THE UNDERGRADUATE MAGAZINE OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, EST. 1890 THE BLUE AND WHITE

Vol. XIX No. III May 2013

Lies My Teacher Told Me What you need to know before you teach for America Paying it Forward Pervasive debt at Columbia's nontraditional college

Als o Inside: Culture! And Sub-Culture! Conor Skelding, CC ’14, Editor in Chief

ANNA BAHR, BC ’14, Managing Editor

ALLIE CURRY, CC ’13, Senior Editor Will Holt, CC ’15, Senior Editor torsten odland, cc ’15, Senior Editor Claire sabel, CC ’13, Senior Editor

Jessie Chasan-Taber, CC ’16, Layout Editor

Leila Mgaloblishvili, CC ’16, Senior Illustrator

ZUZANA GIERTLOVA, BC ’14, Publisher

somer omar, cc ’16, Public Editor

Staff Writers Naomi Sharp, CC ’15 Alexander Pines, CC ’16

Contributors Naomi cohen, CC ’15 Katie Donahoe, BC ’16 Britt Fossum, CC ’16 Luca Marzorati, CC ’15 Matthew Schantz, CC ’13 daniel stone, cc ’16 Alexandra Svokos, CC ’14 HALLIE NELL SWANSON, CC ’16

Artists Juliette chen, CC ’16 Britt Fossum, CC ’16 Jiyoon han, CC ’13 ANGEL JIANG, CC ’15 Katharine lin, CC ’16 elisa mirkil, CC ’16 Alexander Pines, CC ’16 ANNE SCOTTI, CC ’16 HANK SHORB, CC ’16

Editors Emeriti sylvie krekow, BC ’13 brian wagner, SEAS ’13 THE BLUE & WHITE

Vol. XIX FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS No. III

Columns Features 4 Bluebook Sylvie Krekow & 10 at Two Swords’ Length: Should You Graduate? 6 Blue Notes Brian Wagner Our monthly prose and cons 8 Campus Characters 12 Verily Veritas Will Holt 13 all Brooklyn Beer Tastes the Same 27 Curio Columbiana A B&W editor hops to Brooklyn to see what’s brewing 28 sketchbook 34 measure for Measure Naomi Sharp 14 Corps Requirements 46 Digitalia Columbiana The day-to-day lives of Columbia’s ROTC cadets 47 Campus Gossip Will Holt 18 Lies My Teacher Told Me What you need to know before you teach for America

Naomi Cohen 22 shifting Gears A recent Columbia alumnus starts 2013 driving a NYC cab

Alexander Pines 24 insider Trading Looking at Columbia’s new internal transfer policy

Britt Fossum 26 Cub Reporters A look at Columbia’s “weird” new blog

Anna Bahr 30 paying it Forward Pervasive debt at Columbia’s nontraditional college

Alexandra Svokos 36 it was Baroque; McVicar Fixed It Giulio Cesare changes its tune at the Met Opera

Torsten Odland 37 reminds Me of Teen Spirit Meat Puppet’s fourteenth album Rat Farm rocks exactly like you thought it would

Luca Marzorati 38 ante Uptown Horsing around at Empire City

Anna Bahr 40 Varsity StarGoes Pro A conversation with Greta Gerwig

theblueandwhite.org f cover: “C.U. Later?” by Angel Jiang Blue book

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR TRANSACTIONS ARRIVALS Institutional memory is fickle. For one thing, after four years, the student body will only really remember very spectacular or Overly enthusiastic high school infamous events, such as Ahmadinejad or the 2007 hunger strike. seniors As for each semester’s couple of scandals, they will be documented Public nudity, pale flesh, and PDA by campus media. Harder to preserve is the honest experience of being a Talk of summer plans Columbia student. Looking at WikiCU’s 2007 picture of the Low Post-9/11 anxieties Steps on a sunny day can tell me that, in 2007, students sat on the Obama’s sense of humor Steps on a sunny day. It can’t tell me what they were talking about. Nor can it convey how whatever dozens of documented events from Pupin Boardwalk around 2007 shaped Columbia back then. The smell of mulch And yet, photos are seductive. They take so little effort and include so much data. Quick-drawing my iPhone, I can take DEPARTURES a photo of the Steps without breaking stride. Then, a year later, I Your motivation can check the color of everyone’s shoes, without having wasted Those pre-Bacchanal jitters any time actually sitting on the steps. Or, I can sit inside for a few hours editing WikiCU, obsessing over the history of Riverside Park Ke$ho without actually walking in it. Roger Ebert Obviously, it’s better to sit with some friends on the steps or get some sun in the park: not just for knowledge, but for my own Senatorial gravitas actual, un-quantifiable well-being. If I’m describing this poorly, it’s Justin Bieber’s youthful innocence because it isn’t simple: it’s individualized. It’s what gets missed in quality of life surveys, which, out of the approximated experience of all of us, tell the story of none of us. Revelation of the Month So, this issue focuses on the personal. Daniel Stone profiles Richard Sun, CC ’13 and University senator (p. 9). Naomi Sharp “We play hard, sure. We travel a lot looks into the lives of ROTC cadets, years after the end of the and sometimes conflate ‘network- ideological dispute (p. 14). Naomi Cohen rides with Nashoba ing’ with drinking.” Santhanam, CC ’13, who’s driving a yellow cab he until starts in –Alia Smith, CBS ’ 15, sales and trading (p. 22). Luca Marzorati blows his wad at Empire dispelling myths about business City Casino (p. 38). school students in The Bottom Line, These are all stories about the experiential, not the statistical. Columbia Business School ’s — Conor Skelding student newspaper.

4 The Blue and White Blue book

At Columbia, there are many important double C’s (Columbia College, Bacchanal). So for this issue, the B&W has put together a double C word puzzle. Each puzzle’s answer is a well-known two-word phrase, both words of which begin with “C.” Each clue is a two-word phrase, in which the first word is a rough synonym of the answer’s second word, and the second word is a rough synonym of the answer’s first. For example, if the clue is “Society Today,” the answer might be “Contemporary Civilization.”

1. Sliced Ice 2. Drug Bust 3. Roaring Lion 4. Arts Kiosk (hint: answer is a compound word) 5. Injured Rower 6. Sales Marker 7. Artificial Diamond 8. Snug Pug 9. Tart Lice

10. Letter Loan

ous Consumption 7. Carbon Copy 8. Creature Comforts 9. Crab Cake 10. Credit Card Credit 10. Cake Crab 9. Comforts Creature 8. Copy Carbon 7. Consumption ous

- Conspicu 6. Cut Crew 5. Counter-culture 4. Call Cat 3. Cocaine Crack 2. Cuts Cold 1. Answers:

Postcard from Morningside

Corrections: The March issue’s review of Harlem Public was written by Sarah Thompson, CC ’16. In the same issue, Elisa Mirkil, CC ’16, illustrated the Blue Note on CTV, and Katharine Lin, CC ’16,illustrated the graph of library statistics.

May 2013 Postcard by Leila Mgaloblishvili 5 Blue Notes

observe two boys fight over a small red fire truck discipline. I from behind a two-way mirror. They struggled. For example: when a child loses the battle for One is victorious; the other slinks off. This makes a toy, teachers console him—either acknowledg- for an unusual scene: first, because no one breaks ing how much he desired it (“Oh, you wanted that the boys up. And second, because I can see them, so badly!”) or encouraging him (“Next time, say, but they can’t see me. ‘That’s mine!’”). This is no voyeuristic pastime of mine. I’m This year marks Professor Klein’s 18th year at visiting Barnard’s Center for Toddler Development, the toddler center; if there’s one thing she’s learned, which is not your typical preschool. The center, it’s that “toddlers don’t change.” Regardless of tech- celebrating its 40th anniversary, is a community nological advancements or the latest chic parenting program that provides a learning environment for techniques, she says their unconscious objectives toddlers and college students alike. The (smaller) are simple: they seek to discover who they are. occupants of the classroom range from 1 and a half I observe a three-year-old announce he has to 3 years old. Their instructors are a mix of profes- spilled his water. His teacher simply says, “Well, I sionals and current Barnard students enrolled in guess it’s a good thing we have sponges!” Professor Tovah Klein’s year-long, 8 credit research —Katie Donahoe seminar on developmental psychology of toddlers. The program is the first of its kind—an very month, over Famiglia’s pizza and two-liter experiment in combining a functional preschool Erefreshments, the Inter-Greek Council meets with research. As such, in 1973, founder Patricia in Lerner 569 to talk about upcoming events and Henderson Shimm struggled to find applicants. remind all of the chapters which forms are due when Today, there are roughly 50 children enrolled as (e.g., Anti-hazing, Chapter info). The IGC is the well as an extensive waitlist. The school is popu- umbrella governing body for Greek life; to be rec- lar among neighborhood ognized as a fraternity or sorority by the university, parents, high-profile each chapter must send two delegates to the council. celebrities (including The group’s executive board, who did not respond Sarah Jessica Parker), to any of my emails, is composed of the presidents and Barnard faculty. of the three sub-IGC Greek affiliations: the Inter- The center adopts Fraternity Council, the Multicultural Greek Council, an unusual approach and Panhellenic Association. At a meeting on March to child development. 11th, Shawn Patel, CC ’15 and president of the IFC, “We support, we don’t announced to the assembly that, as of Fall 2013, the direct,” says Professor chapters living in brownstones owned by Columbia Klein. Teachers nurture will not be allowed in their backyards. and validate feelings, he the policy change will apply to AXO, DG, says, rather than enforce Zeta Psi, Theta, KDR, Lambda Phi, SDT, Sig Ep, Sig 6 Illustration by Anne Scotti The Blue and White Blue Notes

Nu, and Sigma Chi; Two,” since Huntington believed that “the only win- say “goodbye” to dows should be the works of art.” She adds, “You whatever you were won’t find any Miro or Picasso here. All art had to planning to do in be representational.” Indeed, it would be quite a their backyards struggle to reconcile the cubist and avant-garde with next year. However, this museum’s Old World, Moorish interior. Which not all of the makes for a dry tour: my strongest impression was of Greek-occupied the joyless host of marble effigies spread throughout brownstones are the museum. Columbia-owned. Given the Gilded Age trappings, it’s easy to The brownstones cast Huntington as your eccentric turn-of-the-cen- belonging to ADP and Beta are owned by those tury American millionaire, the careless plunderer of chapters’ respective governing boards, and, for that European treasures a la William Randolph Hearst. reason, they are exempt from the regulation. However, Huntington was anxious to defy this unflat- The room was filled with a resigned groan tering image. He bought works that were already in as Shawn explained that the ruling is official and America and, unusual for his time, encouraged hir- there’s nothing he, or any of the delegates, can do to ing women as curators. overturn it. For ’13-’14, at least, the backyards will For those of a scholarly bent, the Society is a be off limits. goldmine of Spanish artifacts: Its library includes “Why?” someone asked. a first-edition copy Don Quixote. But for the more evidently, due to the neighbors’ frequent casual visitor, it’s enough of a pleasure to roam noise complaints during parties. Restricting access around the upper levels of the courtyard, gazing up to the backyards will, obviously, prevent loud out- at all the portraits—Velazquez, Goya, and El Greco all door parties, but that is only part of the reason. have works displayed here. Apparently, even if the party is inside, partiers look- However, the real highlight is the Sorolla wing. ing for fresh air or a smoke outside release music and Commissioned by Huntington himself, this end of shouting when they open the door. the museum features life-size panels by the Spanish When asked how the new policy would be painter Joaquin Sorolla, which cover every wall in an implemented, Shawn responded that, while he wasn’t elaborate representation of the beauty and multiplic- certain yet, the new rule would probably (and ironi- ity of Spanish life. cally) be enforced with a loud fire alarm system wired Both in terms of its history and collection, the to all of the brownstones’ rear exits. Hispanic Society of America feels like a holdover —Torsten Odland from another century. But, perhaps more to the point, it feels like stepping into another country. efore I went up to the Hispanic Society of America —Hallie Nell Swanson Bon 155th Street, I assumed the museum would be devoted to the city’s Latin American community. But instead of Diego Rivera, I got El Greco. Founded in 1904, the Hispanic Society projects a decidedly Iberian aesthetic. Walking into the museum’s indoor courtyard, I was struck by warm orange walls, elabo- rate tile work and cool marble surfaces all bathed in yellow skylight. I suddenly felt compelled to flutter a fan and don a mantilla. The founder of the Hispanic Society, Archer Milton Huntington, built the museum with railway millions from his robber baron stepfather, Collis P. Huntington. The building still bears the young- er Huntington’s influence: There are no windows, explains the woman giving the Saturday “Tour at

May 2013 Illustrations by Britt Fossum and Angel Jiang 7 Campus Characters

You might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, The Blue and White introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things and whose stories beg to be shared. If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an email at [email protected].

Lulu Mickelson Lulu solves problems. Before coming to New York, she headed the environmental club at her high magine a web of your closest friends and a web of school, where “only 20 out of 3,000 people were Itheir closest friends. Somewhere near the center riding their bike on an average day.” To reduce fuel of that tangle of people, you’ll find Lulu Mickelson, emissions and clear traffic jams around the school, BC ’14. Gabrielle Lewis, BC ’14, first met Lulu Lulu started the “Bike-It initiative,” which encour- in the Diana Center, when Lulu cheerfully intro- aged drivers to ride their bikes to school on desig- duced herself. After chatting, Lulu waved goodbye nated “Bike-It days.” By the time she graduated, and Gabrielle’s then-roommate turned to her and “half the school was using bikes on a ‘Bike-It day.’ ” remarked, “Does that girl know we don’t have to be One year into college, Lulu felt frustrated nice anymore? It’s not NSOP.” with established community service opportunities This is not an unusual response to Lulu. She on campus: “You go in for a few hours and realize has the unique ability to connect with strangers that your impact is minimal.” So she started her immediately; the depth of her genuine interest in own, founding the Columbia chapter of Design for others is surprising to those twentysomethings feel- America (DFA) in the fall of 2011. The group col- ing cool in their post-adolescent apathy. She really laborates with the larger Morningside Heights com- does wants to know about your childhood best friend; munity to tackle social problems from the bottom up. when you’re ill, she’ll deliver soup to your door with- “Instead of volunteering a few hours, you get a out being asked. A Santa Monica native, Lulu prefers team of interdisciplinary students together and you life in New York. It’s the density of Manhattan that join them with a community partner. From there, makes life “all the richer because of how many people you create a product that can work sustainably,” she you interact with.” explains. Last year, DFA designed condom packages for local clinics that appealed to a younger audience— an effort they hoped would make proper condom usage cool. While the program does have a creative slant, “Innovate for America” might be a more accu- rate title, Lulu suggested. During our conversation, Lulu mentioned accomplishments almost off-handedly. She’s a Centennial Scholar at Barnard and was recently awarded the George Van Amson Service fellowship. She turned down a White House internship this summer for the chance to work on maximizing the community benefits agreement of the Manhattanville project, an idea that began as a DFA project. “That’s a choice not a lot of people would make,” Gabrielle points out. Lulu takes joy in what she does, and sees herself as a community-builder as much as a commu- nity-improver. The Urban Studies major seemed as

8 Illustration by Jiyoon Han The Blue and White excited to get to know me as I was to talk with her. She encouraged me to explore different academic and extracurricular paths until I found “that one thing that you always want to learn more about.” At the end of the interview, Lulu hugged me and insisted we keep in touch over the summer. I received an email from her the next day with class recommendations and professors she thought I’d enjoy. After telling Gabrielle how the interview with Lulu ended, she laughed: “I’m not surprised at all.” — Somer Omar

Richard Sun

t the suggestion of Richard Sun, CC ’13, we Ameet in the gaudily adorned lobby of Le Parker Meridian on 56th Street off 6th Avenue. Below $500-a-night rooms and next to non-functional remain unnamed, told of being turned off by Sun and renaissance columns, a maroon curtain hides the his directness. Burger Joint. Waiting in the long line to get in, He’s not without a sense of humor. Describing Sun tells me he likes the place partly because you his internship at McKinsey, which he called “the “wouldn’t expect to find a relaxed and greasy burger greatest summer of my life,” Sun said that he joint at the heart of the hotel.” (It’s also near Brooks had found the work itself very fulfilling and that Brothers, where he has been shopping, and the fare’s McKinsey’s global presence “made the world small- good.) Inside the cramped restaurant, as if to hide er” for him. As a third point, he praised the training the fact that the hotel also runs it, graffiti uniformly they gave him, during which he learned, among other covers the walls. Prices are written on cardboard things, that “people like things in threes.” boxes in marker. He orders two cheeseburgers and Beneath everything, it is clear that Sun cares a milkshake. When it turns out they have run out of deeply about what he does and works amazingly milkshakes, he opts for water. Then, we sit. hard. His friend Ben Spener, CC ’14, likened Sun’s Sun wears many hats. At Columbia, most know position on the University Senate to a full-time job him as one of the three University Senators who rep- and spoke of him as inspirational. Fellow senator resent Columbia College, the man who knocked on Matthew Chou, CC ’14, added that “the amount of hundreds of doors to secure victory in his campaign time he puts into [his work] is really incredible.” last year. Those who miss his semi-regular USenate Perhaps, confessed Chou, who also told of getting email updates may know him as an RA in Carman, emails at 5 a.m. from Sun, “he sometimes works Economics TA, brother of Sigma Phi Epsilon, or himself too hard.” member of the Ski Team. Many are also familiar with The work has paid off. At the end of his senior his collection of hard-to-get internships, including a spring semester, Sun has reached a satisfying pla- semester in the White House and a summer working teau. He knows a job at McKinsey waits for him after for Columbia’s favorite consulting firm, McKinsey & he spends his summer working as an organizer on the Company. In the past four years, Sun has garnered— campaign of Democratic New Jersey gubernatorial along with his impressive resume—a complicated candidate Barbara Buono. Moreover, as of the day reputation as a public figure on campus. before our interview, he had completed his senior Sun is unabashed about who he is—a “smart thesis on private-public organization of mass trans- guy” who is “ambitious.” Many know of his aspiration portation in New York. to ultimately serve as an elected government official. Back at Columbia, as we enter through the He does not slickly obscure his efforts, something 116th gates and cross College Walk, he frequently of a rarity at a school where it pays to be glib; he stops to greet people. We part beside the CAVA admitted himself to sometimes taking a “corporate ambulance and he ascends the Low Steps, off to approach” that did not necessarily make him the most reconnect with a former university senator. popular of people. Several students, who wished to — Daniel Stone

May 2013 Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili 9 At Two Swords’ Length Should you h, man, I am never getting tired of this. College: Heights at closing and someone pooped out of an Owhat a ride! I pass out at 3, wake up at 10, go out EC window. Hahaha! Ugh, my head though. Hold to eat, then do it again—what’s that? No, that’s not a on, let me pop in the shower before we continue this song lyric, it’s just the music of my life, dude. conversation. It is? Asher Roth? Well, whatever, I guess we Yeah, I know I just walked out, but I forgot must both be disciples of the Great Church of YOLO! that I have to wear shoes every time I take a shower Except I bet “Asher” isn’t a member of the Mel’s brew here. And I have to write an email to the people I live crew. with really quickly. Subject: R U SRS?!!? Message: Speaking of Mel’s, how great is Morningside TO WHOMEVER PUKED IN THE SHOWER: Heights? I never want UNCHILL. YOU to leave. I heard some- ARE DISGUSTING one say you can get AND I HATE YOU. anything you want Alright, time to wash in twenty blocks, but off the layer of frat- you know how many sweat and shame I you really need? acquired at Sig Nu’s One. I roll out of my highlighter party last brownstone on 114th, night. pretend to study for Now that I’m so a few hours in Butler fresh and so clean— (210 shout out!), grab yeah, I know that’s a some food at the Jay lyric, but I did it on with my homies— purpose this time— OH HELL YEAH, it’s time to grab some IT’S MAKE-YOUR- grub. Fuck. I totally OW N -CU PCA k e have to read some shit NIGHT—stroll down about Judith Butler to visit my friends at for a CourseWorks International, grab post due tonight at some handles of Nikolai, and invite Affirmative midnight, and my head feels like it’s everyone over to get the party start- By Sylvie Krekow filled with sand. I can get through ed, ice-free jungle juice style. Also, this with just a little snack. cup and bottle-opener freestyle. NOOOOOO! Someone ate Sorry. Anyway, please excuse me while I go party my my bananas last night! Who drunk-eats bananas? face off with my friends, because it’s Thursday night And I just got a text —apparently, it’s my turn to clean and none of us have class tomorrow. BOOMTOWN! the kitchen. Why the fuck is this all happening at the Eeeeeuuuugghhhhh. Okay. Okay. I will admit same time. that the one thing about college that I won’t miss Oh my god. This place is disgusting. Is that a is this feeling. Can you hand me that water bottle? cigarette butt in a stick of butter? And of course the Yes, I’m hungover. You can wipe that smug look off sink drain is clogged. WITH A CONDOM? That’s your ancient, wrinkly face, though, because I regret it. I can’t take it anymore. Both Butlers can wait, nothing. Last night was AWESOME. The bartender because today I’m looking for whatever job psychol- let us chug margaritas straight from the mixer at the ogy majors usually get. Peace, Columbia!w

10 The Blue and White At Two Swords’ Length graduate? ou’re really not tired of this yet? Sure, it’s been a as the occasional promotion, so you’ll keep thinking, Yfun ride at times, but that’s the thing about mem- “Okay, next year will be my last.” ories: usually only the highlights stick out. We’ve And then you’ll get married and your priorities gotten in a couple of good Bacchanals along the way will change, so you’ll forget about that next job and (literally: a couple). And sure, stumbling home from start spending all your energy raising a family... And 1020 at 4 a.m. Friday morning and sleeping in until pretty soon you’re paying Columbia or wherever so 2 p.m. is great and all—but on any given week, haven’t that the next you eat street meat and finish p-sets. you lost more sleep over essays than drinks? And then, well, your kids are adults, and you’ll ask Come on, just think about it. There’s a whole yourself why you spent all that time working instead world out there! For the past four years we’ve lived of watching your children grow up because now in The Greatest City in the World. But have we they’re at their own office job that they kind of like. really lived here? Discounting the one time your And then you’ll probably be divorced. So now “cool” friend took you to that party in Brooklyn you’re 65 years old, with a lifetime of disappoint- (and you complained about the length of the subway ments pulsing in your frontal cortex, and you resent ride), you’ve spent four years within these 20 blocks. everyone you’ve ever loved. Aren’t you excited to go out Where does that and live in the real world? place you in the “sexy Imagine the thrills of eat- sexagenerian” dating ing at more than Chipotle, landscape? Definitely not Milano, and halal; drinking flyfishing in a Cialis com- your craft brews somewhere mercial. And then what? It’s instead of Mel’s; the excite- off to Florida with you. Or ment of spending weekends California, if you planned wherever you want, instead better. And that’s it. What of in 209. are you gonna do then, Whatever happened write a memoir? Who are to carpe diem? The only you kidding—you don’t have thing I’ve carpe’d in my four anything memorable to years here was a crippling caffeine Negative write about. Your most memorable addiction and a terrible sleep sched- years were probably in college. ule. It’s time to live life! Spread By Brian Wagner Wait. Fuck. your wings! Think of how much is I’m not leaving this place. My out there! The joys of living in a real apartment!... life can’t be over yet! I never even had a threesome paying real bills... and waking up at the same time... in the stacks or on top of Low! They can’t kick me everyday... until retirement... out yet; I’m not a real adult. I can hardly even feed Holy shit... Our lives are basically over. What’s myself—I order delivery five days a week. No one ever even left? I guess a job, then marriage, kids, retire- taught me how to pay taxes or fix a leaking faucet or ment...and boom, you’re in a home. be party to a loving relationship. I mean, you’ll get a job you kind of like in some Who am I kidding. There’s a highlighter party office somewhere and probably tell yourself that at Sig Nu this weekend. And that is literally making you’ll only stay there a few years, at least until you my mouth water. I have no higher needs than get- can get settled and have some money in the bank. But ting drunk and drawing on people with markers. I’m then they’ll keep giving you raises each year as well doing this forever. Let’s order 40s.w

May 2013 Illustrations by Alexander Pines 11 Verily veritas Told between puffs In which our hero’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love

repare yourself, reader: here begins one column- “Katie, this school wasn’t meant for people like Pworth of shameless onanism. Perhaps it is right me. I’m just a skater.” that, since your hero need no longer spill Hah! his seed on the ground, he be allowed But—what was that? to indulge himself in this column. Someone else tittering? Yes! But no matter—your hero is He saw her! She had her own in love. black coffee and her He met her on a own respectable recent Saturday. Verily magazine. She sat at had been idling his time another table facing away in Riverside Park, him, equidistant from finally feeling the sun’s the dull couple. And she warmth on his hands and smiled at your hero! face. He felt plant life all Naturally, V.V. didn’t around him, exulting in say anything to her; he only the turn of the season! pursed his lips and nodded Passersby spoke loudly and at her, acknowledging their loosely, the dogs all seemed shared triumph. to be humping one another. “Don’t I give off a It was too much for V.V.; if he skater vibe?” did not leave soon, he risked a “Stop it. You always sun burn, or worse. find a way to doubt yourself, Besides, he could pruri- Nick. I knew you were a skater ently raise his eyebrow at only from your hair.” so many joggers before he got So, after another shared laugh, bored. Moreover, he had nothing much in Verily Veritas had gone off on his business, the way of tobacco, liquor, or reading material thinking that that had been that. with which to occupy himself. So, he slogged up the But no! Later in the week, he espied her in the stairs and back into Morningside Heights. Reference Room! And she espied him! And this time, Stopping at a newsstand for a copy of some or when she smiled, he smiled back. But, naturally, V.V. other book review, V.V. crossed to Amsterdam. He didn’t approach her. checked the time and grinned, seeing that it was 3 Leaving the Reference Womb, he stopped out- p.m. There was no better time, he knew, to eavesdrop side for a cigarette. He looked about. What a glow the on uncomfortable casual dates—nor a better place. sunset always cast over the campus panorama, what a He dropped his cigarette butt, crushed it with the play of shadows! heel of his shoe, and entered the Hungarian Pastry And there she was again! She, too, was stop- Shop. ping for a cigarette. Now that there was a prescribed Having ordered his coffee and croissant, he opening, he approached her. homed in on a seat in the mid-back, facing the door. “Ah,” he said to her, “the University! What It looked promising. Sitting down, one couple was could be finer?” within earshot. He waited, settling into the book “Truly,” she replied in turn, “it is the spring- review. Not long after, he was gratified by the follow- time of life.” ing exchange. “Well-met, well-met!” “Baby, don’t talk like that. Think of what you’d Well-met, he mused to himself.w be throwing away.”

12 The Blue and White barley legal All Brooklyn Beer Tastes the Same

A B&W editor hops down to Brooklyn to see what’s brewing By Will Holt teve Hindy learned how to home brew out of refreshingly citrusy and grassy. Snecessity. He picked up the trick from American There are plenty of breweries in the Northeast expats in Cairo while working as an Associated with better tap rooms—and much better beer—than Press correspondent in parts of the Middle East that Brooklyn’s. At many, you pretty much drink gratis. banned alcohol. The hobby became an obsession But you need only note the $5 beers and $4 pretzels after he moved back to New York in 1984. Along at Harpoon Brewery’s new Visitor Center & Beer with his upstairs neighbor Tom Potter, a former lend- Hall at the Boston Seaport to see where “craft” brew- ing officer at Chemical Bank, Hindy quit his job and eries are headed. Brooklyn is on the cutting edge of devoted himself to brewing. He and Potter called these unfortunate developments. their first effort “Brooklyn Lager” and had it made by However, despite its Disneyfied aesthetic, contract at Matt Brewing Company in Utica. Brooklyn gets a few things right. Customers are In 1996, the two invited to bring their converted a former matzo own food. Occasionally factory in Williamsburg a couple of stalls from into a working brewery the neighborhood’s where they could take outdoor food market, total control over pro- Smorgasburg, will open duction. Today, they sell up next to the picnic beer in 25 states and 20 tables. countries, which makes As for the tour Brooklyn Brewery the itself, it is hardly immer- biggest exporter of craft sive. The guide, usually beer in the United States a svelte white male in his and the 11th largest craft late 20s, herds guests brewery in the country. onto an open floor (In order to be consid- beneath a tiny crystal ered “craft,” a brewery chandelier (one of the must produce no more than 6 million barrels per year. few homespun touches in the otherwise sleek, mod- Budweiser produces well over 100 million.) ern space) and delivers a well-rehearsed, 10-minute Like countless other breweries, Brooklyn spiel on the brewery’s history. He makes the requisite recently opened an on-site tap room where custom- joke about remembering his first beer, claims that the ers can try out 10 of its beers, any day of the week. crying child in the back of their audience is drunk, Including an overpriced gift shop hawking tee shirts, then takes questions. Afterward, he’ll join the crowd the facility feels more like a theme park than a work- for a beer. ing brewery. It’s easy to knock Brooklyn Brewery for stray- Forget buying your brew with dollar bills; they ing from its homegrown origins, but I have to concede only accept tokens. Those cost $5 each, or five for a grudging respect for what it’s managed to accom- $20. On my visit, a couple of tokens got me a Radius plish. In 1879, there were 43 breweries operating and a Sorachi Ace (the first is a Belgian pale ale, the in Brooklyn; by 1976, that number had dropped to second a saison). Truth be told, all Brooklyn beers zero. Hindy and Potter have played an essential role taste the same to me: overly malty with a really weird in reviving craft brewing and ushering in this city’s and tingly mouthfeel. But the Sorachi was a pleasant current beer renaissance. If nothing else, they’ve surprise—a little too carbonated for my liking, but given us all an excuse to drink on Sundays.w

May 2013 Illustration by Katharine Lin 13 under pressure Corps Requirements The day-to-day lives of Columbia’s ROTC cadets By Naomi Sharp hristian Vivadelli, CC ’15, meets me outside of tary service after graduation. CCarman at 4:45 a.m. He has just rolled out of At Columbia, the controversy leading up to bed and comes down from his room wearing a navy the 2011 decision—a whirlwind of op-​­eds, town hall sweatshirt. A few hours ago, he was working on a meetings, faculty petitions, and national media cov- University Writing paper. (“The long one,” he adds erage—was heated. Critics of the ROTC perceived as clarification.) a too-cozy relationship between the military and The sky is dark as we head down an empty academy. That controversy has all but disappeared. College Walk. After years of swim practice, Christian “It very quickly became a non­​issue here, which is used to waking up early; in fact, he’ll be back on is wonderful as far as I’m concerned,” explains Vice campus by 6:30 a.m. to train with the Columbia Provost Rittenberg, who continues to manage the swim team. I ask him about implementation of the breakfast. “I usually have a agreement. “Sometimes granola bar, but I ran out,” lack of interest is a good he tells me. sign.” He opens the door Whether or not out- of a black van parked out- siders are paying atten- side the 116th Street gates tion, Columbia’s deci- and we climb into the back sion has made the ROTC seat. Like every Tuesday a part of campus life. On morning, a driver hired by the first floor of Lerner Columbia is at the wheel. Hall, vending machines Patrick Poorbaugh, GS ’15, were replaced with the new is sitting shotgun. Abigale NROTC office. “We pur- Wyatt, GS ’14, climbs in at posely spend a lot of time 125th Street. here because we want to The commute to be available to the campus the Bronx’s easternmost community,” says Captain tip takes less than half an Matthew Loughlin, the hour this early in the morn- commanding officer of the ing. We pull up at SUNY NROTC in New York City. Maritime, the New York City base for the Naval His reception from Columbia faculty and students Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC), well has been “almost universally positive, and at a mini- before the 5:30 a.m. start time for Physical Training. mum cordial,” Captain Loughlin affirms. “There e may be people who perhaps were opposed to us being Two years have passed since President here, but they’ve been respectful and polite, and we Bollinger signed an agreement with the Secretary very much appreciate that.” of the Navy to reinstate the NROTC program at For now, Christian is the only non-­​GS cadet in Columbia University. The ROTC, which includes the NROTC. He hasn’t received any criticism for his Army, Navy, and Air Force branches, allows students affiliation; the way he sees it, “there’s some novelty to to attend college while training to become officers in being the first one.” the U.S. Armed Forces. Some ROTC participants, As the first NROTC students in almost 50 cadets, receive a scholarship for their college tuition years trickle into Columbia, a quiet beginning to on the condition that they commit to a period of mili- the program has its benefits: “We did not want that

14 Illustration by Juliette Chen The Blue and White under pressure to happen under a microscope,” explains Professor take two semesters each of Calculus and Physics, a Jeffrey Kysar of the mechanical engineering depart- semester of Computer Science, and a semester of ment, who leads an advisory committee on issues American History at Columbia. With the exception related to the NROTC. “A student’s a student. They of P.E., he is not exempt from any Columbia Core deserve their own privacy.” requirements. e For NROTC cadets, “Columbia has been sur- Floodlights cast a glow over the soccer field. prisingly helpful,” says Christian. “Usually when I To the right of the scoreboard (“Maritime College, have a question, they get it done pronto.” Abigale, Home of the Privateers”), not far from the edge of the who joined the Navy in 2008 and began studying field, is the East River. It’s the first outdoor Physical at Columbia this year, also finds the administration Training, or PT, since winter, and the weather is “very, very supportive.” So far, things have gone chilly as the cadets arrange themselves by platoon smoothly. group to begin formation and synchronized exer- “If you hear otherwise,” Professor Kysar tells cises. Unlike the small group of Marines present, me, “please let me know.” who look prepared to use the Navy cadets as dumb- e bells, the NROTC does PT more for camaraderie Every weekday, LeTicia takes the 6:10 a.m. than intense physical training. “We’re not the chin​up 1 train to the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham service,” remarks Captain Loughlin good​­-naturedly. College. The Army ROTC has PT three times a week. All of the Navy cadets LeTicia fell short of the min- wear blue sweatshirts with imum cutoff for sit­​ups on her the Navy insignia on the “This girl came up to me last PT test, so she goes to back. Most of them are stu- additional PT each morning dents at SUNY Maritime, and said, ‘If you die in before her 8:40 a.m. classes but some commute from Iraq, those people will at Columbia. other schools. Like have justice.’” She comes from a mil- Christian, these students itary family: her parents met are only allowed to join the in the Army and her sister NROTC because their universities signed an agree- is a West Point graduate stationed in Korea. LeTicia ment with the Navy. almost went to West Point herself, but was hesitant Students have participated in the Army and Air to commit to “Army 24/7.” Instead, she juggles her Force ROTC programs independently of Columbia biomedical engineering major requirements with the long before the NROTC decision. Air Force ROTC AROTC. “To be honest, I don’t sleep,” she admits, cadet Nico Barragán, CC ’13, and Army ROTC cadet only half-joking.­​ LeTicia Brown, SEAS ’14, have never communicated After PT on Fridays, the cadets have an hour with the administration about their ROTC involve- for personal hygiene and breakfast before their ment. From Nico’s perspective, Columbia and the classes begin. By 8:30, most of them have changed ROTC are “two different worlds—and they rarely into full camouflage uniform and spread out across collide.” the Fordham cafeteria with egg sandwiches, Coke That may change. The administration is gradu- bottles, and coffees. LeTicia has a Vitamin Water ally extending its attention to the Army and Air Force (“Coffee doesn’t work for me,” she says), and sits ROTCs. “We want to give our students in those pro- next to the cadets who are running the morning’s grams the same type of support,” Provost Rittenberg Leadership Lab. The three-​­hour lab is followed by says. a Military Science class, and LeTicia also takes a Only the Naval ROTC program requires Military History class. “I feel like people think we a contract with universities as a prerequisite for learn how to fight, like hand-­​to-­​hand combat,” she student participation. Compared to the Army and says. “They take out the whole tactical part of it. The Air Force ROTCs, the NROTC is a smaller, highly main focus is becoming a leader, [but] most people technical program with stricter academic require- see it as a physical thing.” ments. Besides a Naval Science class every year and Leadership Lab is in a small classroom on the Leadership Lab at SUNY Maritime, Christian will seventh floor of a Fordham building. Today’s peer-­led

May 2013 15 under pressure lesson is centered on writing Operations Orders, a like to work with soldiers who have lost limbs or specialized format that the Army uses to communi- sustained other serious injuries, as a civilian on a cate information and relay it to troops. More experi- military base. enced cadets take charge of small groups, coaching e them through the process (“You just commit that shit Nico gives an assessment of military culture to memory,” one older cadet advises another). They when I shadow him to New York City’s Air Force are all working with the same scenario: ROTC base at Manhattan College. “Standards are “Enemy operating in two to four-­man teams standards,” he says. “There’s no grey area, there with small arms.” are no excuses.” He shows me a cot pushed against “Our mission is a spot attack. Alpha will be the the wall of the Cadet Lounge for cadets to practice supporting element and Bravo will be the assaulting making their beds. The sheets should be folded at the element.” corners of the mattress to create a 45­​-degree angle. LeTicia is leading a three-­​person group The bottom edge should be six inches from the end through writing a sample order. “You need some- of the bed. “It’s measured with a ruler and you get thing to initiate fire,” she instructs a younger cadet. yelled at if it’s five,” says Nico. “You might ask why “You can say a whistle—one whistle and we initiate it matters—what’s the difference between five and fire.” six inches? But five or six inches on a map can be the Initially, LeTicia questioned her decision to difference between bombing innocent civilians and commit to the ROTC. “Honestly, I needed a way to the enemy.” pay for college,” she says. Nico is the Cadet She received her scholar- Wing Commander, the ship to Columbia from the “Five or six inches on a highest­-ranked cadet AROTC after contracting map can be the difference position in the AFROTC. with the military in her He takes the subway to freshman year. She says between bombing innocent Manhattan College about that the ROTC has taught civilians and the enemy.” five times a week. “When her “mental strength.” “I I first got here, I was petri- just power through,” she fied to tell anyone I was in tells me. She thinks for a second and adds, “A lot of the ROTC,” he says. Though most people have been Fridays I’ll just come home and go to sleep until the supportive, Nico has dealt with negative reactions. next day.” The most extreme was after a class during his sopho- Though she stays positive, balancing ROTC more year, in which he had volunteered opinions and SEAS has been difficult. The best way the based on his experience with the military. “This girl Columbia administration could support her, she came up to me and said, “If you die in Iraq, those says, would be to consider ROTC classes for aca- people will have justice,’ ” he recalls. demic credit—a process that is already underway for A Political Science major, Nico understands NROTC classes. the spectrum of opinions about the ROTC and is These evaluations are not taken lightly, well-­​aware of the ethical implications of military explains Professor Kysar; a course that receives work. “There are certainly people who have thoughts Columbia credit must be “sufficiently rigorous to like, ‘Anyone killing anyone for any reason is wrong,’ maintain Columbia standards.” One course, “Ship and I totally respect that,” he says. “That’s a very Systems,” has already been approved by the mechani- noble idea. I might not see it the same way, but if cal engineering department and SEAS. It will likely someone said that to me I would be like, ‘Okay, I be offered next fall at SUNY Maritime. Though understand.’” Although he draws “a tremendous NROTC cadets will have priority for registration, the sense of pride” from his military work, Nico feels a class will be open to all students at Columbia. responsibility to remain open-minded. LeTicia hopes to go to grad school while hold- Nico’s Aerospace Studies class at Manhattan ing a position in the Army Reserves—her Army con- College is taught by Lieutenant Colonel Timothy tract requires her to spend six years in the Reserves McCaffrey, the commander of the AFROTC in New or four years on Active Duty. Eventually, she would York City. Because of scheduling conflicts with

16 The Blue and White under pressure

Columbia, Nico takes a makeup class with another campus, or an advisor who specializes in helping cadet. military students, would provide the support that Today’s lesson includes training on sexual cadets are currently missing. harassment, which Air Force members will revisit at He isn’t looking for special treatment for least once a year for the rest of their military careers. ROTC programs—just a little more recognition. “I “If there’s a claim of sexual harassment, you investi- don’t think Columbia needs to cater to us,” he stress- gate it,” Colonel McCaffrey says flatly. “Even if you es. “We’re just like any other student group, pretty don’t believe it. Investigate everything.” He reads much.” through a series of scenarios and asks the cadets how e they would respond. Some scenarios are ambiguous, It’s light outside by the time PT ends for the including the case of a female guard who reports NROTC cadets. Christian still has swim practice a male guard for calling her “honey.” It might not before his full day of classes begins. Swimming be sexual harassment, takes up most of his time Colonel McCaffrey con- outside of class and the cedes, but it still violates ROTC, and he is also a military code of conduct. member of Zeta Beta Tau. “Does he call everyone “I don’t think any one of ‘honey’? Does he call the those communities would men ‘honey’? She trained like to hang out with each as an airman,” he finish- other,” he reflects. “I es. “She deserves to be don’t know if they would called by her rank and all click.” He adds with name.” an easygoing shrug, “But In another sce- I make it work.” nario, a female officer On the drive back, accuses her superior of Christian and Abigale sexual harassment. She discuss an upcoming uni- reports to their com- form inspection for Navy mander, who is a close cadets. Abigale enlisted friend of the accused and in the Navy after drop- insists it must be a mis- ping out of college and understanding. A relat- traveling the country for ed military policy has three years, taking odd faced scrutiny in recent jobs—at various points, months, after an Air she was a canoe instruc- Force commander used tor, a balloon artist, a zoo his authority to overturn a sexual assault conviction worker, and an employee at a brownie factory. She against a member of his force. Colonel McCaffrey knows that at Christian’s age, she wouldn’t have had sees no grey area. “I would expect the commander the discipline to join the NROTC. “To make that to be fired whether or not the sexual harassment case decision at 18 is impressive,” Abigale says. was true,” he tells the cadets. “She came to him and “He has four years to come out and be an offi- he did nothing.” cer, with all that that entails,” she adds. “There isn’t After he graduates this year, Nico will go to another training period. It’s interesting trying to flight school to become a pilot. Eventually, he would develop that identity when you’re spending so much like to work somewhere where he can use the Arabic time at Columbia.” ​ and Hindi he studied at Columbia. He hopes that the When we pull up at 116th Street, Christian ROTC’s relationship with Columbia will strengthen leaves to grab something to eat before he goes to over time. “For LGBT students, there are resources; Dodge. He’s mastered a skill to get through long days for students of color, there are resources,“ he points like this one: “I’m a pretty good napper,” he tells me. out. Nico suggests that an ROTC representative on “I can fall asleep in probably thirty seconds.”w

May 2013 Illustration by Juliette Chen 17 How Do I reach these kids? Lies My Teacher Told Me What you need to know before you teach for America By Will Holt hen Wendy Kopp first pitched the concept districts where budgetary constraints led to layoffs Wof Teach For America as part of her student of long-term professionals. Because TFA recruits are thesis at Princeton in 1989, her advisor told her that relatively inexpensive hires, veteran teachers have she was “quite evidently deranged.” Nevertheless, lost their jobs to corps members. the organization got its start just one year later with a Many of TFA’s critics are disillusioned alumni. dedicated charter corps of 500 recruits. Gary Rubinstein, a 1991 alumnus of the Houston Kopp’s original vision of hundreds of elite col- corps and a teacher of mathematics at New York’s lege graduates teaching at some of the nation’s needi- Stuyvesant High School, has been one of TFA’s most est schools may have once seemed the stuff of fantasy, vocal dissenters. but TFA has since trained over 30,000 teachers. “I was pretty enthusiastic about what me and 10,000 recruits were sent out to schools across the my friends did then,” he told me about his time in country last fall alone, and the non-profit now boasts TFA. “My only real complaint was that Teach For over $300 million in assets. In 2012, Fortune maga- America was often exaggerating their success. They zine named TFA one of the 100 best organizations to were sugarcoating the truth for new recruits, so that work for in the United States. those recruits are not well prepared to enter the But many critics question TFA’s efficacy as classroom.” well as the organization’s commitment to its found- The TFA commitment usually lasts two years; ing ideals; some argue that many of TFA’s policies Rubinstein stayed in the Houston corps for four. threaten to damage the schools they set out to save. Despite a few initial reservations, his disillusionment For instance, the organization currently sends a third with the organization didn’t truly set in until recently. of its recruits to charter schools. Charters, though “Back then, it was bad for the corps members because publicly funded, are generally endowed with more they’d be so stressed out,” he explained. “And it was enviable budgets, larger donor bases, and better bad for the kids they were teaching, but not so bad resources than their district school peers. that it became a national issue.” Moreover, recruits are often considered poorly Despite such criticisms, TFA continues to trained. Many go on the job with fewer than 50 hours have considerable appeal at elite universities like of teaching experience. These new graduates, with- Columbia. According to TFA’s website, over five out formal teaching degrees, are frequently sent to percent of the senior class at more than 130 colleges

18 Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili The Blue and White How Do I reach these kids? and universities across the country applied to the feedback about the perception of the program on organization in 2012. Harvard, generally one of the campus, so if I think there’s something that they can top contributors of TFA recruits, had 18 percent of provide, I always share my thoughts with them.” Rady its seniors submit applications last year. and Michelle Diop, CC ’13 and the other campus Alex Donovan, TFA’s campus recruiter representative, receive what he called a “small wage” at Columbia and Barnard, explained that while for their work. Columbia’s statistics do not compete with Harvard’s, Both Rady and Zach Glubiak, CC ’12 and a the University has consistently been a top 10 con- first-year corps member at College Prep High School, tributor among medium-sized universities. a KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) charter school “We can’t give particular numbers about appli- in West Harlem, stressed that TFA looks foremost for cations,” said Donovan, “but we just had 37 students evidence of leadership in its applicants. who accepted their offers. I think the numbers have “I think they are ultimately looking for people been pretty consistent for the last few years, around who are leaders,” Glubiak told me. “They’re look- 30 corps members each year from Columbia.” ing for people who express interest in education. “It may be my own bias,” he reflected, “but There’s got to be a certain level of self-reflection I think Columbia does and drive involved, a better job than many because there’s just no schools of creating “When you tell people you’re way you’re going walk people who are aware into the classroom that of this issue. Given the working miracles, it’s great first day and be a natu- proximity to Harlem for fundraising.” ral teacher. So you have and the fact that it is to reflect about what the most diverse Ivy, didn’t go right and fig- people here understand this issue and understand ure out how you’re going fix that.” the gravity of it, so I do think we get a lot of interest It’s precisely this notion of leadership that so on that level.” many people find off-putting about TFA. Many crit- After graduating from George Washington ics believe that the organization as a whole—along University in 2009, Donovan spent three years in the with some of its more famous alumni, such as former TFA corps. He taught sixth grade math for two years D.C. Chancellor of Public Schools Michelle Rhee— in Houston, then spent another year teaching at a actively promotes the idea that only TFA’s elite corps middle school in Bedford-Stuyvesant. This is his first of recruits can save a fundamentally broken system. year as a recruiter. Thus, one of the most common criticisms With the help of TFA campus representative directed at the program is of the perception that TFA Mike Rady, CC ’13, Donovan used a CCSC grant to members are eminently better suited to tackling the start an instructional development program catered myriad problems faced by struggling public schools not only to potential TFA recruits, but also to groups than lifelong teachers seen as mired in the sys- like Youth for Debate and Peer Health Exchange. tem. The turning point in this dynamic, Rubinstein The program hosts biweekly meetings with a TFA explained, was Rhee’s tenure as D.C. chancellor from alum who guides interested undergraduates in lesson 2007 to 2010. planning and classroom management. “You have Michelle Rhee out there telling In the fall, Rady will join the Newark corps as everyone that education in this country is failing,” he a third grade teacher after five weeks of training at said. “She’s telling everyone that teachers have too the Philadelphia Institute. Rady described his role much job security—and that if we can just measure as campus representative as that of a liaison between their quality with test scores, we can fix things.” TFA and the student body here at Columbia. “That “They’re perpetuating this notion that the only can be everything from just explaining the program thing holding kids back are their current teachers,” itself to undergraduate students at career fairs and Rubenstein continued. “TFA grew tremendously classrooms and club meetings, to people I know because people genuinely believed this. When you that I think could be interested in the program,” tell people that you’re working miracles, it’s great for he explained. “I also work with [TFA], giving them fundraising.”

May 2013 19 How Do I reach these kids?

According to Rubinstein, TFA’s shortfalls ulti- Many of the recruits with whom I spoke have mately break down into three root causes: an empha- tried to set similarly reasonable expectations for sis on charters, a culture of teacher-bashing, and a themselves. “Teaching’s tough,” said Donovan. “Do lack of proper training. For many critics, the limited I walk in as teacher of the year on day one? No. Do training is most troublesome. I suck on day 20? Probably. But everyone will end “[TFA] grew too fast, and the model offers up getting better. Institute does provide a good too little practice teaching,” said Rubinstein. “TFA’s framework on which to hold yourself accountable.” training model has gotten worse over the last few Glubiak offered a similar response to the question of years. If they had a better model, people should sign preparedness: “When I think about the future, the up. But I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone right future for me is next Friday.” now. They’re not training their recruits properly, so Even so, Glubiak said he wouldn’t mind staying they’re damaging themselves and they’re damaging in education for a while longer. That’s not uncommon, the kids they teach.” said Donovan. According to him, roughly two-thirds Still, many recent alumni disagree with this of TFA alumni are directly involved in education. notion. “Yes, the training is short,” Donovan con- “That’s 20,000 people,” he said. “[TFA] changes ceded. “Five, six weeks seems a little absurd on some priorities, and it gets really talented people invested level. But I do firmly believe the training is really in working with kids. That’s why I think our impact solid, that it’s rooted in research about what are the has grown.” best practices for educat- But how exactly does ing kids, what’s good class- TFA define “education”? room management theory, “Is it valid to send a “It is a fairly broad what makes a good lesson definition that they use,” plan.” bunch of Ivy League kids said James Liebman, the Aida Conroy, CC into areas where they Simon H. Rifkind Professor ’13, will be entering the of Law at Columbia Law Chicago corps this fall to don’t really know the School. “They count things teach at one of the city’s issues and can’t really like sitting on the board of Head Start programs. a charter school or being “TFA has a really great relate to the people?” active in politics in a way foundation,” she told me. that advocates for change in “The training is pretty one way or another.” extensive. I’ll be getting my Master’s at the same Indeed, one of the principal criticisms of TFA time in early childhood education.” is that many recruits use the program as a stepping According to Glubiak, “You spend your day stone to elite graduate schools. As Liebman pointed [at Institute] teaching, going to professional develop- out, many alumni end up in the private sector and ment sessions, planning for the next day, reflecting maintain only a tangential connection to public edu- on the previous day. It’s a pretty intensive five-week cation. program. The aim is getting you as ready as possible.” Since working as a school desegregation Critics like Rubinstein assert that many new lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in the recruits are missing the bigger picture, which he 1970s and 1980s, Liebman himself has maintained described as a kind of mission drift. Other alumni a strong personal investment in public educa- and participants may offer more nuanced criticisms, tion reform. From 2006 to 2009, he worked as but most maintain that the organization as a whole is Chief Accountability Officer at the New York City of tremendous value. Department of Education. Overall, his assessment of “I do think some of the criticisms are pretty TFA was positive. valid,” said Conroy. “In my case, I hope it’s a little “It has definitely enhanced the access of public bit different because I’ll be going back to where I’m school students in the United States to better teach- from and that means a lot to me. Being able to address ers,” noted Liebman. “One thing that is very true these issues on a personal level and not just on the about Teach for America is that it’s an incredibly good theoretical level of policy is really important.” screener of talent. And their judgments of people

20 The Blue and White How Do I reach these kids? who are not only smart but actually able to apply their niably valuable about TFA, both for its members and intelligence and get things done is really good.” for the students it aims to help. Rady offered a similar assessment of the orga- “I have found that for 90 percent or more of nization’s overall value. “I don’t think you’d see so the TFA alumni that I’ve spoken to—and I’ve prob- many graduating seniors so excited about getting ably spoken to a couple hundred—the experience was into education if it weren’t for TFA,” he added. “If positive and in many ways life-changing,” Liebman there’s one thing they’ve done right, it’s getting so told me. “They often learn something they didn’t many talented individuals to go back into their com- know. In many cases that’s learning how hard it is to munities to teach.” do what teachers need to do.” In interviewing various TFA recruits, I found Liebman was quick to add that those who don’t that many were either highly circumspect or visibly continue with teaching can still have a tremendous uncomfortable about discussing some of the criti- impact on public education. “You get a law degree, cisms that Rubinstein raised with me. Perhaps the a business degree, or a policy degree, and there are most obvious dodge they made had to do with TFA’s lots of things that you can do with that in the public growing emphasis on charter schools versus districts. sector,” he said. “I’ve noticed with the [former TFA] “Well, charters are public schools,” hedged Glubiak. students I teach that they’re actually quite interested “That all depends on the region,” dodged Rady, “so I in public sector work.” He concluded: “They’re inter- can’t speak to it.” ested in change, and they’re actually quite prepared The distinction is significant, and the fact to think about how to engage in change from a kind that TFA now sends a third of its recruits to charter of tactical, strategic perspective.” schools is troubling. Corps members are quick to Perhaps Rubinstein was wrong to discourage mention that charter schools are publicly funded and students from applying outright; neither TFA’s legacy that any student can have the chance to attend, but nor its future can be boiled down to basic talking this ultimately fails to address that charters are an points. That being said, Rubinstein’s criticisms war- entirely different animal. Whether because of moti- rant careful consideration. When larger structural vated parents or motivated kids, the student body problems of TFA threaten to weaken the very schools at any charter school in this country is fundamen- that need it most, one must question whether the tally distinct from district counterparts with students corps has ultimately lost sight of its mission.w from otherwise similar socioeconomic back- grounds. Charters do not face the problem of parents who use public education as a kind of day-care in the same way that underper- forming districts do. Given these differences, is TFA really allocating its resources where they’re needed most? Conroy expressed justifiable concerns about the unique presence of TFA at elite colleges and universities. Aggressive recruit- ing at a Harvard or a Columbia fails not only to address a disconnect between educational theory and practice but also diminishes the importance of being able to personally relate to one’s students. “Is it valid to send a bunch of Ivy League kids into areas where they don’t really know the issues and can’t really relate to the peo- ple?” Conroy asked. “I believe that I’m no better than someone who goes to a small state school where they won’t have a TFA recruiter.” Nevertheless, there’s something unde-

May 2013 Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili 21 big yellow taxi Shifting Gears A recent Columbia alumnus starts 2013 driving a NYC cab By Naomi Cohen efore stepping into the 38-story Bank of America papers, and then Columbia keeps all of your intel- BTower in Hong Kong to begin a career in sales lectual property anyway.” and trading, Nashoba Santhanam, CC ’12, took a Santhanam has held a job down every summer detour. His destination: wherever you’re headed. since the age of 14, when he could legally work. A Santhanam drives a yellow medallion taxi, a quarter Choctaw, he traveled when he was 15 to a decision that seems to raise the eyebrows of everyone Choctaw reservation in Oklahoma, where he found but his parents, who’ve stopped being surprised by employment in a welfare office (“I despise the con- Nashoba’s taste in “day jobs.” When other students cept,” he adds). There, he stayed with his grandmoth- ask about his motivation, Santhanam answers with a er’s cousin, whom he met for the first time. The next routine, “might as well.” He might as well explore the summer, he worked for CUTCO Cutlery of Vector city before leaving; he might as well get paid for it. Marketing. He was quickly promoted from selling When asked by other cabbies, he explains that money knives to hiring knife-sellers. As an 18-year-old at is money. To customers, he calls it just a part-time the height of the recession, he interviewed the anx- job—if you call 12-hour night shifts part-time. ious unemployed, most of whom were significantly Anyone expecting a portrait of a disillu- older than Santhanam himself. sioned Ivy Leaguer, piecing together his soul in One thing that’s remained constant is the metaphor-friendly alleys of New York, will be Santhanam’s fascination with the character of dif- disappointed. Santhanam neither romanticizes the ferent localities. He moved around a lot growing up, working-class mentality nor has any interest in trying spending time in California, Virginia, Connecticut, out pop sociology. New York, and Singapore, each of which contributed “I like doing a lot of different jobs,” he says, to his fascination with diversity. He says that sexual “and it’s sort of interesting to do something different. and racial differences are in vogue at Columbia, And that’s what this is.” but he finds that they often preclude discussions of Santhanam double majored in Political Science geographic, experiential, and intellectual diversity, and Economics, graduating a semester early by tak- which he’s sought out wherever he’s lived. ing six to seven classes a semester. “I felt like getting As a kid, Santhanam was familiar with subur- my money’s worth,” he explains. ban sprawl. He’s candid about the fact that Columbia Over the past two years, Santhanam has been stood out to him not for its academic prestige, but its one of Columbia’s more prominent voices on national urban environment—an environment that his present politics, writing editorials about SOPA (Stop Online job takes full advantage of. Piracy Act) and speaking for Columbia’s Republican The variety and excitement that comes with element. Last fall, he served as President of the driving a cab obviously has its associated risks: cab- Columbia University College Republicans, signifi- bies are targeted by muggers more than any other cantly raising membership and attendance rates. type of worker. But for Santhanam, “safe is boring.” Early in his college career, Nashoba did Speech and He has avoided being mugged so far, but the rides Debate, but quit to make time for the Republicans. are never dull. Once, a man threatened to shoot him But above all, Santhanam reiterated, he kept his head for charging too high a fare; another leaned in close in his books and an eye on finance. to his face and offered to “pay in other ways”; then “I was never super into school in the first there was the woman—whom he later realized was a place,” he explains. “Not in a bad way, but I’d much prostitute—who suggested that he pick the destina- rather have a job that pays than pay money to do work tion and take her there. His most dangerous ride: A for other people—which is sort of in my mind what customer was receiving oral sex in the backseat and school is, because you’re paying money and writing Santhanam had to both concentrate on not looking in

22 The Blue and White big yellow taxi

treatment from his custom- ers, he doesn’t have a family to support: “I have the working- class experience insofar as I’m working a working-class job.” Santhanam made his first friend in the taxi driv- er community with his first encounter. When he sat down in taxi driving class, the man next to him challenged him, saying he looked “mad edu- cated” for an aspiring taxi driver. “If not skin tone,” Santhanam explains, “the fact that I’m wearing thick- rimmed glasses and button- down shirts probably distin- guished me from most cab drivers.” He’s learned to counteract this look with an the rearview mirror and not hitting potholes. electric blue New York Knicks hat and says that his Other nights are luckier. Friendly, well- part-Indian heritage has helped him blend in. heeled customers, impressed with his conversation, Of the 80 other students in his taxi class, have promised him free tickets to the New York Santhanam says that two were white; there were no Philharmonic and free food and drink in the Standard women. Most had thick accents, and many struggled Hotel. On one run, he reconnected with a friend of with the English proficiency exam, which he likens to his father’s from college. Driving his cab, Santhanam a very simplified version of the SAT reading compre- networks with all types. The other day he picked up hension section. the former dean of the Columbia School of Dentistry. When he goes to pick up his car before every The interface, he says, is good practice for Bank of shift, he approaches the bulletproof window of “a America. shitty, dumpy garage” with his license and a cash In between, there’s the mundane: a lot of bribe. Santhanam theorizes that the dispatcher Columbia graduate students leaving Butler at 2 a.m.; grants cabs to drivers based on cash, seniority, and a lot of speeding on roundabouts; a lot of AM radio. ethnicity. On his first four days, his dispatcher never He says he’s never been so news-savvy. He’s also gave him a cab. never stayed seated for so long; his doctor requested Santhanam may not conform to widely held that he quit to save his back. Back and kidney prob- notions of the typical cabdriver, but neither does he lems run rampant among cab drivers. match the stereotype of an aspiring trader. As much “It is a working-class job,” he reflects. “You’re as he says his peers want to label him as a “finance hustling on the streets of New York to pick up fares, drone,” Santhanam has kept this interim period and you’re making five, ten dollars a trip over the spontaneous. He’ll still catch his one-way flight to course of a night. You could go home with very little Hong Kong, but before then, he has made pit stops money.” With an average profit of $200 a night, he at Bacchanal, 40s on 40, and Commencement. Cab has just enough to pay for his bills and his beer. driving is ultimately one more job for Santhanam—a “I guess I do sort of fetishize grunge,” reflects chance to earn a little money while bidding a pro- Santhanam. Still, he doesn’t claim to inhabit the longed farewell to the city.w life of a cabbie entirely. Though he receives gruff

May 2013 Illustration by Angel Jiang 23 science is hard Insider Trading

Looking at Columbia’s new internal transfer policy By Alexander Pines n order to transfer out of SEAS last year, Melissa is worth noting that according to the science depart- IRagonese, now CC ’15, found herself filling out ment, CC computer science majors must complete the Common Application once again. Like other only 41 to 44 points, compared to 74 to 75 for SEAS Columbia students who wished to transfer between students.) undergraduate schools, she was required to reapply Under the new system, “When we evalu- within the pool of all transfer applicants. ate internal candidates, we know that the ‘fit’ with “It was terrifying to deal with the yellow Columbia has already been established,” says Jessica squares of doom and green triangles of hope and Marinaccio, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and wonder again,” Melissa admits. Financial Aid. “We are able to focus our attention As of this January, however, internal transfer on seeking to understand the reasons why a transfer students no longer have to face the Common App; the between schools would enable the applicant to pursue Office of Undergraduate Admissions has created a his or her new goals.” new internal transfer policy for students transferring Accordingly, “Internal transfers apply with between CC and SEAS. a special internal transfer application while trans- Before 2013, internal transfers were faced fers from other colleges must submit the Common with a harsh and often downplayed reality: while Application for transfers,” Dean Marinaccio explains. CC and SEAS are part of one undergraduate commu- However, internal transfers must still prove their aca- nity, they are separate schools with separate admis- demic worth—though this aspect of transferring, too, sions rates. (In 2012, CC admitted 6.4 percent and has softened. SEAS 9.9 percent. Since that year, Admissions has In 2008, a SEAS first-year wrote an opinion only released the consolidated statistic.) piece in the Columbia Daily Spectator. In it, he Having applied as a transfer last year under described his disappointment that his application the old system, Ragonese had to prove both that she went unread when he applied to transfer to CC. Why? “fit” Columbia and that she academically merited His GPA fell short of the 3.5 minimum then required acceptance. “It really did give the impression that of internal transfers. you had intentionally messed up the first time and this According to the current Admissions web- was your due punishment—you literally have to reap- page, “Potential transfers are expected to have a ply to the school,” said Ragonese. “I would have felt minimum GPA of 3.5 overall; Columbia Engineering differently if it had been more internal—it would have candidates are strongly encouraged to have a mini- seemed a lot more sympathetic.” mum GPA of 3.5 in their mathematics and science Even though Ragonese ended up leaving SEAS courses.” However, according to Dean Marinaccio, to study computer science in CC, she is nonetheless “that number is specific to students applying from grateful to have had the opportunity at a do-over. (It other college and universities and not for internal transfers.” Internal transfers, she said, are reviewed according to “committee-based holistic process” which she did not elaborate on. It seems, then, that the new policy changes two parts of the internal transfer experience: first, inter- nal transfers are already assumed to “fit” Columbia; second, internal transfers will still be considered if they do not meet the GPA minimum for general transfer admissions. This year, when Shriya Manian, CC ’15,

24 The Blue and White science is hard applied to transfer from SEAS, she filled out the and are reviewed by the same admissions commit- new application designed exclusively for internal tee,” said Dean Marinaccio. “The internal applica- transfers. Unlike the Columbia supplement to the tion is therefore available to these students because Common App, which one transfer student noted was they have entered Columbia through the same pro- more like a personality quiz than anything else, the cess. Undergraduates at Barnard and the School of new application is streamlined and does not require General Studies are admitted through the admissions an application fee. Forget submitting old transcripts guidelines of their respective schools, and thus they or test scores—Manian only had to provide a list of apply through the general transfer process.” her extracurricular activities, her current schedule, Many students still find the revised internal two letters of recommendation, and answers to three transfer process daunting. However, they do admit short-answer questions about why she wanted to that progress has been made. switch schools. “I still think it’s ridiculous to make it so hard “Transferring within the university wasn’t to change schools,” said Aidan Graham, who will be daunting like I think transferring out could be,” she CC ’16 starting in the fall. “But if I did have to use the said. Common App, I would have felt as though I was even Nonetheless, there remains the ever-present less of a priority to the administration and I probably struggle of the Columbia student: the necessity of would have felt more discouraged from applying.” tenacious bureaucratic wran- The University strives gling. Specific information to make its internal transfer about Columbia’s internal process more accommodating, transfer process is hard to come but considerable difficulties by. remain. As is typical of tech- “For me, what was most nological innovations affecting upsetting was that there was no any substantial portion of the information on how good my Columbia student body, the chances were, which made it process is still bumpy. Several very hard to plan ahead,” said Debattama Sen, SEAS students reported technical issues during their appli- ’13, who crossed over from CC after her freshman cation. year. One student mentioned that he didn’t even Columbia’s two undergraduate schools pro- know when decisions would be released until an hour vide a unique example relative to other universities, before he was admitted. such as NYU, with its legion of schools, or Penn, When Sen says that she had difficulty gauging with Wharton. Therefore, significant pedagogical her chances of getting in, she means it. Beyond a sin- differences between CC and SEAS should hardly gle paragraph of the Admissions FAQ linking to the be discounted in weighing a candidate’s application. correct transfer form, there is no data available about Indeed, it may be telling that a large majority of inter- the relative exchange of students between SEAS and nal transfers who came forward to be interviewed for CC or admissions rates. this article were students who had made the switch The only admissions rate publicly available is from SEAS to CC and not the other way around. “fewer than 10 percent,” which Dean Marinaccio (Read: the difference between admission rates and says applies to external and not internal transfers. the relative rigor of each school’s computer science When asked about the statistics regarding internal major.) transfers, she only offered, “Internal transfer num- The new internal transfer procedure appears bers fluctuate on an annual basis, and we do have stu- to take a nuanced view of the the CC-SEAS relation- dents applying in both directions between Columbia ship. Unlike the old policy, it acknowledges that the College and Columbia Engineering.” schools form one undergraduate community—hence It’s unlikely that the application will come to the “fit” that Dean Marinaccio mentioned—while include Barnard or General Studies transfer appli- still distinguishing between a liberal arts college and cants. “Applicants to Columbia College and The an engineering school. But, of course, bureaucratic Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied opacity remains a significant obstacle to the would- Science share a first-year admissions application, be transfers themselves.w

May 2013 Illustrations by Alexander Pines 25 working on my roar Cub Reporters

A look at Columbia’s “weird” new blog By Britt Fossum he layout of the Columbia Lion recalls the last to vibrate to that weird string. Each staff meeting Titeration of Bwog. Described by somebody in delivers an eclectic, if sometimes incomprehensible, the know as “a knockoff of Bwog,” its color scheme combination of news and inside jokes: The Lion and layout are practically identical to Bwog’s former- paired coverage of the CCSC elections with a pithy ly blue background. This isn’t entirely intentional, push for its own “Lion Party.” Davidson eventually according to The Lion’s editor in chief, web designer, hopes The Lion will supersede Bwog and Spectrum and co-founder Jake Davidson, as Columbia’s go-to online CC ’14. Davidson insists there news source. Still, coverage of wasn’t much choice in the campus events is unpredict- scheme, “it was either blue able. While Snowder managed and look like Bwog used to, or to interview Bacchanal’s famous white and look like Bwog does “fountain girl,” The Lion inten- now.” The founders went with tionally chooses not to cover the popular vote. every story it hears about. The site began as the pet And so, despite designs project of Davidson and for- to unseat the reigning blog, mer Spectrum editor Stephen Davidson has no qualms with Snowder. Davidson explains, driving traffic toward his cam- “Towards the end of last pus competitors. In his mind, semester, it became clear that linking to another blog gives Spec was too serious. We just readers of The Lion the com- wanted to be weird about it and prehensive news day his limited make weird Columbia jokes.” writing staff can’t always cover. Davidson cites his time at the “If we don’t have an opinion on Spectator, especially his role in it but want people to know about honing its online presence, as it… we are giving all of our traf- providing both the wherewithal to start his own blog fic to Bwog or Spec for things that we have nothing to and the inspiration to take a new direction. say about.” The Lion went live in February 2013 and sus- And while The Lion’s daily visitor count may tains a balanced diet of three posts daily: “Morning not match up with those publications yet, Davidson Briefing,” “Midnight Snack,” and one longer feature. assures me that site traffic has accelerated markedly Davidson considers such consistency a “small mir- over the semester. The editors take that as a sign that acle,” given the blog’s sporadic meetings and small the blog—despite a staff comprised almost wholly staff of only nine regular contributors. seniors—might live on. By way of a mission statement, Davidson tells When asked why he gave his self-conscious- me: “Every week we try to take a big campus story ly “weird” blog such a traditional, school-spirited and go at it in the wierdest way possible.” This goal name, Davidson jokes, “the original name was going isn’t always executed: a recent post questioning the to be ‘The Observer,’ and then that was kind of too longevity of Frontiers of Science consisted of vague obvious. It’s just funny cause it’s a really lazy name speculation about how the Core class is “on the but sounds really authoritative. Almost what I want ropes,” as well as the text of an email sent to all the blog to be but what it really shouldn’t be. I want it Frontiers students. to have some authoritative points but also be just the At other times though, The Lion does seem opposite.”w

26 Illustration by Britt Fossum The Blue and White CURIO COLUMBIANA n 1931, Spectator editor in chief Reed Harris went on a crusade against the Columbia establishment. IDuring his tenure, Harris attacked—among other things—college athletics for corrupting the univer- sity by diverting funds from academics. He was ultimately expelled for rabble rousing. In his book King Football, which he wrote soon after leaving, Harris marveled that “an amazing amount of money finds its ways from the pockets and bank account of Alumni into the hands of men whose one greatest interest in life lies in committing a form of legalized assault on any one of eleven opponents that they may meet in the football field.” In this indignant letter to the editor of the Alumni News, Lionel Kaufman, the Spectator’s former advertising manager, points out the hypocrisy of the Spectator’s accusations. The managerial board of the newspaper had a similarly nasty habit of pocketing advertising dollars for personal use. The Letterbox Kaufman Says “Spec” Editors Receive Money Editor, The Alumni News: A great teacher who, I daresay, was as well up on his right and wrong as any Spectator editor may hope to be, once said: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” Being myself a former member of Spec’s managing board, I can’t for the life of me, see how a Spectator editor can denounce professionalism in college athletics, without having his tongue in his cheek. For Spectator, just as all college publications, is the most professional of all Columbia’s extra-curricular activities. In a normal year, the amount of money pocketed by each member of Spectator’s managing board can put to shame our average football man’s income from scholar- ships, odd jobs on the campus, etc. last year, under the leadership of the most ardent champion on amateurism in Spectator’s history, through no fault of the managing board, the paper was blessed with a deluge of competitive tobacco advertising. And the result, I am reliably informed, is that each member of the managing board pocketed about a thousand dollars in “excess advertising revenue.” And though the sum may vary each year, the method of operation doesn’t. As a matter of fact, I can even name one editor- in-chief who borrowed against what he expected—too optimistically—to be his share of the profits. And to the best of my knowledge, he hasn’t yet returned that excess sum to King’s Crown. While we have a committee for investigations, how about investigating Spectator? And all the other “non athletic” activities whose leading figures are supposed and expected to “make something” on the side? i know two wrongs don’t make aright, but I insist that the main difference between ath- letics and non-athletic emoluments is that the former aren’t concealed as carefully as most of the latter. if Spectator’s system is right, then our athletic system is right. If not, by all means, let’s reform both of them. But don’t let Spectator’s editors sit like holier-than-thou, lily-white angels, and cast aspersions on the football authorities for operating on the same financial basis that they themselves use.w Lionel M. Kaufman, ’30C

May 2013 27 SKETCHBOOK

28 The Blue and White SKETCHBOOK

Cartoons by Hank Shorb & Matthew Schantz

May 2013 29 generally screwed Paying it Forward

Pervasive debt at Columbia’s nontraditional college By Anna Bahr

This is the final installment of a three-part series on the experience of student debt at Columbia. To review the first two pieces, which examine student loans in CC/SEAS and financial aid for international students, please visit www.theblueandwhite.org.

ust two years ago, Peter Awn, Dean of the School reserve. In the 2012-13 academic year, CC and Jof General Studies, described the limited finan- SEAS awarded over $122 million in scholarships and cial aid available to GS students as “untenable.” grants to 3,000 undergrads; GS distributed $16.4 That year, GS students received, “percentage-wise, million to 1,050 students. Roughly, GS’s aid has half functionally half the financial aid dollars that [were] the purchasing power of CC and SEAS. available to Columbia College students,” a dearth In the mind of Stephanie Keogh, GS ’14, the cornering GS undergrads into a future of student problem feels as moral as it does practical. “If you debt. Today, GS has surpassed its $25 million fund- are graduating with $180,000 to pay off, Columbia raising goal as part of the university-wide Campaign should feel accountable for that ethically. If [President for Undergraduate Education—92 percent of which Lee C.] Bollinger is talking about equality and affir- Awn estimates will expand the aid pool in the form mative action and he can go to sleep at night thinking of scholarships and grants. With this addition, he he’s done everything he can to protect GS students, believes “the school has turned a corner.” he’s wrong,” she explained. Awn’s optimism for the future of Columbia’s Of the 1,500 GS undergrads, approximately nontraditional undergraduate college surprised me. 70 percent receive financial aid. It’s a striking statis- Nearly every GS student I interviewed shared a com- tic, but the amount they are apportioned deflates the mon grievance—the same frustration echoed in opin- admirable quantity of scholarships. Fifty percent of ion pieces in the Spectator and desperate Bwog com- CC and SEAS students receive aid from Columbia, ments for years—that the value of a Columbia degree with an average grant of $40,441. During her first is compromised when it demands that scholars be period of enrollment, the average GS student will borrowers. When Hal Levy, GS ’14, graduates, he will owe nearly $160,000 in private student loans. “If I don’t go bankrupt, at the very least I will have no spending money for ten years. I’ll probably be wearing these same ratty clothes, trying to pay off my loans,” he sighed. GS prides itself on being one of a kind—a unique education, nonexistent at other Ivies, in which a diverse collection of nontraditional students earn traditional bachelor’s degrees. But its current program remains a feasible option for only one kind of student: he who can readily afford it. No GS student expects charity. But they do expect parity. They pay the same tuition fees as their peers who arrived directly from high school. But Columbia College, a 250-year-old institution, has the benefit of an accumulated endowment; GS, formally established in 1947, has a much smaller

30 Illustration by Elisa Mirkil The Blue and White generally screwed typically receive between $7,000 and $9,000 in stressed.” Spencer was recently told that, even if he grants. Since GSers pay on a per-credit basis, this had a perfect, 4.0 GPA, he would only receive around may cover the costs of a part-time student, but for the $500 more in aid annually. 68 percent of GS students enrolled full-time, grants This is not news. GS is undeniably and laud- absorb only a fraction of the annual $44,090 tuition ably transparent about its limited resources. For fee for a 34-credit schedule. That figure stands many students, the decision is more emotional than without factoring in the additional cost of hous- rational: “I knew I was going to be screwed, but [an ing, food, personal expenses, and Student Life and acceptance at Columbia] is an offer you can’t refuse,” Health Services fees. For the remaining third of GS said Levy. But the value of a degree can fluctuate. students who take classes part-time, these mandatory When you’re juggling a job, school, and trying to costs accumulate and multiply as GSers inch toward make rent on time, is the Columbia name worth it? “I graduation. hope so. It might have been more responsible for me Still, while GS students may be unfairly indebt- to move to Alaska and become a political organizer,” ed relative to their CC and SEAS peers, they are said Levy, only half-joking. rarely misinformed. GS encourages accepted stu- It’s not just the seductive Ivy League degree dents to meet with a financial aid officer who helps that attracts students to GS. It’s that the school them through a cost-benefit provides an opportunity to analysis evaluating potential study not as a night student, aid options from the univer- “I can be optimistic or through some online sity, federal government, and about a future, but iteration, but ostensibly as private lenders. If the costs a regular undergrad. From outweigh the benefits, aid you’re the one who has Army veterans to students counselors often recommend to pay your bills now.” who took time off after high that recent admits consider school to pay their family’s accepting admission else- electricity bill, many GSers where. But these meetings often take place before thought their chance to study as an undergrad at a students have received their full financial aid packag- school of such prestige had long since passed. es. More importantly, because institutional aid at GS So, students get creative. Badesch told me he is allocated based on merit, rather than need, many considered getting married to boost his aid package. students hope that their academic achievements will He receives no financial support from his parents. But pay off via a monetary reward—an incentive which until he is 24, Badesch will be considered a depen- surely contributes to GS students consistently earn- dent by the federal government. “Independent” stu- ing the highest average GPA of Columbia’s under- dents, who do not report parental income, typically graduates. appear to have greater financial need and are more Meanwhile, CC/SEAS students are endowed likely to receive grants and subsidized loans. A mar- with financial aid that boasts a “$0 borrowing expec- riage license would knock Spencer into the “inde- tation” and guarantees to “meet 100% of demon- pendent” column. strated need.” (For more on the slippery rhetoric of On GoFundMe.com, a personal fundraising CC’s financial aid, see “Buy Now, Pay Later,” the first platform akin to Kickstarter, Kambi Gathesha, GS installment of this series in the Winter 2012 issue of ’14 submitted the following entry: “Currently, I am this magazine.) in danger of not being able to return to Columbia Spencer Badesch, GS ’16 and a former pro- University to finish my undergraduate studies and fessional ballet dancer, works 30 to 40 hours a receive my degree due to exorbitant tuition costs. week at an AT&T store. Were he a CC student, he Despite the generosity of my particular institution... would almost certainly qualify for substantial aid. it is unable to give me more money.” He struggles to keep up with a workload designed Gathesha is deeply committed to Columbia for undergraduates who can afford to make studying and a well-known figure on campus. After graduat- a full-time job. Spencer, already $25,000 in debt, ing from Juilliard’s theatre program and performing emphasized his emotional strain: “I’ll have a massive professionally with artists including Beyonce, Usher, heart attack. I’ll be dead before I graduate, I’m so and Pink, he found his way to GS. With a year and

May 2013 31 generally screwed a half left until graduation, Gathesha ran out of the tural changes to GS over the years. During our funds he needs to finish his degree and was in dan- interview, he returned time and again to the abject ger of withdrawing. His webpage seeks donations social discrimination faced by and “pathetic” finan- towards the $40,000 he needs to graduate—a sum cial resources available to GS students during the that would supplement both his financial aid package college’s earlier years. from GS and his federal loans. And while his image Awn cleaved to the message: “Look how far recently graced the front page of the Columbia Daily we’ve come.” And justly so. GS has made remarkable Spectator, Gathesha is no longer listed in the univer- strides, and shows no sign of complacency. Curtis sity directory as an enrolled student. Rodgers, GS Dean of Enrollment Management, In Stephanie Keogh’s experience, phasing acknowledged that the college’s recent fundraising in and out of enrollment success is “just the begin- at GS is standard prac- ning of a long-term effort tice. Keogh reported that to increase the funds avail- many of her friends in GS able for GS financial aid.” take credits every other General Studies aims to semester—working several achieve a proportionally part-time jobs during the equal discount rate—the semesters they spend away amount of tuition funds from Columbia. There’s a returned to students in the catch. Studying as a part- form of aid—as Columbia time student delays gradu- College. In 2009, The Owl ation, subsequent entry Magazine, the alumni mag- into the full-time, salaried azine of GS, cited the rate workforce, and the finan- as roughly 40 percent for cial security to repay debt. CC, and only 22 percent “The fact that you have to for GS students, suggesting drop out—not because your parity still remains a some- grades aren’t good enough, what distant goal. but because you can’t pay— One of Dean Awn’s is humiliating. It’s shame- personal triumphs is a ful,” said Keogh. much improved social relationship between GS and The GS administration can hardly be cast as the traditional colleges. In Awn’s mind, as he told indifferent to low-income students. The small size of the Columbia Daily Spectator earlier this year, “the the college limits the bureaucratic distance between final steps in synchronizing Columbia College and students and administration that can define CC and GS curricula” and reconciling the colleges’ cultures SEAS. One of the goals of GS, says Dean Awn, is to comes down to two structural changes: renaming the be “as transparent as humanly possible [about the School of General Studies and including Lit Hum and realities of debt].” Whereas James Valentini, Dean Contemporary Civilizations as graduation require- of Columbia College, invites students every month or ments for GS students. so to a brief window of office hours, Awn spends his But Levy sees the feeling of social isolation, a spare time in the GS lounge, mingling with students. common phenomenon for GSers, as directly related He knows them by name, and his empathy for their to a disparity in financial freedom. “GS can’t solve the financial juggling act is in earnest. Keogh thinks that problem of us not being in the larger community until GSers recognize the sincerity of his commitment: they solve the problem of financial aid,” he explained. “The financial well-being of his students and housing Over the past two years, in an internal review [for GS] are literally all he thinks about.” process similar to the recent overhaul made by But Awn has been Dean of the School of Columbia College’s Office of Financial Aid and General Studies since 1997. He has the privilege Educational Financing, the GS Office of Educational of institutional memory—countless points of com- Financing has undergone what Dean Rodgers parison that demonstrate majors structural and cul- described as “significant restructuring,” including

32 Illustration by Elisa Mirkil The Blue and White paying the bills expanding office hours from 10 hours per week to 40, hiring three additional aid officers, and, for the first time, offering institutional aid for the summer semester to eligible GS students. Take $5 off a box of CC or Lit Hum books The broader economic outlook for indebted With this coupon GS students is bleak. Not only is the cost of living in Manhattan more than twice the national average, Please visit us before you make your textbook decisions. but interest rates on federally subsidized loans are -Easy returns and exchanges- -No sales tax or shipping charges- expected to double on July 1st due to mandatory -Truly helpful and hardworking staff- federal budget cuts. This increase from 3.4 to 6.8 M-F 9am-10pm S 10-8 SU 11-7 percent interest rates could add an average of $5,000 Great prices-Great buyback program to what current students pay on their loans. Two- All the major courses and many exclusives, thirds of American students today graduate with An Independent Bookstore- loans exceeding $25,000. Of the 10 GS students I Shop Local interviewed, most fit into the 10 percent of graduates nationwide who owe more than $54,000 in loans; six Book Culture 536 west 112th between of them will be over $100,000 in debt. B-way and Amsterdam A self-described realist, Awn is well aware of 212-865-1588 the endemic GS debt crisis. After all, he’s been man- aging the same problem, with new progress and new Make Book Culture your first move. setbacks, for the last 16 years. Awn candidly offers, “I can be optimistic about a future, but you’re the one who has to pay your bills now.”w

Sponsored in part by the Arts Initiative at Columbia University. This funding is made possible through a generous gift from The Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

May 2013 33 Measure for Measure

The Quiet

The quiet, the slow, the emergence the stealth but the lovely, the evolution, The steady. all 10 fingers on the not quite ready.

The neck, the violins the strings uhhhh Cello, vibrate, shake shhh, [gasp] Hummmmm (inhale) ummmm mmmm (adjust) Brush, brush, rustle, touch - holldddd

— Alessio Mineo

34 The Blue and White Measure for Measure

Time Lapse

Look: the light, poured iris glistening, brilliant blue through the windowpane.

You ought to look up more often. You would see the world & sometimes the sea revolve. Only by vanishing will you know all about the quick sparrows over the black earth. I heard you once, the mingled measure of your voice, inquiring how you were born. Fine birds brought you, slowly spinning through versions of lives before— there. There you are stone, there you are tenderness. Look, I’m still here & all you have.

I don’t think of you often, but when I do, I think there is no rightful way by time.

Last night’s rain tongued the creek’s surface, made the wind & far trees listen, ashamed.

Tell me we’ll never get used to it all. — Nim Gumaste

May 2013 35 Culture! It was Baroque; McVicar Fixed It Giulio Cesare changes its tune at the Met Opera By Alexandra Svokos Giulio Cesare enjoyed the playful role of Cleopatra. To meet and by George Handel seduce Caesar, she slinks in a short, black flapper April 4 - May 10 dress, complete with dark sunglasses and a cocktail Metropolitan Opera House (what time period are we in again?). She enters in a brightly colored Bollywood-inspired set (where are e have lost the ability to take the Baroque seri- we again?). Mocking her brother, Ptolemy, in “Non Wously. Between its countertenors with unnatu- disperar,” she and two hype girls do a dance that rally shrill voices and the oft-parodied, aristocratic includes walking like an Egyptian, shaking their harpsichord, it is difficult for the modern audience heads, and wagging their fingers. Dessay whizzed not to giggle. The narration is tedious compared to through coloratura phrases, though not without genres: arias repeat the same lines in slow, tentative effort in the higher notes—a sad reminder of her phrases; Baroque opera is the stereotype of anti- chronic vocal troubles. Still, her voice was bright and quated dullness that keeps many from considering fully colored. While the rest of the singers lost power any type of opera enjoyable. at the four hour mark, Dessay was astonishingly con- In his production of Handel’s Giulio sistent throughout. Cesare, which had its New York premiere at the Few countertenors measure up to David Metropolitan Opera this spring, director David Daniels—his singing was passionate and techni- McVicar attempted to confound that stigma. In doing cally brilliant. One of his major arias was used as a so, he also confounded rationality, narrative balance, point of self-mockery. In “Al lampo dell’armi,” rebels and the level of sophistication expected of a Met audi- rally outside while Caesar—as any Baroque hero ence—but no matter, so long as the audience stayed would—lengthily observes his situation. Meanwhile, engaged through the typically plodding four and a Cleopatra and a soldier run about in a frenzy, trying half hour show. McVicar presents a giddy interpreta- to both placate Caesar and remind him that he’s sing- tion, bursting with life, color, and spectacle. ing with enemies at his door. Following Julius Caesar’s time in Egypt, the On the other side of the frivolity are Cornelia production sets up the Romans as parodied British and Sesto, Pompey’s widow and son. In the trouser imperialists. While always clad in red, the Egyptians role, mezzo-soprano Alice Coote stunned with a go through multiple costume changes: trying on beautifully lush voice. But McVicar did not give the stereotypical Indian, Moroccan, and pair much to work with in the way of dance Middle Eastern ensembles. The routines or stylish backdrops. Egyptians are inhabitants of con- These motionless scenes of dragging quered foreign lands, where none sob songs were effective foils to McVicar’s is distinguished in their exoti- bells and whistles. Contemporary audi- cisms to the dense imperialists. ences have short attention spans, and This divide persists through the the incessant stimulation they crave end, when Caesar and Cleopatra is not native to the Handel opera. emerge triumphantly in 18th- With this unstable sea of physical century finery—in a production of comedy, absurdity, and parody, absurdities you may as well throw McVicar reinvigorated the form. the soprano into a full-skirted, gold- Already a technically marvelous lined gown. opera, with his direction and a That soprano was the remark- solid cast, Giulio Cesare became able Natalie Dessay. She clearly a dazzling experience.w

36 Illustration by Katharine Lin The Blue and White sub-culture! Reminds Me of Teen Spirit

Meat Puppets’ fourteenth album Rat Farm rocks exactly like you thought it would By Torsten Odland Rat Farm music (e.g. “Sometimes Blues,” the chorus of “Rat by Meat Puppets Farm”). Curt Kirkwood’s vocals became more and The Royal Potato Family more bland with Meat Puppets’ major-label releases iTunes, $9.99 in the mid-nineties, and the onset of “old man” tim- bre hasn’t made his delivery much more interesting. ejoice, ye disaffected. Seminal alt-rockers Meat The singing on Rat Farm fluctuates between unaf- RPuppets have released a new album of guitar fected neutrality and annoying urgency. Except for music, perfect for college students and dads. In con- “Waiting,” the one track on which Curt’s resigned sidering Rat Farm, I need to maintain a distance of vocals fit the tone of the song perfectly, Rat Farm is “critical irony,”—I repulse myself—because over the resolutely a guitar album. Listened to on those terms, last year I’ve become acutely aware that I’m exactly it’s a pretty good one, but “holistically”: the album’s the kind of person who likes alternative rock. And boring. Rat Farm (Meat Puppets’ four- The record is full of jan- teenth) is unshakably an alterna- gly and chunky riffs; sighing, tive rock album. distorted choruses; creative song Not that it is not alternative structures; bizarre and badass in the way the term is used today tones; and solos of every variety. (which has no real meaning). I On “One More Drop,” Rat Farm’s can’t think of a contemporary homage to hair metal, Chris’s roil- rocker who isn’t an “alternative” ing, bluesy interjections are per- rocker if they aren’t earnestly neu- fect enough to come off as parody, rotic or self-aware enough to be but blown out enough that the called “indie,” or not religious solo seems only to add thickness enough to be called “metal.” Rat to the atmosphere. “You Don’t Farm is alternative in the sense Know” has a muted, croaking, that, musically, it plays like a relic jangly tone in the verse that melts of the early nineties, except all into a calm wave in the chorus. My the bored kids have become tired favorite track has to be “Down”—a and folksy. In this sense, alternative rock is my per- song whose core is a mournful country with some sonal undoing—an aesthetic sweet spot, an honest psychedelic touches, rounded out by an honest-to- older brother, pulling me in for a long, forgiving god spiritual guitar solo right in the middle. The hug: “Come here, you little weirdo.” Alternative section sounds like a voice trying to console itself. rock bands like Dinosaur Jr. and Meat Puppets have Rat Farm is not a historic guitar album by any convinced me that there’s something horrible and means. But it is surprising, funny, and sometimes beautiful about the way I feel, who I am—a feeling that amazingly emotive. If you’re someone who believes in is only expressible through electric guitar. Though the fundamental rapport between overdriven guitar less angsty, Rat Farm has a few moments that spark and the human soul, there’s much on Rat Farm that’s my sense of vague but indefatigable longing. worth listening to. But the album certainly has its weaknesses. Despite it’s overall blandness, Rat Farm was Some songs are just duds (“Original One,” “River satisfying, but only in that it touched on a few of my Rose”). Also, it’s distinctly frontloaded melody-wise. favorite alt rock motifs. It’s not something I see myself The Byrds-y folk element that guides the structure of coming back to: there are plenty of albums that do the most songs is sometimes a recipe for stupidly simple same thing better. But “Down” is a keeper.w

May 2013 Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili 37 off-campus characters Ante Uptown Horsing around at Empire City By Luca Marzorati f you’re ever feeling lucky, take the 1 train all the adjacent to the casino, as the sun sets. The breeze Iway north. Get off at Van Cortlandt Park. Make whips around the half-mile oval, and crowds of old sure your wallet is rife with crisp bills, peel off a few, men huddle under the heat lamps near the betting and catch a ride to Empire City, a massive casino com- windows. Before we even place a bet, we are asked to plex just north of the city line in Yonkers. prove our age. We do, and though 18 is New York’s Tonight, on the train ride up, my friend and betting age, we seem to be the only gamblers under I meet a man with a hat that reads “DANGER: 50. THIS VET IS PROTECTED FROM YOUR Both Yonkers Raceway and Empire City seem MEDICATION”; unperturbed by the train’s impend- neutered: this isn’t Churchill Downs or Vegas. Not ing reversal south, he stays in his seat. Below the to say that it isn’t free-market; it just isn’t as fun. For station is not a park, but the dirty intersection of instance, the track features harness racing, where a 242nd Street and Broadway. Cars idle aimlessly and jockey trails his horse on a two-wheeled cart called Manhattan College students loaf around, ducking a sulky. Harness racing is slower (and considerably into bodegas for beer, cigarettes, or whatever else duller) than thoroughbred racing, where jockeys Manhattan College students buy at 7 p.m. on a directly mount their horses. The unwieldiness of Friday night. the carriages makes starting position, not speed, We look to hire a car. A cabbie standing under paramount. the subway tracks offers to take us for $15. We Out in the cold, at least, the action is live. I decline, and walk up the block, searching for cigars. check my program and go with Speed Bomb, a fast As we emerge empty-handed from the corner store, starter with 9­­-to-2 odds, in the fifth race. Speed a car in the middle of an intersection honks—it’s Bomb never loses the lead, coasting to a victory. I our recently-rejected cabbie. We pile in the back prance to the betting booth, hoping for some admi- seat, unsure if our initial rejection brought our fare ration from the sour-looking old man behind the down. Our driver, built like a boar, burps frequently, and asks us if we are going to the “cassss- ino,” stretching the “s” for no apparent reason. We tell him we’re starting with the horses. A slick- ster in the passen- ger seat with a bil- lowing cream shirt and dark sunglasses says nothing for the entire ride. His rela- tion to the cabbie is unclear. We arrive at Yonkers Raceway,

38 Illustration by Leila Mgaloblishvili The Blue and White off-campus characters counter. The floor is dominated by slot machines of I’m disappointed. “Race’s not official,” he various thematic merit, from the cinematic (The snaps at me. Apparently, there is a delay from when Hangover) to the cartoonish (Smash the Pig). Unlike the winning horse crosses the finish line to when the poker, a game of pain tolerance, the slots require a tellers can pay out bets, as officials scan the video player who doesn’t know, or doesn’t want to know, that of the previous race, checking for equine hijinks. the odds are against him. Sitting in rows, drowned Chastened, I linger a few minutes, then collect my out by blinking lights and repeated jangling, all the score. lucky people look like beady-eyed drones, gambling My luck turns, and I lose the next few races. mechanically, each in their own cubicle. After a while, only a few dozen other degenerates We walk upstairs, where the casino has table remain huddled together, protecting themselves from games, sans tableau. Each player gets a booth with a the gusty wind off the adjacent maze of highways, touch-screen, facing a buxom computerized dealer. counting a dwindling supply of bills with print- Every few rounds, I notice that she is replaced by a blackened hands. In the red, my friend and I bet the new digitized sex bomb. We settle in at the roulette same horse: Imperial Count, a black stallion who has table, and watch the cash we earned on the ponies finished in the money in seven of his last eight races. slide into the slot, earning us a stack of virtual chips. Walking away from the betting counter, we’re The guys next to us have their boards filled, play- approached by a large black man wearing a light ing several lucky numbers at once, along with odd, brown tracksuit. He gives black, or whatever else us his rigmarole—most they think of. Quickly, gamblers have one—that He gives us his rigmarole— my friend puts all his involves jokes about a money on red, and the train accident, a phallic most gamblers have one—that ball comes up black. He tattoo, and a plastic piece involves jokes about a train sighs, and sits down on a of shit, which he produc- nearby couch, more than es from his pocket a the accident, a phallic tattoo, and happy to see someone else punch line that we don’t a plastic piece of shit. mathematically assured understand. to lose. Imperial Count Slowly, my chip takes off at 3-to-1 odds; if he wins, we’ll enter the count accumulates. I’m taking most spins off, but casino playing with house money. The race is close, as somehow, I have a rhythm. I’ve doubled my count Imperial Count and the favorite, Calchips Brute, stay when an idea pops into my head: outside the Columbia neck-and-neck. The horses accelerate, the rumble of gates, I’d seen a cab careening up Broadway, blaring hoofs nearing the grandstand. Standing at the finish, rap, with “Magnificent Seven” written across the we see our Count stick his nose forward, crossing the side in peeling-off lettering. I put my chips on mul- line fractions of a second ahead of the Brute. Victory tiples of 7, the ball comes up 21, and my chip count is ours—and it pays $7.70 on a $2 bet. skyrockets. The space more resembles Chuck E. Cheese The oxygenated air and deliberate lack of than Monte Carlo. Inside, Empire City is a “video clocks at the casino makes it impossible to tell how lottery casino,” featuring thousands of video slot many hours remain before the 4 a.m. closing time, machines. The few table games that do exist are also but I think my luck is about to peak. I drag all my played electronically, individually. chips to red. Thinking better of it, I try to cancel, Since receiving a gaming license and opening but the shapely virtual dealer has already announced, its doors in October 2006, Empire City has installed “No more bets,” crossing her hands over her chest, as over five thousand “video gaming machines.” The if to scintillate the players into betting more, thereby casino gives about half of its net winnings to the New impressing her. I know that my fate is sealed. The ball York state education fund. In the last fiscal year, this flirts with red, skips a few pockets, and ends up black. sum topped $275 million. The casino’s latest reports Tired and broke, I stumble into a cab, and start the indicated that the average gambler loses at an 8 per- long journey home.w cent rate.

May 2013 39 The conversation Varsity Star Goes Pro A conversation with Greta Gerwig By Anna Bahr In her Senior Wisdom, Gerwig, BC ’06, offered this piece of hard-learned advice: “I’m a douche- bag if I say I go to Columbia.” Since graduating, the 2004 Varsity Show star and Tea Party improv alum has worked with some of the truly great luminaries of contemporary film, from Woody Allen to Whit Stillman. She was described by The New York Times film critic, A.O. Scott, as “the defini- tive screen actress of her generation.” Gerwig is charming, natural, and remarkably level-head- ed about her success. She took some time to chat with managing editor Anna Bahr about harsh critics, getting stuck with the “Hollywood’s indie darling” brand, and why Los Angeles sucks. The Blue and White: I feel like you’re at Barnard all about your life in terms of college and it stops being the time. I saw you speak at the opening of the Athena the kind of thing you invest in. It’s a nice thing to be Film Festival a couple months ago and there were able to frame your existence around something new. rumors of Frances Ha being shot here in the fall... I love Barnard and will always participate in it and support it but I’m happy to have distance from that Greta Gerwig: I shot something at Barnard in the fall part of my life. but Frances Ha was all done up at Vassar. You saw me speak? Oh my God, I was terrified. I don’t know B&W: I’m curious about how Barnard, or, why I guess I don’t usually speak in front more specifically, going to a women’s col- rooms like that. lege, has informed how you choose your roles. B&W: What is it like coming back? GG: I loved going to a women’s col- GG: I loved Barnard. I loved lege. I went to an all-girls high going to school there. It school too, so I’m all about lady- changed my life, which sounds schools. On one hand, actors do like I’m overstating it, but I’m make choices based on their not. Barnard College and The artistic leanings and personal Varsity show were the two attractions to roles but on other formative things in my life. hand I have to work to make V-Show especially in terms money. And I get where I get. of the people I met and that So, if I were to design a career uniquely collaborative spirit that were to reflect my feel- that translated into what I was ings about women, I might not doing later. I thought they were necessarily have [worked on all the funniest coolest people ever of the films] I have done. But I do and I wasn’t as funny or as cool as try to do films that portray women they were. I was an okay singer and an okay a s dynamic humans, not just vipers. And I dancer and was okay at being funny and cool. would like think that has more to do with having gone to college in a metropolitan area and thinking B&W: Do you ever miss it? And by it, I mean being about these things just as a person than from hav- back in school? ing attended a women’s college. What comes from Barnard is that I feel an obligation to write and create GG: Two years out of college, yes, I missed it. But not my own work, to develop my own voices and stories, now. There is definitely a time when you stop talking and not just speak words written by someone else. All

40 The Blue and White the conversation

the pressure I feel to consciousness. You’re not acting in a bubble. be the author not the mouthpiece—that’s B&W: I would imagine that criticism is far more Barnard. affecting when it’s for a piece that personal. How do you steel yourself for something like that? B&W: It’s inter- esting you say that GG: Having written it, you care a fuck of a lot more. because you wrote It’s like night and day. I mean, on some level you’re the screenplay your not responsible for a project you don’t write and most recent film, didn’t direct. It’s someone else’s work. But when Frances Ha. It must you write it, it’s your blood and marrow on the page. be an impossible When people try and give me suggestions [on charac- challenge to transfer a person you created, whose ters] and are like, “What about this thing?” I’m like, brain you know so intimately, to a character onscreen “Don’t talk about my people like that. I wrote that.” whose entire life story you have to show to people who I’ve collaborated on other people’s stuff before—I’ve don’t know her in two hours...What’s different about co-written other films­—but those films never felt performing a character you wrote? as much a part of me. This project was the best I could possibly do. This is my best material. This is GG: Well, I wrote it with not an experiment. I gave Noah [Baumbach]. People it absolutely everything. think I only wrote it. I “In New York, everything This film took so fucking wrote a bunch of charac- long to shoot, so fucking ters too. I didn’t just write is possible. In Los Angeles, long to write. If you don’t it for myself. I had to not nothing is possible.” like it, I don’t have any- think about playing it in thing better. order to write it. It’s ter- rifying to constantly have your own inadequacies as B&W: In that same vein of ownership over your an actor at the forefront of your mind while writing work, it must be strange to be associated with move- because then you won’t write anything because you’re ments that you are not directly just thinking of the ways you’ll mess it up. So I was the creator of. One day you’re just trying to write characters that are true and inter- associated with mumblecore esting and trying to tell a story and then deal with the and then it’s New Sincerity acting later. and then you’re called, like, “Hollywood’s indie darling.” GG: It is hard. It is difficult. You know, stand up Do those associations change comedians write their own material all the time and your self-perception and the can get heckled and can be funny about it, but com- choices you make in roles? edy is built into what you’re doing. What I’m doing is not always meant to be funny. The big thing that GG: Not at all. It always hap- helped was the other actors. Casting other people pens after the fact. You make you think are right. Because I’m a big believer in that what you’re making and you you find your performances through the people you make the best possible choice work with. You need them. That’s your only access to based both on your artistic the laws of the scene—it’s through the other person. leanings and your economic You don’t build a character that’s separate from the reality and later people say, people you’re doing it with. You build on your own “Oh you’re part of this thing [character] and then bring yourself to the scene in or this thing,” but there’s no the most open way possible. [The film] ignites when way to anticipate the analysis you start acting with the other person. That made it a of what you’re doing. I think lot easier because you have this amazing lack of self- when you start learning about

May 2013 Illustrations by Jiyoon Han 41 The conversation

[it]—that’s when actors can start going a little crazy. And you can see it in their work. They start trying to anticipate a reaction or game the system or feel out what will be their position in the history of what film is. Once you start down that road you’re sunk. Because it’s something other than the thing that you’re doing, that you care about

B&W: And yet, as you say, there are economic reali- ties as an independent film actor. I would imagine ate to play the part and was so glad I got it. One of it’s difficult to just roll with your aesthetic or artistic the things I learned from her is that people wear ideals. their cities in their bodies and on their faces. Her particular isolation and depression and vulnerability GG: It’s definitely possible if you live differently than has to do with the way Los Angeles makes its citizens I do. I don’t live extravagantly. But I want to have a transport themselves. They are all so separate. If gym membership. I like to go to the theater. I like you put that same character in New York she would to go out for drinks. You can make whatever you have been a different person. She would have carried want if you want to live on a bare minimum. But I herself differently. She might have still been depres- make choices also based on what I want in the world. sive, but she wouldn’t hunch in the same way or speak Which includes drinks. But yeah sometimes you just softly in the same way. When we were shooting in need a job. You have to work LA I went there early and I a certain number of days on spent time there working as a a union shoot to get your “I’m always looking for personal assistant for people health insurance. and I experienced the feeling that vaguely Upper West and melancholy of LA—and B&W: I wanted to ask you Side therapied life.” the unexpected beauty. By about Greenberg. I’m from the time we were shooting I Los Angeles and, as unre- felt like I understood it for alistic as I found Ben Stiller’s walking the vast- my performance. ness of the whole city, I loved that the film showed Los Angeles without those mandatory shots of the B&W: You’ve talked a lot about how special it was to Hollywood sign. For me, work with Woody Allen on To Rome with Love and one of the great moments in your fandom for his films. If there’s one thing he’s that film is when Florence famous for it’s capturing that specific ‘70s New York [played by Gerwig] is talk- intellectual art-scene aesthetic. How did your reality ing to the people in the car of the city match up to his? behind her to let her into their lane. I have definite- GG: I love New York. Films were a huge part of ly had days in LA where I wanting to live in New York City. Particularly have only spoken to people [Allen’s] movies. Woody Allen makes movies about in different cars than me. Woody Allen. It’s not as if my reality matches up to That’s a special kind of Manhattan. But I do think I have thought out and lonely. have nourished the ‘70s New York he’s depicting in terms of choosing a variety of friends and artists and GG: I love that movie so going to museums and dinner and the theater and much. It was a huge thing being critical and funny and bright and engaged. And for me to get that movie. walking everywhere. That feeling you have of living It changed my life. I loved in the world around people who make you excited— the character of Florence that’s always what I’m attracted to in his films and so much and I was desper- that’s what I’m attracted to in life. I’ve found it it helps

42 The Blue and White the conversation that I went to school here—you don’t have to be alone GG: Right. It’s more disparate... It’s hard to feel like when you first get here. There’s a sense of commu- there’s anything you belong to in LA. I never feel suc- nity. I’m always looking for that vaguely Upper West cessful there. In New York, everything is possible. Side therapied life. In Los Angeles, nothing is possible. I remember my favorite moment was taking the red line to Times B&W: And? Are you getting closer? Square and then transferring between the 1/9—it’s just the 1 now—to the 2/3. Everyone was walking GG: I live downtown. So not there yet. But I do know together and you just feel like you’re the center of a lot of people on the Upper West Side. Definitely everything. getting closer. B&W: It’s amazing to watch B&W: You mentioned feel- the types of people shift ing a distinct sense of com- between lines and cars. That munity when you came to synchronized chaos is so school. I feel like Columbia awesome. can often be a really diffi- cult place to find communi- GG: Yeah totally. It was ty. No shared space, lots of great. Getting to know the distant groups of people... city that way grounded me. Did you feel comfortable After that I had a better base here right off the bat? to get involved sophomore year with Varsity Show and I GG: Not really. Not until found my people. I was writ- my sophomore year. After ing plays. I found a different freshman year I got a nanny- group of girlfriends. I still ing job and I stayed over the see the Varsity Show people summer. That was hugely all the time. important. It changed everything. Freshman year B&W: I would be amiss if I had a good time but I was I didn’t finish the interview scared I didn’t know as much as everyone else—that by repeating the most important question in Bwog’s I wasn’t as smart as everyone else. I think everyone Senior Wisdom list. In 2006, you were asked if you feels that way. I had friends, but I didn’t find my would rather give up oral sex or cheese. You said groove totally. I would leave campus, but I didn’t see cheese. Now that you’re a little older and a little and the city as much as I wanted to. So that summer I wiser, are you sticking to your guns or do you want to lived in a living room for $400 a month and worked change your answer? as a nanny where my hours were 10-6 and the rest of my time was free. And I walked the shit out of the GG: Do you guys still ask that? Jesus. Uh. [laughs] I city. I had friends on the Lower East Side and I would don’t know. I think I probably chose that the first time walk the length of [the East Side] constantly. And in because I thought it was sexy. But there is no sexy the summer there’s so much free shit. Like music in answer to that question. I don’t know what my answer Bryant Park—all this great stuff. Though I was lonely, is now, but at least I know I feel comfortable enough I was connected to what the city had to offer. I was a to not have to answer just based on what’s sexy. part of the organism of the city. And by the end of it I thought, “I’ll never be lonely again.” B&W: That’s the pinnacle of maturity.

B&W: Yeah, every part of the structure of LA makes GG: I feel so proud.w that feeling impossible. There is no cohesive organ- ism. This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

May 2013 Illustrations by Jiyoon Han 43 quantification

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Unofficially, what you will read is my exit strategy for her point about umc kids does not make sense bc kids those transient conversations when I am accosted by who cannot clean is not necessarily bad the recurring question, ‘how’s the job search going?’ e – asked by the ones I try so hard not to punch. What I I’m from Jersey write is not for them. It’s for the unemployed, insane, I say whats up bro and the free. I write for the thirty-year-old infants of How ya doin’ the new American Dream. Barf. My names Frankie bones e This book is personal residue. The pages are hope- I love theta fully saturated with more humanity than horror, And DG bound by the ridiculous day-to-day hustle and the And all the other girls runoff of sloppy nonsense. The writing is my linger- In SDT ing foul in the wake of what I find fancy. I mean to be a consoling palm on your wrist and warm by twisting, Started as a pledge leaving the friendliest of Indian burns. Now we’re here e Started as a pledge if ehrenreichs soln comes to light, the maid industry Now my KDR crew is here (strum 4x) will die, and the very people ehrenreich was trying to defend will lead even worser lives. as she said herself, When I got to school maids have no choice but to work as a maid, they I was like OH MY GOD would not have “chosen the work for themselves,” so Then I read the core and was like……. Hooolyyyy they would have nowhere to work and support their Shittt this is harddddd!!! family. But I killed my hard work and beat adversity e So vote for me as Mr. Fraternity Knowledge: Montaigne knows everything from hear- e ing it from someone else who heard it from yet I simmer to a scummy boil another removed source. Everyone has a limited at 58 % idiot knowledge and one cannot know everything all time. & he’s good to me All perspectives are limited and everyone takes in at least different things from seeing a situation. 100% of the time. e I huff the fermenting dinner from 11 last eve pillow soaked in is now a mouth-muscle lick residual musk to of sandpaper- savor his plump ass.w a breath of fresh hooker

46 The Blue and White Campus Gossip PLEDGERISM During Macklemore’s performance, a girl peed at A recent episode of Law and Order: SVU, “Girl the very top of Low Steps. Literally pulled her shorts Dishonored,” involved a fraternity forcing their down and pissed. There was urine everywhere, even pledges to “poonspeed,” i.e., “eat pussy while wear- on her Delta Gamma fanny pack. ing a swimming cap and goggles”—an act lifted e directly from Pike’s leaked scavenger hunt. TIME TO FACE THE MUSIC e A senior in Columbia College was called into a judi- HORRIBLE BOSSES cial hearing for illegal downloading, and replied: When the publisher of the Spectator and former “Although I am free to meet on May 3rd, I request president of Sigma Nu disapproved of Andrea García- that the meeting be canceled and issue dismissed Vargas’s sex column for Spectrum, “C.U. in Bed,” he by all. As I move closer to graduation and am pre- posed as an alumnus and wrote nasty comments on maturely hounded for alum donations, it seems that her articles. such formality over a small matter could only sour my e memory and gratuity.” The Office of Judicial affairs THANK GOD FOR SPARKNOTES, RIGHT? representative replied that he looked forward to At a recent public appearance, Gary Shteyngart, meeting on May 3rd. novelist and School of the Arts professor, talked e about reading, and how boring it is. “I know lots of LANDED GENTRY English professors,” he explained, “and many of them Cleo Abram, CC ’15 and member of St. Anthony’s tell me they are finding it hard to finish a 300 page Hall, overheard in the Hungarian Pastry Shop, said, novel.” Let us hope that Mr. Shteyngart refers only to “My sister decided not to go to law school and be a English professors at other universities. farmer. But she’s really conflicted about using her e inheritance to start a big farm in Vermont.” SECRET SERVICE e Two senior boys have been going to St. A’s parties TRADING DOWN for the last year with a handful of business cards. Not At the end of a reading from her new book The Magic that that’s unusual. What is unusual is that the cards Circle, professor Jenny Davidson was looking for a include neither name nor contact information, but bar to retire to. A grad student suggested 1020, but only an Illuminati pyramid alongside a Latin phrase. she said it was too “sordid.” They went to Lion’s Head The pair finds the “douchiest looking poseurs” and instead. sneak the cards onto their person—in cigarette packs, e back pockets, purses, etc.—in hopes that the poseurs “TOASTER” OR “RISE?” will think they’ve succeeded at being tapped for a Walking home from 1020, one student came across secret society. a homeless man sleeping face down on a sewer grate. e “This is too perfect,” she whispered to herself, ILL BEATS Instagramming the moment. Before his performance at Bacchanal, Macklemore e was throwing up in the green room. He was just sick. 1020... it’s sordid!w

May 2013 47 Eatin’ Good In the Neighborhood

48 The Blue and White