By Drew Grant 3:11pm

Professors Gone Wild

The lecture that rocked New York (BWOG)

Columbia Students Speak Out About Crazy Naked Quantum Mechanics Professor (Video)

After a tape released yesterday showed Columbia Professor Emlyn Hughes beginning the Frontiers of Science three-lecture physics unit by stripping down, curling up in a fetal position and letting ninjas harass him while a projection of the Twin Towers falling and the Holocaust played on the television. Maybe he was trying to pull a Booth Jonathan … we have no idea. But thanks to a trusted source at Columbia, we now know a little bit more about the events of the lecture, student and faculty reactions, and the status of Professor Hughes. Read More

By Drew Grant 1/14 3:51pm

Internet prostitution

This is how your daughter is paying for law school. (SeekingArrangement.com)

Parents Beware: Pay for Your Children’s College Loans or Lose Them to Sugar Daddies

SeekingArrangement.com, the Sugar Daddy website that hooks up poor/younger/more attractive women with rich/older/not so attractive men looking for a mature relationship-slash-good times, has come out with a new study titled “Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Colleges of 2012.” (We’re guessing these occasional “studies” lend an air of legitimacy to the site, perhaps as a safeguard against the very obvious charge that their service promotes online prostitution and Internet solicitation services.)

While the list is topped by Southern schools, we want to preemptively apologize to parents of NYU and Columbia students. Read More

By Christopher Brennan 9/10/12 5:40pm

One of these kids is not like the other...

Imposter Columbia Student Actually Arrested Twice

The first weeks of freshman year can be daunting. While dewy-eyed students get used to a new school or a new city, some try to recreate themselves anew, leaving behind their high school selves and becoming a college kid. This could mean buying a new wardrobe, a new haircut, or hanging up a Pulp Fiction poster. For some, however, it may involve pretending to go to a school that you do not actually attend for two weeks. Read More

By Matt Chaban 6/27/12 2:37pm

In the Rezone

Right-sized on Broadway. (DCP)

West Harlem Shuffle: Scott Stringer Approves Low-Rise Rezoning He Called for Five Years Ago

Back in 2007, in order to win his vote for Columbia’s contentious Manhattanville rezoning, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer got the city to agree to rezone the blocks north of the new 17-acre campus as well, a stanch against over development. Today, the borough president gets to vote on the rezoning he requested for West Harlem, and he is touting it as a triumph of community planning.

“This rezoning reflects the input of thousands of stakeholders in West Harlem and five years of work toward crafting a community-based planning consensus that could be a model for the rest of our City,” Mr. Stringer said in an email. “It is a promise kept to the residents of West Harlem—and a proud moment for all who are involved.”

Like many parts of the city, the zoning has not been updated since 1961. The Department of City Planning has created, through a multi-year consultation with the community, a contextual zoning package that will largely maintain the same density of development in the neighborhood while imposing new height limits and street wall requirements to ensure that sliver buildings and other uncharacteristic buildings cannot be built. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 3/06/12 10:54am

Morningside Fights

(image via Flickr user sodapop81)

Barnard Gives Jill the Bump for Incumbent Stump, Ob-alma Mater Says ‘Get Off My Campus’

Over the weekend Barnard College bumped New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson from her spot as 2012 commencement speaker for a better offer—the trump card in the commencement bookings game, some might say: President Barack Obama.

It’s surprised no one that President Obama had zeroed in on the Manhattan women’s college for a spring speech. Facing a slate of pro-life GOP rivals and a Congress thrown into old school culture wars over his contraception-mandating health care bill, the President has publicly allied himself with women’s interests groups. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 1/30/12 1:06pm

Higher Ed

January30

Helen Gurley Brown Donates $30 M. to Columbia and Stanford for Bicoastal Media-Tech Institute

With the help of a $30 M. gift from longtime Cosmopolitan editor Helen Gurley Brown, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and Stanford University’s School of Engineering have established the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, the two universities and the Hearst Corporation announced today.

The Institute is inspired by David Brown, Ms. Brown’s late husband, a former journalist, publisher, film and theater producer who graduated from both Stanford and Columbia Journalism School. Read More

By Drew Grant 12/01/11 3:37pm

NYPD Blues

Matthew Swaye "thanks" Police Commissioner Ray Kelly

Ray Kelly's Bad Night at Columbia (Video)

Ray Kelly is not exactly a populist favorite right now, but then again, when are police commissioners ever considered to be working on behalf of the working class? (Besides Law & Order, and also Batman.) But Commissioner Kelly has it especially tough right now–particularly with students and journalists and civil rights groups.

That’s probably why NYU student and activist Matthew Swaye took time out Tuesday night to honor Commissioner Kelly for all the hard work he’s done with NYPD’s new “stop-and-frisk anyone looking suspicious” policy. He was also shouting, “Thank you for keeping the city safe for white heterosexual males.” Read More