, we needed to increase the number of courses on the Global Core list, which will slowly over time become smaller courses. List A courses have all migrated to the list of approved Global Core courses for the year, and at this point, about 40+ courses from Lists B and C have been integrated into the new Global Core list. The remaining List B and List C courses, which departments routinely offer for majors, concentrations, and electives, will continue to be offered.    

The existing courses in Asian Humanities, African Civilizations, and Latin American Humanities provide useful models of the direction in which the Committee on Major Cultures would like see the Global Core requirement evolve.  The pedagogical and resource intensity of these multi-section courses require broad faculty support for their success, as well as the creation of effective administrative support systems. These are among the areas that the Committee will be working on over the next year.  

Over the course of the next year, the Committee on Major Cultures will undertake extensive consultations with students and faculty in an effort to lay the foundation for a more cogent set of Global Core offerings that parallel the depth and rigor of Literature Humanities and Contemporary Civilization, as well as their small-class format.  We hope to create the context in which faculty members will generate new courses specifically designed with the curricular goals of the Global Core requirement in mind.  That effort is likely to stretch over the course of the next several years.

Advising deans, department chairs, and directors of undergraduate studies are aware of the changes to the requirement. The Global Core List of Approved Courses is available on the College Web site.

Sincerely,

Patricia E. Grieve
Nancy and Jeffrey Marcus Professor in the Humanities
Chair, Committee on the Core and Committee on Major Cultures

On Monday, August 25, the Columbia College faculty, staff, and administrators welcomed the class of 2012 to the University community.

View the photo gallery here!

College students were well-represented among the winners of several national and international fellowships.

Sarracina Littlebird ’09 and Nhu-Y Ngo ’09 received Truman Scholarships, awarded by The Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation to students planning to pursue careers in public service. Each will receive scholarships worth $30,000 to be used for graduate study. Truman Scholars are expected to work in the public sector for at least three years after the completion of their graduate education.

This year, 65 students from 55 U.S. colleges and universities were selected from among 595 candidates nominated by 283 colleges and universities.

Littlebird, an environmental biology major from Sante Fe, N.M., plans to use the scholarship to pay for law school. She intends to return to her home to advocate for Native American rights, including education, land management and water use. Ngo, a history and political science major from Lincoln, Neb., plans to pursue a law degree and a master’s of public policy in order to fight for immigrant rights, with a focus on language access.

Columbia has not had more than one winner in a single year since 2003. “We had an excellent crop of candidates this year,” said Michael Pippenger, associate dean of fellowship programs and study abroad at Columbia. “Their passion for being agents of change really shone through.”

Mollie Schwarz ’09 and Swarup Swaminathan ’09 received Goldwater Scholarships, which cover eligible expenses for undergraduate tuition, fees, books and room and board, up to a maximum of $7,500 annually, for students who plan to pursue a Ph.D. in the sciences or mathematics. Each university may nominate four candidates for consideration at the national level; 321 were selected from a pool of more than 1,000 applicants. 

Schwarz, a Danville, Pa., native, is majoring in chemical physics. She seeks to pursue a Ph.D. in physics with a focus on experimental research in fluid dynamics. A native of Howell, N.J., Swaminathan is majoring in biochemistry and seeks to pursue an M.D./Ph.D., with the Ph.D. in protein biochemistry/molecular biophysics.

Matthew Birkhold ’08 was awarded a DAAD [German Academic Exchange Service] Study Scholarship, facilitating graduate studies in Germany. The scholarship provides full funding for a graduate degree at a German university as well as a monthly living stipend.

A native of Stillwater, Minn., Birkhold is majoring in German literature and cultural history with a concentration in art history.  He seeks to combine these fields and to become a professor of German art history.

Two other Columbia undergraduates also received honors. Catherine MacLellan ’09 Barnard also won Truman Scholarship and Lisa Chen ’08E won a DAAD Study Scholarship.

Columbia also has 19 finalists in the Fulbright Scholar Program, according to Pippenger, who said the winners were expected to be named in May.

Once again, applications to the College are up and the selectivity rate is down as the Class of 2012 continues a trend that has been going on for more than a decade.

Applications rose by 5.7 percent, to 19,116, for roughly 1,050 places in the Class of 2012. This is up from 17,964 a year ago. The applications break down into 2,105 early decision and 17,011 regular. A total of 1,660 students were admitted: 454 early decision and 1,206 regular; early decision admissions comprise 44 percent of the class.

The College’s overall admit rate, or selectivity, was 8.68 percent, just slightly behind Harvard (7.1 percent) and Yale (8.3 percent) and ahead of Brown and Dartmouth (both 13 percent), according to an April 1 New York Times article. The College’s selectivity was 8.9 percent a year ago.

SEAS applications also increased, to 3,463, up 6.3 percent as compared with last year’s 3,262. The applications break down into 404 early decision and 3,059 regular. A total of 609 students were admitted: 142 early decision and 467 regular, making early decision admissions 44 percent of the class. The overall SEAS admit rate was 17.59 percent.

Combined, applications to the College and SEAS climbed to 22,579, a 5.8 percent increase over last years’ 21,213. The overall admit rate for both schools was 10.05 percent.

Dean Austin Quigley has announced his plans to step down at the end of the 2008–09 academic year, after a term of 14 years as Dean of Columbia College and Lucy G. Moses Professor. Dean Quigley’s term in office is the second-longest in College history — only Herbert E. Hawkes, Dean of the College from 1918–43, served longer.

Dean Quigley presided over the College at a time of remarkable progress, as reflected in admissions statistics, facilities renewal, fundraising levels, faculty investments, curricular innovations, student achievements, financial-aid upgrades, student services enhancements, alumni program initiatives and more.

Born in Northumbria, near the English border with Scotland, Dean Quigley earned his Bachelor’s degree in English Literature at Nottingham University, and his Master’s degree in Linguistics at Birmingham University before moving to the United Sates, where he earned his Doctorate in English and Comparative Literature and Literary Theory at UC Santa Cruz. Before coming to Columbia in 1990, he taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Virginia, where he was Chair of the English department. He has also taught at the University of Geneva, the University of Konstanz, and the University of Nottingham.

At Columbia, where he holds the departmental chair, Brander Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature, Dean Quigley established the undergraduate major in Drama and Theatre Arts, revived the doctoral program in Theatre and helped reinvigorate the MFA program in Theatre in the School of the Arts.

Dean Quigley announced his plans in a letter to members of the Columbia community sent on May 21. Later that day, University President Lee C. Bollinger sent a letter in which he thanked Dean Quigley for his exceptional service to Columbia and announced that he would serve as Special Advisor to the President for Undergraduate Education.

See Also:
Dean Quigley’s Message to the College Community
President Bollinger’s Message to the Columbia Community