News
In June, the Institute for Training Outreach and Community Health (InTOuCH) celebrated its inaugural class of 38 graduates. Based at the Columbia Wellness Center on the Manhattanville campus, the institute worked with the health ministries at 31 churches to train community health workers. Graduates will provide health screenings, insurance-enrollment support, and counseling to the local community.
After receiving over 11,000 responses to a university-wide survey measuring commuting habits of students, faculty, and staff, Columbia’s Dan Allalemdjian needed to analyze the data and present key findings. Allalemdjian, director of transportation demand management for Environmental Stewardship, called upon Ibrahima Diallo – an incoming high school senior –to summarize data and create an executive summary to report the survey’s key findings.
The following is a message sent from Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger to the Columbia community.
I am very sorry to say that we have lost another great friend of the University in H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest, who died on Sunday at the age of 88 in his beloved home city of Philadelphia. Gerry was a wise and deeply engaged Trustee, one of the most generous donors in the history of the institution, and, most importantly, a true colleague in every major undertaking of the University over the last two decades.
The passing of Florence Irving on July 25, at the age of 98, is a great loss. She was a remarkable person of enormous accomplishment and consequence. This is a moment to reflect on the impact that a committed couple can have on our institutions and the larger world through their sustained philanthropy. Florence and her late husband, Herbert Irving, are among the most generous donors ever to support Columbia University and NewYork-Presbyterian, with the fight against cancer being their principal focus for many decades. Through their giving, they expanded our horizons and spurred us to pursue previously unthinkable goals in biomedical research and patient care.
An accomplished group of 12 rising social change-makers from around the world has been selected as the first class of Obama Foundation Scholars at Columbia University. Consistent with the Obama Foundation’s mission to inspire, empower, and connect the next generation of civic leaders, the new, year-long academic program based at Columbia will strengthen the expertise and knowledge of individuals with the demonstrated ability to be transformative leaders in their communities, nations, and the world.
The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery this summer looks to the Caribbean islands with a far-reaching survey exhibition, Relational Undercurrents: Contemporary Art of the Caribbean Archipelago, that challenges traditional geographic and conceptual boundaries.
When Damon Rodriguez stepped out of prison in 2013, he already had a plan. While in jail, he was fortunate to come across stories in local newspapers about an organization that helps formerly incarcerated people (FIPs) start a new chapter of their lives. Many people face immense challenges finding work after they’re released from prisons. The latest reports reveal that the American criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people.
In April 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF), under its Platform for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) initiative, formally announced the West Harlem area as its wireless testbed for the next wave of mobile technology. The $22.5 million grant was awarded to a New York City–based university team— consisting of Rutgers University, Columbia University (CU), and New York University—that will partner with New York City, Silicon Harlem, City College of New York, and the University of Arizona to develop the Cloud Enhanced Open Software Defined Mobile Wireless Testbed for City-Scale Deployment (COSMOS) project. The testbed will cover one square mile in the West Harlem area, with City College to the north, Columbia University’s Morningside campus to the south, the Hudson River to the west, and the Apollo Theater to the east.
Since 1998, Columbia University has been partnering with Read Ahead (formerly Everybody Wins! NY), a nonprofit organization that matches volunteer mentors with elementary school students throughout New York City, for one-on-one lunchtime mentoring sessions of reading and conversation.
Diversity in the workforce remains a salient issue in the United States. According to Fortune.com, Fortune 500 companies employ 17.5 percent of America’s workforce, but only 3 percent of these companies share full diversity data, suggesting that diversity may not always be a priority. Yet the Harvard Business Review reports that diverse firms are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above their national industry median, 45 percent more likely to report market share growth, and 70 percent more likely to report they captured a new market.
The School of Professional Studies (SPS) at Columbia University was founded in 1995 to specialize in career advancement through professional and interdisciplinary education. Under the leadership of Dean Jason Wingard, the SPS Community Relations office was created in fall 2015 to identify and engage individuals and organizations within the community that could serve as potential partners on a variety of initiatives and community service projects. Columbia SPS Community Relations channels the expertise of the school’s faculty, staff, students, and alumni—largely from SPS’s 16 graduate programs—in community service projects and activities in the Harlem community and Greater New York City. In seeking to create stronger, more resilient and sustainable organizations in the community, the Excellence in Nonprofit Management Series was developed.
The Harlem Local Vendor Program (HLVP)—a partnership between the Columbia-Harlem Small Business Development Center (SBDC), Harlem Park to Park, Hot Bread Kitchen Incubates, Whole Foods Market, and others—is designed to help manufacturers of locally made consumer goods increase their business acumen and capacity so that they may contract with more and larger
retailers. Columbia Dining supports these local vendors with its purchasing power, having spent over $100,000 to date, and is furthering its efforts and solidifying its commitment to local vendors through the launch of the Uris Incubator Program.
Thomas Abdallah, an adjunct professor in the Sustainability Management Program of Columbia University, loves mass transit. And that’s a good thing, because Abdallah is also the deputy vice president and chief environmental engineer of Capital Program Management at MTA New York City Transit, where he gets to inspect and improve transit facilities every day.
One week before Kendrick Lamar became the first hip-hop artist to be awarded Columbia University’s Pulitzer Prize, Columbia University’s School of Professional Studies presented the panel discussion “Hip-Hop Education: Propelling and Preserving the Movement” to explore hip-hop as it approaches its 45th anniversary. In the panel, three Columbia University Community Scholars Martha Diaz (founder of the Hip-Hop Education Center), Regan Sommer McCoy (founder of The Mixtape Museum and Hip-Hop Hacks), and author and journalist Peter Noel explored the history and value of Hip-Hop and efforts across the globe to preserve the Hip-Hop movement, including the creation of more than thirty institutions focused on the legacy of Hip-Hop.
Rutgers, Columbia, and NYU to Lead Research Aimed at Pushing Limits of Wireless-Networking
Fourth generation wireless, better known as 4G, turned mobile phones into movie-streaming platforms, but the next wireless revolution promises more than speedy downloads. It could pave the way for surgeons operating remotely on patients, cars that rarely crash, and events that can be vividly experienced from thousands of miles away.