May/June 2008
Around the Quads
Campus News
DIVERSITY: According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, the College tied with the University of Virginia for the highest percentage of blacks among its entering class at 11.4 percent. With 153 black members of the Class of 2011, up 22 percent from a year ago, this marks the first time in the history of the Journal’s survey that Columbia has headed the rankings.
Dean Austin Quigley noted, “Almost half of our first-year students self-identified as students of color, making Columbia one of the most ethnically diverse institutions of higher learning in the world. Columbia also has the highest percentage of Pell Grant recipients of any Ivy League or private research university at approximately 15 percent.” Pell Grants are generally available to students from families earning less than $40,000 per year.
INSTITUTE: The University has launched a new institute to examine the changing role religion plays in the contemporary world and to promote religious understanding and cultural tolerance. Supported by a team of scholars drawn from across academic disciplines, the new Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life incorporates a broad range of activities designed to shed light on the complexities surrounding religion in today’s multicultural society. The institute, which opened in the spring semester, will hold a formal launch ceremony in the fall.
The world is experiencing a resurgence in religion, and with that comes religious and cultural intolerance,” said Mark C. Taylor, professor and chair of the Department of Religion and co-director of the institute. “By taking an expansive rather than restricted view of religious thought and practice, the institute will recast the traditional opposition between the secular and religious in ways that promote innovative approaches to familiar problems.”
In an attempt to uncover the origins of global conflict, the institute will examine the historical and practical values within religious traditions, explore each religion’s attitude toward ecumenicalism, and investigate the social and cultural institutions that support coexistence among people of different faiths. Operating under a 12-person advisory board, the institute will take on a cross-disciplinary approach, uniting scholars from fields including religion, cultural anthropology, history, political science, economics and social psychology.
DAUBER: Associate professor Jeremy Dauber has been appointed acting director of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. Dauber, a professor of Yiddish in the Department of Germanic Languages, previously was associate director of the institute, which was founded in 2005.
EXHIBIT: Offering a taste of the secrets, history and pulse of New York City is “Bites of the Big Apple,” a free exhibit designed and curated by Columbia graduate students and running May 12–25 in Low Rotunda. The exhibit, which is free and open Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5:30 p.m., will run in conjunction with Columbia’s Theoretical Archaeology Group conference.