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Columbia College Fall 2015 TODAY Stereovision Valerie Purdie-Vaughns ’93 analyzes how bias in intergroup relations affects human behavior Horam Expecta Veniet Dedicated in 1914, the Contents Sundial kept time at the center of College Walk until its sphere developed a crack and was removed FEATURES in 1946. Today, only the base and various engravings remain. For more current clock spotting, see page 18. PHOTO: CCT ARCHIVES 12 Beating Bias Valerie Purdie-Vaughns ’93 analyzes the complexities of stereotyping and intergroup relations. BY ALEXIS TONTI SOA’11 18 Clock Spotting 22 Switching Sidelines From doorway adornments to under-eave After nine Ivy League championships, hangings, timepieces grace the campus. coach Al Bagnoli has traded Penn’s navy HAIKU BY DAVID LEHMAN ’70, GSAS’78; for Columbia’s light blue. PHOTOS BY JÖRG MEYER BY ALEX SACHARE ’71 COVER: JÖRG MEYER 9 26 88 MESSAGE FROM DEAN JAmes J. VALenTINI ? Lessons from a Campus Landmark Double Discovery marks 50 years Illustrated letters by Adam Van Doren ’84 Will Hamilton lose his 10 spot? eet at the Sundial” may be one of the phrases Our revolving earth makes many things predictable, in the most frequently used by Columbians. It’s the sense of the recurrent: the seasons, the calendar and the cycle DEPARTMENTS best-known spot on campus. You may not of the academic year. This is the College’s 262nd year; that is be able to direct a visitor to Casa Hispanica, a recurrence of which we all can be proud. So, too, can we be or maybe not even to proud of this being the Core’s 96th year. 3 Message from Dean James J. Valentini WEB EXTRAS Havemeyer, but there We can equally be proud that this recur- Lessons from a campus landmark. Valerie Purdie-Vaughns ’93 “Mis no doubt you could give directions to the rence means permanence but not stasis, as Sundial. We know the landmark so well, it should be when one of its anchor courses 4 Letters to the Editor on bias and brain science it’s so familiar, that we don’t actually think is called Contemporary Civilization. Video recap of the Mpigi much about the Sundial. This year we are very much focusing 6 Around the Quads Soccer Field Project I recently found myself contemplating on securing the recurrence of our suc- Eric H. Holder Jr. ’73, LAW’76 to receive Alexander Hamilton Medal. the Sundial when I learned that this issue cess and abjuring the stasis that would Thank you to our of CCT would have a photo essay featur- diminish our future. We are working on a 10 Roar, Lion, Roar FY15 CCT donors ing clocks around campus. Sundials are of strategic plan for the College, a plan that Columbia’s new football coach faces off against his former course the precursors to mechanical clocks will engage all of us, because that future Penn Quakers for Homecoming 2015. college.columbia. and have been in existence for millennia, belongs to all of us. What future is worthy edu/cct used for telling the time of day. Not our of a college that has existed for more than 26 Columbia Forum: The House Tells the Story: sundial. It no longer has a gnomon — typi- a quarter of a millennium? What do we Homes of the American Presidents cally the blade-like piece that projects from need to produce that future? How do we A study of Presidents’ homes, in text and watercolors. the sundial’s face — to cast the shadow acquire what we need? BY ADAM VAN DOREN ’84, GSAPP’90 that reveals the time. But even when it Alongside that institutional plan, we did have a gnomon, our sundial was used are developing a “strategic plan” for every to tell the date, not the time of day. Har- Columbia College student. It identifies a set ALUMNI NEWS old Jacoby (Class of 1885, GSAS Class of of outcomes — knowledge, skills, abilities, 1895), who became chair of Columbia’s perspectives, understanding, awareness — PHOTO: MATTHEW SEPTIMUS 31 Q&A with CCAA President astronomy department, conceived it that that we think every College student should Like Columbia College way. The Sundial was his class’ gift to the possess at graduation. It also provides a Doug Wolf ’88 reflects on his college days and offers Alumni on Facebook: University upon its 25th reunion. Its gnomon was an immense guide for every College student outlining the many opportuni- advice for new students. facebook.com/alumnicc granite sphere, which sat grandly at its center until 1946, when it ties offered by the College that will enable each of them to plot a developed cracks, and the prospect of 15 tons of granite falling on trajectory to achieve those outcomes — no matter their academic 32 Lions a passerby suggested its removal would be wise. or extracurricular interests. Dan Press ’64; Dr. Felix E. Demartini ’43, PS’46 Follow @Columbia_CCAA Even though the Sundial’s function and gnomon were both We would like those outcomes to be as recognizable in on Twitter unconventional, anyone viewing it would have seen its physical every Columbia College graduate as “meet at the Sundial” is 35 Alumni in the News operation as familiar. The shadow it cast moved in a clockwise to every Columbia College graduate. You could say that we direction when looked at from above. The rotation of the earth want every Columbia College graduate to be as imaginative 36 Bookshelf made it so. And the revolution of the earth around the sun made as Jacoby was when he conceived a sundial to tell the date, not Featured: Smash Cut by Brad Gooch ’73, GSAS’86 Join the Columbia College it possible for Jacoby’s sundial to indicate the date. the time of day. And you’d be right. alumni network on 38 Class Notes LinkedIn: college.columbia. 71 Alumni Sons and Daughters edu/alumni/linkedin 84 Obituaries 84 Don M. Mankiewicz ’42 86 Andrew D. Hyman ’88 88 Alumni Corner Bob Orkand ’58 on the proposal to take Alexander Hamilton (Class of 1778) off the $10 bill. FALL 2015 3 tennis balls and camera film. Tilson’s wonder how many of them appreciate seats in each row will go up or down as Letters to the Editor achieved a ghostly fame as the unnamed the significance of the movement among necessary to ensure that everyone’s head is drugstore in the opening scene of The their classmates, reported in the press, to at the same height. When it comes to lan- Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk ’34. require “trigger warning” labels on those guage, teachers and students must keep That President Obama was in that audience Checking the Spectator archives, I find books included in the Literature Humani- from triggering feelings of inferiority in me Volume 43 Number 1 only heightened the zeitgeist of the perfor- ads by Tilson’s from 1936 to 1959. I believe ties reading list that treat of rape and other and my height-challenged peers, so expres- Fall 2015 mance. The critical acclaim for Hamilton around 1959 was when Chock full o’ Nuts violent acts, on the grounds that these sions like “short-handed,” “come up short” speaks for itself; the show is superb. But for moved from its former smaller location in works might offend some students. and “give short shrift to” are to be scrupu- EDITOR IN CHIEF us it took on a special significance. the center of the block to the corner site pre- Since when has higher education had lously avoided. On the baseball team, the Alex Sachare ’71 Richard Rodgers (Class of 1923) did viously occupied by Tilson’s, and remained as one of its legitimate goals the avoidance fielder between second base and third base EXECUTIVE EDITOR his first two years of college at Columbia, there until around 1989, when Ollie’s of uncomfortable thoughts, rather than must be called the ground-ball-hit-to-left- Lisa Palladino Obama his last two. Hamilton’s studies moved there. the impartment of knowledge, ideas and field-stop. In Music Humanities, Schubert’s at King’s College segued directly into his Francis Sypher ’63, GSAS’68 the cultivation of the ability to think criti- “Little C Major Symphony” shall be called MANAGING EDITOR EW ORK ITY Alexis Tonti SOA’11 participation in the Revolutionary War. For N Y C cally and analytically? his “Earlier C Major Symphony.” In lit- each it was a place where significant events How can we expect the future opinion erature classes, St. Exupéry’s masterpiece EDITORIAL ASSISTANT were put into motion, key friendships and Class Speakers leaders of our nation, and of the world, to has to be referred to as “The Prince,” or, Anne-Ryan Heatwole JRN’09 partnerships were made and critical ideas In flipping through the Summer 2015 strive for the advancement of humanistic to avoid confusion with Machiavelli, “The FORUM EDITOR were formed. We feel the same way about issue I was disappointed to see that the values if they are kept in a perennial state 20th Century C.E. Prince.” The Supreme Rose Kernochan BC’82 the college that brought us together, and speakers highlighted by CCT for the Class of childlike ignorance by an institution Court must be called the Supreme Tribu- led to our son (and daughter, who was of 2015 were all male, especially consider- that purports to prepare them to defend nal because Columbia students are savvy CONTRIBUTING WRITER too young to attend the performance). The ing the very public and much-discussed such values? And since when is the much- enough about the world’s languages to Shira Boss ’93, JRN’97, SIPA’98 thread that ran from Hamilton, to Rodgers, activism of Emma Sulkowicz ’15.