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Columbia University offers a variety of programs that help local youth gain valuable work experience. One of these programs is the Columbia University Local Community High School Summer Internship Program, a structured, five-week initiative that provides students with practical work experience before graduation. Students from the thirteen zip codes comprising the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone and from four zip codes in the Bronx Empowerment Zone are encouraged to participate in this program, as well as other youth internship initiatives across Columbia’s campuses.

The eight-floor, 60,000-square-foot Lenfest Center for the Arts opens this spring and will be the second building to open on the University’s Manhattanville campus. It is an academic venue designed for the presentation and creation of art across disciplines, providing a dynamic new home for faculty and students of Columbia University School of the Arts and the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery.

The United States currently leads the world in its incarceration rate, with more than 2.2 million people in its prisons and jails. This figure, which marks a 500 percent increase over the past three decades, means that while the U.S. boasts a mere five percent of the world’s population, it has more than a quarter of the world’s prisoners. The causes and consequences of mass incarceration are numerous and far-reaching, leading many to assert that it is the civil rights issue of today.

At a time when there were no female students and only a handful of female faculty members on Columbia’s campus, a group of civic-minded women joined together to make a difference both locally and globally. In 1942, Isadore Gilbert Mudge (1875–1957), who has since been named one of the top 100 important library leaders of the 20th century, sold bouquets of flowers from her own garden to raise money that would benefit the war relief effort. 

On March 30, U.S. Representative John Lewis gave a rousing speech to an audience of over 650 in Miller Theatre. Named for New York City’s 106th—and first African American—mayor, the David N. Dinkins Leadership & Public Policy Forum has provided a vehicle for focus and dialogue around the dynamic elements of urban policies, programs, and initiatives for twenty years.

Columbia Community Scholar Reverend Vivian Nixon is executive director of College and Community Fellowship (CCF), an organization committed to removing individual and structural barriers to higher education for women with criminal record histories and for their families.

Unveiling the stories of runaway slaves and their links to Columbia University in her paper was not an easy task for student Jordan Brewington (CC’17), a descendant of slaves herself. “When I touched a slave inventory, it was very heavy and hard for me, but it grounded me,” said Brewington to the audience during the launch day of the Columbia University’s Slavery Project last January. “It reminded me that this was real, and that I’m real, and that this issue is real.”

After a decade and a half of planning and building, the 17-acre Manhattanville campus is coming to life: The Jerome L. Greene Science Center, home to Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, and the Lenfest Center for the Arts open this spring, and by 2021 will be joined by the University Forum and Columbia Business School.

Stacy Knutt is proud of her construction work on the Manhattanville Campus, her first job in construction after she followed in the footsteps of her father and six of her brothers and became a laborer in Local 79. She joined the Manhattanville crew in 2012 and has been working there ever since.

Columbia’s Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and BioBus today announce a partnership aimed at bringing new educational opportunities to schools and community centers across Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

“The BioBus scientists create educational opportunities that are authentic, exciting and approachable for diverse audiences,” said Kelley Remole, PhD, director of governance, research support and outreach at the Zuckerman Institute. “Their expertise working with schools and providing after-school programming adds a new dimension to our existing…

On the corner of 125th Street and Old Broadway, community members of all ages have banded together to paint a mural remembering two prominent local activists: Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama. The project site, once home to the Black-owned soul food restaurant and nightclub “Concerto West” and now a Columbia-owned building, has become the canvas for From Harlem with Love: A Mural Project for Yuri & Malcolm by way of hundreds of community volunteers in their effort to preserve the culture of West Harlem activism.

CCE has hundreds of international and domestic summer internship programs for Columbia students in a wide variety of industries.  The deadline to apply for many of these opportunities is Sunday, February 12th. 

More information can be found at the CCE Website.

When President Barack Obama comes to Harlem again- specifically to West Harlem, where Columbia University- his alma mater - is expanding its home - the visit will give residents, community leaders, and entrepreneurs as much to shout about as their neighbors in academia are celebrating.

For John Reddick, Harlem isn’t just a visual feast, it’s music to his ears. The architectural historian, who leads walking tours of the Upper Manhattan neighborhood, has been researching the cultural connections between early 20th century music written by African Americans and Jews who lived in Harlem.

Marking the achievement of the first major step in Columbia University’s most transformational building project since it moved to its historic Morningside Heights campus in 1896, leaders of the University today dedicated the new Manhattanville campus, now taking shape along Broadway immediately above West 125th Street.