SUMMER 2016 COLUMBIA MAGAZINE

COLUMBIAMAGAZINE

Meet the Girl with SUMMER 2016 the NUP214-ABL1 Gene How Columbia physicians found the cause of Myrrah Shapoo’s cancer, deep in her DNA

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Th is Is Your Magazine

elcome to the summer issue of Columbia Magazine, a publication that showcases the intellectual rigor, creative spirit, and global infl uence of the alumni, faculty, and students who make up the Columbia University community. The one publication that reaches more than 320,000 alumni Wworldwide, this magazine has a single, simple mission: to serve its readers. We create content with your interests and needs in mind. Accordingly, you’ll notice a few changes in the following pages, all of them informed by feedback from thoughtful readers. You asked for more features on alumni, so we created Network, a section where you can catch up not only with Columbians in the news but also those fl ying under the radar. (If you would like to suggest an alum for inclusion, please contact us at [email protected].) At Columbia Magazine we also recognize that our readers are lifelong learners. You told us that you enjoy hearing about the cutting-edge research and groundbreaking studies under- way across Columbia’s schools and institutes, so we expanded the Explorations section. And because this University has the capability and commitment to take on complex, global questions, we have added The Big Idea. This Q&A asks key researchers to give us greater insight into those questions. In this issue we interview David Rosner, a professor of history and the codirector of the Center for History and Ethics of Public Health, about the national implications of the Flint water crisis. Along with these and other tweaks, we are also debuting a refreshed design. Our art director, Jeff rey Saks, sought to preserve the integrity of the original magazine but modifi ed its templates to accommodate a wider range of both long- and short-form features and multiple strong images. You may notice that we have also improved the quality of our paper and made greater investments in photography and illustration. We hope you like the changes, and we welcome your feedback. Indeed, our goal is to build a community of readers who will actively engage with the editors and help shape future issues of the magazine, both in print and digital form. (Don’t forget to download your free app on the App Store or Google Play.) If you have thoughts on this issue, suggestions for future stories, or comments on particular features, please e-mail us at [email protected] or send a letter to Columbia Magazine, 622 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10025. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.

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PAGE 32 CONTENTS

FEATURES 12 MEET THE GIRL WITH GENE NUP214-ABL1 By David J. Craig When Myrrah Shapoo arrived at Columbia University Medical Center last year with a form of cancer that wouldn’t respond to chemotherapy, a team of physicians and scientists working on a new precision-medicine initiative faced their ultimate test

22 THE REVENGE OF JENJI KOHAN By Paul Hond Smart. Funny. Obsessive. Subversive. How the creator of the hit TV shows Weeds and Orange Is the New Black smoked the doubters and got the last laugh

28 DIAMOND DAY By Eric Kester ’15SOA NCAA Ivy League baseball champs past and present meet on their home turf

32 UNDER THE RAINBOW By Bill Retherford ’14JRN Today, there are thousands of LGBTQ groups on college campuses around the world. In 1966, there was only one

40 THE BIG IDEA By Claudia Dreifus A Q&A with historian and public- health expert David Rosner about

BRIAN STAUFFER the water crisis in Flint, Michigan

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 1

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3 Executive Vice President, University Development & Alumni Relations LETTERS Amelia Alverson

Interim Deputy Vice President, 6 Marketing and Communications COLLEGE WALK Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS Political Futures \ The Short List \ Regarding Henry \ Class Ceilings \ Old Friends Editor in Chief Sally Lee

44 Art Director Jeffrey Saks EXPLORATIONS Big guys, tender hearts \ Now you see Earth, Managing Editor Rebecca Shapiro now you don’t \ The great salt debate that wasn’t \ Gene-editing technology could treat PAGE Senior Editor 22 blindness \ All work . . . and some play \ David J. Craig Behind the scenes at Hadrian’s Villa \ To create Associate Editor a memory, fresh cells required \ Study Hall Paul Hond Copy Chief Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN 50 BULLETIN Assistant to the Editor Lauren Savage Columbia launches new Center for Climate and Life \ Holland Greene joins Trustees \ Editorial Assistants DeFries, Sachs named University Professors Marley Marius, Sophia Wetzig \ Lee C. Bollinger’s term extended \ Remembering Bill Campbell Director of Digital Strategy Gwynne Gauntlett

54 Director for Marketing Research Linda Ury Greenberg NETWORK PAGE Miami Voice \ Pulitzer Pride \ Stay Local, 10 Director for Strategic Marketing and Communications Eat Local \ The Producer \ Ask an Alum \ Tracy Quinn ’14SPS Campaign Cognoscenti \ Newsmakers Write to us [email protected] 58 Address and Archive Assistance BOOKS [email protected] 212-851-4155 62 To update your address online, visit BOOKTALK alumni.columbia.edu/directory, Matt Gallagher ’13SOA discusses his novel or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586). Youngblood Advertising: FROM TOP: CONOR LANGTON; JEFFREY SAKS; ATTILA LOSONCZY 212-851-4155 [email protected] 63 CLASSIFIEDS To download our advertising brochure or PAGE submit a classifi ed advertisement online, 49 visit www.magazine.columbia.edu/advertise. 64 la agane is published for FINALS alumni and friends of Columbia by the For Bard Brains Only Offi ce of Alumni and Development.

© 2016 by the Trustees of Columbia University FOLLOW US in the City of New York

/ColumbiaMag @columbiamag COVER PHOTOGRAPH: WINNIE AU

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SPIRIT OF ’68 Thanks to readers who responded to my call for memories of the 1968 campus RITES AND LIGHTS lized or even reduced. Usu- published authors, the article protests. Your The research that is going ally, the discussion involves led me to question why the efforts have on at Columbia’s DeathLab increasing acreage for food course doesn’t give equal already yielded is long overdue (“Making production and shelter as the instruction in responding Light of Death,” Spring population rises. Cemeteries to opinions. ‘‘much — two 2016). I have long felt that are never discussed, but they I believe there is a real interviews lined traditional burial lacks are an important component problem with the way up, lots of phone any real meaning, though of the vicious circle in which students engage with one conversations, I appreciate memorial ser- increasing population leads another’s opinions. To see vices with photos of the life to the need for more land for what I mean, just look at and even some of the deceased. food production, cemeter- the online comments on the photographs — When I told my children ies, and housing, and so on. many opinion pieces about and represent that I thought primitives Another article, in the Explo- sexual violence published in immeasurable had better methods, such as rations section, discusses the Columbia Spectator over burying the body in the earth the looming water shortage the last two years. The stu- contributions to as is, for natural recycling, I (“Reduced snowfall could dent authors of the op-eds the Columbia ’68 got the equivalent of “Eeew!” cause water shortages for do not necessarily agree with research project. in response. 2 billion people”). It would one another, yet in sum have Paul Cronin ’14JRN What happens to my body at least be ameliorated if the provided readers with the New York, NY when I no longer need it is population were stabilized. nuances of the debate over not of great concern to me; Ivan Huber the fairness and eff ectiveness my children will decide. I am Madison, NJ of the University’s policies saving the article for them to on reporting, investigating, read! Thank you! STRONG and punishing instances of Helen Cornell Koenig REACTIONS sexual assault and sexual ’43BUS I was distressed by the violence. But the response to Bernardsville, NJ College Walk article “Strong these pieces by readers tells Opinions” (Spring 2016), another story, revealing that I was pleased to read about which reports on a recent many students do not have Columbia’s DeathLab in the panel discussion on op-eds the skills of respectful debate Spring 2016 issue. This ini- sponsored by the Undergrad- and discussion. Even more tiative highlights a frequently uate Writing Program. While distressingly, students seem ignored or minimized aspect the examples listed provide galvanized and defensive of combating global warm- compelling evidence that the to the point of being ing: namely, that the global University Writing curricu- dangerous to one another, population must be stabi- lum is eff ective in producing and even empowered by the

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presence of an anonymous forum to employ hate speech TWIST AND SHOUT and threats of violence. I thoroughly enjoyed the Spring 2016 issue, but I wish you had included more While the op-ed may still information about the twelve-minute yoga routine, completed every other day, be a viable form of profes- that seemed to give older men and women denser bones (“Yoga: It’s Good for Your sional and personal expres- Bones,” Study Hall). Would you please let me know how I may receive information sion for “students raised on about which yoga positions those were, so that I may do them myself at home? the Internet,” students des- Marilynn Talal ’63GSAS perately need instruction on New York, NY how to use the forums the Internet uniquely provides. The twelve poses in the twelve-minute yoga routine The option to provide anonymous comments severs 1. vriksasana (tree) 8. supta padangusthasana I (supine hand-to-foot I) one’s association with one’s 2. trikonasana (triangle) 3. virabhadrasana II (warrior II) 9. supta padangusthasana II opinion, and removes the 4. parsvakonasana (supine hand-to-foot II) responsibility one has — (side-angle) 10. marichyasana III in a classroom, for instance 5. parivrtta trikonasana (straight-legged twist) — to off er comments that (twisted triangle) 11. matsyendrasana are critical and productive to 6. salabhasana (locust) (bent-knee twist) advancing a discussion. 7. setu bandhasana (bridge) 12. savasana (corpse) Sarah Dziedzic You can buy a copy of the DVD that study participants ’04CC, ’11GSAS used, which includes simplifi ed versions of the poses, at Brooklyn, NY sciatica.org. Columbia physician Loren Fishman, who led the study, strongly recommends that osteoporosis suff erers DIFFERING consult their doctor or a yoga therapist or instructor before ACCOUNTS attempting the poses. — Ed. I was involved in organizing a major discussion of white-collar crimes with (“In cooking their books, SELECTIVE perimeter checkpoint, University of Virginia law corporate accountants like a SIDEBAR ignored the instructions professor Brandon Garrett good recipe”) doesn’t make Columbia Magazine usually of offi cers, and sped off , ’01LAW, author of Too Big to sense: on the one hand provides refreshingly diverse crashing into other cars. Jail, at Lille University law you write that accounting and well-informed articles. Police were called to Meagan faculty last May. Your article professor Shivaram The sidebar accompanying Hockaday’s home because of in the Explorations section Rajgopal and his coauthors the interview with Kimberlé a domestic-violence dispute, of the Spring 2016 issue cannot prove corporate Crenshaw (“Cause and and she approached them intent to cook the books; Eff ect,” Spring 2016) was with a knife. Mya Hall was on the other, you write disappointing at best and driving a stolen SUV near the that his analysis reveals dangerous at worst. The gates of the National Security fi nancial fraud and copycat “stories of police brutality Agency. These are not details fraudsters. against Black women” were to be omitted casually. QUESTIONS? Robert Kulp ’59GS not stories at all — they were Could the police have done Mouvaux, France cherry-picked single facts better in these situations? COMMENTS? from events that made police Perhaps. Are these stories of WE WELCOME THEM ALL! Shivaram Rajgopal offi cers look like random unprovoked brutality? Defi - responds: Proving scienter, murderers. Using selectively nitely not. Crenshaw’s E-MAIL US AT: [email protected] or the intent to deceive, is chosen facts to incite anger interview draws attention hard unless one has sub- at the police is deadly for to very important issues that OR WRITE TO US: poena power. All we can do them and for all those they need to be explored, but SHUTTERSTOCK / KLETR Columbia Magazine Columbia Alumni Center is to document suspicious protect, black and white, sadly they were undermined 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521 empirical patterns that are male and female. by tabloid-style slant. New York, NY 10025 consistent with “contagion” For example, Miriam Carey Amy Tschudin ’00BUS Letters may be edited for brevity or clarity. in cooking the books. drove to a White House Chevy Chase, MD

4 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Letters_FINAL.V2.indd 4 5/11/16 3:10 PM See the possibilities Download the Columbia Magazine app.

/ColumbiaMag @columbiamag magazine.columbia.edu

CU_PAGE5_AD.indd 1 5/11/16 11:23 AM slightly for the presi- dent.”) COLLEGE For Rothschild, a fellow at Columbia’s Applied Statistics WALK Center, where he and his colleagues research innovative NOTES methods of data col- FROM 116TH lection and analysis, STREET AND polls are just raw data waiting to be BEYOND analyzed — and not the best data, at that. Prediction markets are better. “A poll is a single data point that is an attempt to gather the current intentions and sen- timent of the voting population,” he explains. “Prediction markets are trying to determine what will happen when the event occurs. And what you fi nd is that they are quite accurate.” Prediction mar- kets, sometimes known as informa- tion markets, allow people to bet on the outcome of future POLITICAL FUTURES events. Speculators Who’s going to win the presidential election? will make money if they predict correctly — and f the election were held casting public opinion, lose money if they’re wrong. “ today, who would you vote who correctly predicted the At the website PredictIt, for?” That’s a question outcome of the 2012 presi- for example, a politically pollsters typically pose to dential election in forty-nine focused prediction market Igenerate the statistics that of fi fty states — and that that Rothschild closely mon- pundits ponder and citizens was in February, long before itors, you can buy and sell avidly watch. But to the Republican candidate “ contracts” that will be predict yes CATHY HULL C/O THEISPOT.COM an election, there’s a better was known. (The exception worth one dollar if Hillary question: “Who do you think was Florida, which he had Clinton wins the presiden- is going to win?” “slightly leaning toward the tial election and worth noth- So says economist David generic Republican nom- ing if she loses; or you can Rothschild, an expert on inee, whoever that might buy and sell “no contracts” understanding and fore- be,” he recalls, “and it went that will be worth one dollar

6 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

2.16_CollegeWalk_FINAL.indd 6 5/11/16 2:01 PM if Clinton loses and nothing it.” But those Clinton and if she wins. (Such con- Trump contracts will hit tracts are also available for their true value once and THE SHORT LIST other candidates, elections, for all on Election Day, in and questions — e.g., will November. “A commodities Watch Talks@Columbia Puerto Rico go bankrupt futures market is the exact in 2016? will the next UN same thing,” says Rothschild, Thanks to this series, lifelong learners secretary-general be a “a very equivalent structure.” can access online lectures by some of woman? — that will have a Although prediction- Columbia’s most distinguished faculty and clear yes-or-no answer by market participants are researchers. The second season tackles a certain date.) The market self-selecting and surely not climate change, bioethics, and genetics. price of the contracts at any representative of the popula- sps.columbia.edu/talks given time refl ects traders’ tion at large, as a poll tries to views on the probability of be, that’s OK, explains Roth- Join Alumni in Antarctica schild, because they tend to the outcome: the price of a Glaciers and icebergs and penguins . . . vacuum up every scrap of one-dollar yes-Clinton oh, my! Tap into your inner explorer and information that’s out there, contract will be eighty embark on a voyage to the southern and they really want to be cents when traders believe continent. The Alumni Travel Study right. “Markets ultimately there’s about an 80 percent Program is now taking reservations for have one key advantage,” he chance that she will be the the January 21–February 3, 2017, trip. president. Similarly, if you says, “which is incentivizing alumni.columbia.edu/research-learn/travel-study-trips had bought a yes contract people to come and provide for Donald Trump back in information at two in the February, you could have morning if the information Subscribe to Circuit later sold it to a higher is breaking.” Get a window into the mysteries of the bidder as the yes probability If one prediction market mind and brain. This newsletter from rose, or you could have held is useful, how about three Columbia’s Zuckerman Institute labs will on to it in hopes of getting prediction markets — plus a keep you up to date on the latest neuroscience research. Prediction markets, sometimes known as zuckermaninstitute.columbia.edu/newsletter information markets, allow people to bet Listen to Th e Low Down on the outcome of future events. Columbia alumni share their expertise and discuss hot-button issues in this that dollar in the end. The constantly updated aggre- weekly podcast. price fl uctuates with each gation of all major polls, thelowdown.alumni.columbia.edu/podcast transaction, as the market plus a roundup of the latest responds in real time to all bookmakers’ odds? These are Check Out information — economic the ingredients that Roth- and political news, public schild collects, reports, and Manhattanville: sentiment, world events, bakes into his own predic- A New York rumors — available to large tions, which he posts to his Nexus numbers of people. website, PredictWise. This new exhibit, open to “These markets move Oh, and by the way, who’s the public and available in a way that is generally going to win the presidential online, charts the history of more effi cient than stock election? the neighborhood from 1890 markets, because ultimately Said Rothschild, when to 1940, with a particular focus they have to move on a we last asked, in mid-May: on the Sheffi eld Farms dairy and the com- given day,” Rothschild notes. “There’s a 72 percent chance munity activists who played a leading role “Apple may be mispriced for it will be the Democrat.” in the campaign to make milk safer. years, and you may run out Want to bet? manhattanville.columbia.edu/sheffi eldfarms

TOP: ALES VELUSCEK / GETTY IMAGES / GETTY VELUSCEK ALES TOP: of money betting against — James S. Kunen ’70CC

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captures James in the late 1890s, in the wake of REGARDING HENRY his failed play Guy Domville and on the cusp of Colm Tóibín refl ects on a master’s voice the creative outburst that produced the towering, “diffi cult” novels of his late period. But what is James to us? What place does this most elaborate and indirect of writers hold in a time of shriveled attention spans? What can James, who was born in New York in 1843 and spent most of his life in Europe, off er to the modern reader? As the editor and public intellectual Clifton Fadiman ’25CC wrote in a 1945 essay, James’s “‘rootlessness’ furnishes him with an international viewpoint and, indeed, an international style, both far more relevant to our own time than they were to James’s” — an observation that still vibrates in 2016. For Tóibín, however, relevance is measured in more immediate ways. “If you look at the later novels, especially — The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, The Golden Bowl — there is so much buried in them,” Tóibín says. These works of human conspiracy set among cosmopolites, heiresses, and literate provincials “are so fi lled with subtlety and nuance; there’s always a battle going on between what needs to be said clearly and what needs to be suggested. These texts are very open to interpretation and yield a great deal. To that extent, the books are supremely relevant.” Tóibín points to two events that, in the late twen- tieth century, boosted the Master’s profi le: the 1990 publication of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet, a foundational text of queer theory that illumines hidden gay themes in late-nineteenth- century literature; and the James family’s decision to gradually open the author’s archive at Harvard to more scholars, making available letters from James containing erotic hints that his executors had wished to keep hidden. t’s a year for death an niversaries,” says the Irish novelist “People could now see James in a diff erent light,” Tóibín “ Colm Tóibín in a lively, vowel-elongating brogue that says. “They began to see homosexuality as being an essential perfectly serves his wit and at times seems to provoke it. part of him, and this changed the experience of reading him. “Shakespeare, James, and” — the voice purses into theat- Within the academy, James moved from being this dead Irical smallness — “our poor 1916 rebellion.” white male to this intriguing fi gure.” By James he means Henry James, the American-born, Tóibín fi rst read James in 1974, when, as a nineteen-year- Irish-descended colossus of letters who died a hundred years old at University College Dublin, he opened The Portrait of ago in London, two months before the Easter Rising across a Lady. He presumed that it was a novel of manners: Isabel the Irish Sea. It is James’s death that is foremost on Tóibín’s Archer, alive with American spontaneity and rawness, was, in mind. Tóibín, a professor in Columbia’s Department of Europe, discovering a new style that impressed her. “I thought English and Comparative Literature and the author of the that would be enough for her — that she would replace an novel Brooklyn (the fi lm version earned an Oscar nomina- almost primitive style that she had gotten in Albany with a tion this year for best picture), teaches James, published a more cultivated style that she would fi nd in Italy or, indeed, EDEL

book of essays on him, and came out with a biographical in a grand house in England,” Tóibín says. “And it was an RODRIGUEZ novel, The Master, in 2004. Told from James’s perspec- enormous shock when I discovered, halfway through the tive with heroic elegance, control, and insight, The Master book, that it wasn’t about style at all — that style was a way of

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2.16_CollegeWalk_FINAL.indd 8 5/11/16 2:02 PM concealing what was really going on in the book, which was a serious moral question about treachery.” Class Ceilings Portrait fascinated Tóibín, and he went on to consume the Women deans talk about barriers prodigious Jamesian banquet: some twenty novels, and more past and present than a hundred stories and novellas. “James’s best works are informed by the idea that there is a secret that, if known, would be explosive,” Tóibín says. “The hen Virginia Kneeland Frantz grad- secret in Portrait and the late novels is a sexual secret. James uated from the College of Physicians often takes his bearings from French farce. He’s trying to rescue and Surgeons in 1922, she was one of that form’s major theme — adultery — from its own clichés by fi ve women in a class of seventy-four ennobling it with a Puritan imagination whereby he makes sex- Wstudents. She fi nished second in that ual treachery into something enormously and spiritually dark.” class before becoming the fi rst woman to pursue But it was the later novels, in which James’s writing became a surgery internship at New York’s Presbyterian increasingly dense and oblique, that held a special attraction Hospital. Frantz went on to make important for Tóibín. discoveries about the diagnosis and treatment of Of the prose in The Golden Bowl (1904), James’s last major thyroid, breast, and pancreatic tumors, eventually novel, he says, “it’s as though the characters” — a wealthy becoming the fi rst female president of the Ameri- American fi nancier, his daughter, and their conniving spouses can Thyroid Association. — “are operating as energy being released rather than as char- A lot has changed since Frantz made her mark acters being portrayed. James is trying to deal, without being as a surgical pathologist. Now, women earn religious, with the idea of the soul or spirit as a sort of energy, 57 percent of all bachelor’s and 52 percent of all and he needs a diff erent style to register this.” doctoral degrees. Yet women are still woefully Being a Jamesian circa 1974–75 was a minor social haz- underrepresented in academic leadership roles ard in the land of that other James — James Joyce. Tóibín’s — an issue that was addressed this spring at a col- friends were divided over Henry. “Some thought that the loquium hosted by the Virginia Kneeland Frantz books mattered for their quality, their nuance, their style. Society for Women Faculty, a P&S group com- Then others thought that the mitted to the advancement of women’s careers in world of all these posh charac- science and medicine. The event, which drew a ters, who had inherited money “ JAMES IS TRYING TO largely female audience of more than 250 faculty, and were living in permanent DEAL, WITHOUT BEING administrators, and students, featured a panel states of delicacy, really needed of seven Columbia deans — all women — who to be broken up.” RELIGIOUS, WITH THE gamely tackled the subject of “Women and Lead- With the present spotlight on ership in the 21st-Century University.” wealth inequality, one might IDEA OF THE SOUL AS At Columbia, women make up 51 percent of the expect James to have slipped student body and 42 percent of the faculty overall, entirely from favor. But for A SORT OF ENERGY, but they account for just 26 percent of tenured Tóibín, James’s attention to per- AND HE NEEDS A professors. This discrepancy is even more pro- sonal economic circumstances nounced in the sciences. only enhances his currency. DIFFERENT STYLE “The sheer lack of women in the fi eld is a “James is very good about challenge,” said Mary Boyce, dean of the School of what not having money does to TO REGISTER THIS.” Engineering and Applied Science. “I don’t think it’s people,” Tóibín says. “What will as purposeful as it was years before, but this notion someone with no money do to get money?” of unconscious bias” — the idea that those in This utterance kindles an idea that Tóibín pursues with the positions of power tend to instinctively view female artist’s delight in invention: what if he team-taught a class on job candidates as less qualifi ed or capable — “is a James with an economist? barrier for women in science and engineering.” “We could work with James to show what inherited wealth The problem of bias is multilayered for minority looks like in a society where not everyone inherits; where women. “A primary challenge both as a researcher money skews relationships as much as it makes people of color and as a dean is that my legitimacy is never immensely happy. We could show James being the great illus- assumed,” said Alondra Nelson, dean of social sci- trator of this point. I’d call it ‘Trust-Fund Babies, Inherited ence, who, before joining the Columbia faculty in Wealth, and the Late Novels of Henry James.’” 2009, was the fi rst Black female professor in Yale’s — Paul Hond sociology department.

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Jeanette Takamura, dean of the School of Social Work, OLD FRIENDS shares her experience with The return of Greenberg and Garfunkel minority students who come to her for advice . “I speak about this as a person who has been the ‘only’ — the only Asian-American, the only Asian-American female — in so many diff erent contexts,” she said. “And I’ve learned through that process not to wait, not to be marginalized, but to make sure I get a seat at the table.” Then there is the case of the School of Nursing, in which women make up nearly 90 percent of the student body. “Schools of nursing often face bias as a whole because we are

predominantly women,” said TIME IT WAS: dean Bobbie Berkowitz. “Our Sanford Greenberg (left) science is at times dismissed as and Arthur Garfunkel lacking value, and our practice is often associated with labor ne day in his fresh- But in the summer of “I can’t see, sir,” he said. rather than science.” man year, Sanford 1960, just before junior year, The proctor laughed. “I’ve Still, there has been real “Sandy” Greenberg Greenberg’s fortune changed. heard some terrifi c excuses,” progress in female leadership ’62CC, ’67BUS stood He was in Buff alo, playing he said, “but that’s the best.” since Frantz retired from Oon campus by a baseball, when his vision Greenberg went back to P&S in 1962. “I think there’s grassy plot with his classmate “steamed up.” He had to lie Buff alo, where he received a consciousness now about Arthur Garfunkel ’ 65CC. down in the grass until the another diagnosis: glaucoma. getting over bias and looking “Sanford, look at that clouds went away. That winter, doctors operated for talented women,” said patch of grass. You see the The doctor said it was aller- on Greenberg’s eyes. The sur- Merit Janow ’88LAW, dean colors? The shapes? The gic conjunctivitis. gery didn’t work. Greenberg of the School of International way the blades bend?” Back at school that fall, was going blind. He was so and Public Aff airs. Greenberg was smitten. Greenberg had more episodes, depressed that he refused to Consciousness, however, Other guys talked about but he didn’t tell anyone. He see anyone from college. does not always inspire confi - girls and sports, but Arthur didn’t believe it was anything But Garfunkel came up to dence. According to research wanted to talk about — a serious. Still, his roommates Buff alo anyway. cited by Linda Fried, dean of patch of grass! — Garfunkel and Jerry Speyer “I don’t want to talk,” the Mailman School of Public Was there a luckier guy ’62CC, ’64BUS — saw that he Greenberg said. Health, senior women profes- on campus than Green- was having trouble. “Sanford,” said Garfunkel. sors often eschew positions of berg? Here he was, a poor On the fi rst morning of “You must talk.” leadership because they fear kid from Buff alo on full fi nals, Garfunkel escorted Garfunkel persuaded they are being set up to fail. scholarship at Columbia, Greenberg to University Greenberg to come back to As Amale Andraos, dean taking classes from Marga- Gym, where exams were Columbia, and off ered to be of the Graduate School of ret Mead, Leon Lederman, held. Greenberg started his reader. Architecture, Planning, and James Shenton, and Mark writing at 9 a.m. By 10:30 In September 1961, Green- Preservation, put it: “The Van Doren. And he had a he couldn’t see a thing. He berg returned to campus.

more dangerous bias is the great new pal, a brainy kid lurched to the front of the Garfunkel, Speyer, and JEFFREY

one that we internalize.” from Queens with a pure gym and handed his blue Michael Mukasey ’63CC read SAKS — Lauren Savage tenor voice. book to the proctor. textbooks to him, taking time

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2.16_CollegeWalk_FINAL.indd 10 5/11/16 2:03 PM out from their own studies, “Oops, excuse me, sir.” Soon after, Susan Goldberg, On Low Plaza, Greenberg, and Greenberg ended up Greenberg knew the voice. the editor in chief of National smiling, recalled Garfun- scoring straight As. Still, he It was Arthur. Greenberg’s Geographic, contacted him. kel reading him Our Town, was tentative about getting fi rst reaction was rage, but in She was planning an issue which, he says, was their around alone and relied on the next second he realized on blindness, and she asked “manual for living.” The play’s his friends to help him. what he had just accom- Greenberg if he and Garfunkel message is that humans, Then, one afternoon, plished — and realized, too, would re-create their Mid- caught up in daily concerns, Greenberg and Garfunkel who had made it possible. town-to-Morningside journey. fail to appreciate life’s beauty went to Midtown. When it “It was one of the most bril- The old friends agreed to and preciousness. “That’s was time for Greenberg to go liant strategies,” Greenberg do it. For one thing, a piece in all human beings are!” says back to campus, Garfunkel says. “Arthur, of course, had National Geographic would the character Emily Gibbs, a said he had an appointment been with me the whole way.” bring attention to Green- dead woman looking down and couldn’t accompany After graduation, Green- berg’s major cause. In 2012, upon the living and aston- him. Greenberg panicked. berg got his MBA from he started an initiative called ished by their folly. “Just They argued, and Garfunkel Columbia and a PhD from End Blindness by 20/20, blind people!” walked off , leaving Green- Harvard. He married his which will award three Not Greenberg. He sees berg alone in Grand Central girlfriend, Sue; was a White million dollars in gold to the everything, sings every bless- Terminal. Greenberg, bewil- House fellow in the Johnson person (or persons) who does ing, great and small: from the dered, stumbled through administration; and went on the most to achieve the goal love of his family and friends the rush-hour crowd. He to become a successful inven- by that target year. to the dew-dappled grooves of took the shuttle to Times tor and businessman. This past March, Greenberg a blade of grass. Square, transferred to the 1 Garfunkel went on to and Garfunkel, with a camera “You are talking,” he says, train, and got out at 116th become Art Garfunkel. crew in tow, made their way “to the luckiest man in the and Broadway. At the gates, In 2014, Greenberg told the from Grand Central to Morn- world.” someone bumped into him. subway story on Charlie Rose. ingside Heights. —Paul Hond


 Bill Campbell 1940-2016

Chair Emeritus of the University Trustees, Coach, Alumnus, Friend

“If a great, diverse university could have a single beating heart, Columbia’s was most assuredly Bill Campbell. He was, above all, a friend and source of boundless joy and invaluable counsel for everyone who knew him.” Lee C. Bollinger ’71LAW President, Columbia University

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 11

2.16_CollegeWalk_FINAL.indd 11 5/11/16 2:03 PM CREDITS

GO

HERE

12 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 12 5/9/16 2:50 PM MEET THE GIRL WITH GENE NUP214-ABL1 WHEN MYRRAH SHAPOO ARRIVED AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER LAST YEAR WITH A FORM OF CANCER THAT WOULDN’T RESPOND TO CHEMOTHERAPY, A TEAM OF PHYSICIANS AND SCIENTISTS WORKING ON A NEW PRECISION-MEDICINE HERE

INITIATIVE FACED THEIR ULTIMATE TEST GO

CREDITS BY DAVID J. CRAIG PHOTOGRAPHS BY WINNIE AU

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 13

CCU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.inddU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 1133 55/9/16/9/16 22:51:51 PPMM y the time they landed at Kennedy when you’re told that your daughter has a disease that most kids recover from, International Airport on the morning you expect her to be among the fortu- nate ones.” of January 26, 2015, nine-year-old Myrrah was initially treated at New Myrrah Shapoo was already suspi- Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, which boasts a state-of-the-art cancer cious. Her father had promised her clinic, considered among the best in India. Her doctors there followed the the trip would be fun — that they same diagnostic and treatment protocols that physicians at most hospitals in the would sit in the fancy seats at the US or Europe recommend. Within hours front of the plane and watch cartoons. But her mother of determining that her white blood cells were cancerous, they sent a sample Bhad been crying as she rushed to pack their suitcases, of Myrrah’s blood to a laboratory for karyotyping, a form of genetic analysis and it seemed strange that all her aunts and uncles that involves examining a cell’s nucleus through a microscope to see if any of its had suddenly shown up at the family’s New Delhi forty-six chromosomes are missing or home to hug and kiss Myrrah goodbye. misshapen. The scientists who examined Myrrah’s blood were looking at those Now Myrrah was wondering why her father insisted X-shaped bundles of coiled-up DNA for clues. For instance, if a particular section on pushing her through the airport terminal in a of chromosome 9 was lopped off and fused onto the end of chromosome 22, wheelchair when, really, she could have walked. And it would indicate a mutation commonly why did she have to wear a silly paper mask? Finally, called the “Philadelphia chromosome.” This would suggest that Myrrah had when a distant relative greeted them outside the a subtype of leukemia that is treatable with Gleevec, one of a handful of cancer baggage claim and asked her father in hushed tones drugs that have been designed to target specifi c genetic aberrations. But there about “her condition,” Myrrah fi gured it out. was no Philadelphia chromosome and “Papa,” she said, “am I sick again?” no other hints as to what was driving Myrrah’s illness. Without a clear road map for treat- ment, her doctors did what any other In the summer of 2012, after count- bloodstream, crowding out normal white oncologists would do in the situation: less doctor’s appointments, dozens of blood cells, as well as red blood cells they prescribed a cocktail of four com- tests, and months spent watching their and platelets. This makes it impossible mon chemotherapy drugs — dexameth- six-year-old daughter suff er from unex- for the body to properly fi ght infection, asone, vincristine, daunomycin, and plained fevers, achy bones, and deep and absorb oxygen, or heal wounds. PEG-asparaginase — to be administered persistent tiredness, Sajid and Rubina Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the every day for a month through a port Shapoo got the awful diagnosis. Their most common form of cancer in chil- that would be implanted in Myrrah’s daughter Myrrah had acute lymphoblas- dren. It is also one of the most treatable; neck. The physicians at Apollo Hospital tic leukemia (ALL). nearly 90 percent of children diagnosed would subsequently give her several ALL is a cancer of the blood — specif- with the condition are cured. Myrrah’s additional chemotherapy cocktails — ically of the white blood cells. Typically parents, after getting over their initial typically administered for a month or those cells work with the immune shock, were optimistic that she would so at a time — in order to maximize system to fi ght infection and protect the survive. the chances that any cancer cells that body against disease, but in children “The doctors told us that if you had withstood one drug would be destroyed with ALL, an uncontrollable prolifer- to get cancer, this was the one with the by another. If leukemia cells migrated ation of cancerous white blood cells best prognosis,” says Sajid, who works to her spinal column or brain, where upsets the delicate constitution of the as a police offi cial in India. “And, clearly, chemotherapy drugs couldn’t penetrate

14 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 14 5/9/16 2:51 PM and her parents took turns sleeping next to her on a cot. Doctors stopped by almost every day bearing needles — small needles for delivering shots, medium-sized needles for taking blood, and impossibly long, thick needles for drawing spinal fl uid out of her back, which made her scream in pain. “We nicknamed her the Cancer Slayer because she is such a fi ghter,” says her father. “Sometimes she would ask me, ‘Why don’t other kids have to do this?’ And I would say, ‘Because only you are strong enough. Only you can take it.’” And she did take it. Little by little, she got better. By the spring of 2013, there was no more cancer detectable in her body, and doctors stopped the most powerful chemotherapy regimens. They would continue to give her relatively mild doses of chemotherapy for the next two years, just in case any traces of cancer still lingered, but Myrrah soon regained her strength and returned to school. That summer, her parents celebrated by taking her on vacation to Europe. Life was, for a few precious months, normal again. Then, in January 2015, during a rou- tine checkup, Sajid and Rubina learned that Myrrah’s cancer had returned. This time, the doctors said there was nothing more they could do. “I almost blacked out,” says Sajid. “I couldn’t see anything, CUMC and there was this loud buzzing in my PEDIATRIC head that drowned almost everything ONCOLOGY out. After a few seconds, I heard my CHIEF voice saying: ‘No, this cannot be true.’” ANDREW the blood-brain barrier, they would also a severe toll on all cells KUNG The doctors’ only suggestion was that bombard Myrrah with radiation. that divide rapidly. They the Shapoos take their daughter to the To understand the suff ering that kill those found in hair follicles, which United States — specifi cally, to New Myrrah would go through in those fi rst makes patients go bald; they attack York–Presbyterian/Columbia Univer- arduous months of treatment, it helps to the lining of the digestive tract, which sity Medical Center — where a group of know how chemotherapy works. These causes severe nausea and diarrhea; and pediatric oncologists was developing a drugs, most of which were developed they annihilate the mucous membranes, new, personalized approach to treating in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, an era of which can lead to painful sores in the cancer by conducting an extremely aggressive chemical experimentation on mouth and on the lips. Myrrah experi- detailed analysis of each patient’s DNA. human cancer patients, attack various enced all of these side eff ects and more: “We were told that Myrrah’s disease molecules in the body that are necessary the drugs made her mentally foggy and might somehow be treatable, but that for cell growth and cell division. The idea weakened her immune system so badly it would require an unusually in-depth is that since cancer cells grow and divide that she developed repeated infections; investigation to fi gure out how,” says at a maniacal pace, they are preferentially on one occasion, she nearly died of Rubina, who is a television journalist aff ected and die off before the rest of the meningitis. During this period Myrrah and documentary fi lmmaker. “This was body breaks down. But these drugs take lived at the hospital for weeks at a time, our only chance.”

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 15

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 15 5/9/16 2:51 PM Two days later, on a Friday afternoon, “By looking not only at the genes Kung envisioned a network of cli- Sajid requested a long-term leave from whose contributions to cancer are nicians and researchers working side his job and booked two tickets to New already well established for a given con- by side, seamlessly integrating infor- York. He and Myrrah left that weekend. dition, but at the countless others that mation the researchers gleaned from His wife would remain in New Delhi researchers have identifi ed as potentially whole-exome sequencing into treatment with their newborn son, Hayder, and being involved in other forms of cancer, decisions on a daily basis. He dubbed Myrrah’s twelve-year-old brother, Ruhayl. we knew we could gain an unprece- his new program Precision in Pediatric “This was the darkest hour for me,” dented level of insight into each child’s Sequencing (PIPseq). says Sajid. “I’d always been the one in disease,” says Andrew Kung, the chief When Kung launched PIPseq with the our family refusing to entertain bad of pediatric hematology, oncology, and support of Lee Goldman, the chief exec- thoughts about Myrrah’s prognosis. But stem-cell transplantation at CUMC. “If utive of CUMC, and Stephen Emerson, now I struggled to keep myself together a child didn’t respond to the standard the director of CUMC’s Herbert Irving for my wife and for my little girl.” treatment regimen, we’d have all the Comprehensive Cancer Center, he knew information we could possibly want at it would be a gamble. NEW TERRAIN our fi ngertips when considering alterna- ONCOLOGISTS Assessing the signifi - In 2014, the pediatric oncology unit at tive approaches.” PRAKASH cance of the countless SATWANI AND Columbia University Medical Center MARIA LUISA became one of the fi rst in the world SULIS to off er whole-exome sequencing to every child with cancer in its care. Whole-exome sequencing is a method of DNA profi ling that reveals the exact sequence of all thirty million nucleo- tides — adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine molecules — that constitute a person’s nineteen thousand genes. Because using this technology is expensive and time-consuming, and because it generates an overwhelm- ing amount of data, physicians rarely use whole-exome sequencing as a diagnostic tool. Typically, oncologists simply want to know whether the person has any of a handful of genetic mutations whose roles in cancer are well understood. This is accomplished with karyotyping (the method that scientists at Apollo Hospital had used) and with slightly more sensitive computer-based genetic tests that scan a person’s DNA for limited numbers of mutations that have been proven to cause cancer. Columbia’s pediatric oncologists, however, sought to look more compre- hensively across all genes, with the hope of discovering ways they might save children with forms of cancer that were deemed incurable. Working alongside data scientists, cell biologists, molec- ular pathologists, and other medical researchers, they were determined to embrace whole-exome sequencing in all its complexity.

16 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CCU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.inddU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 1166 55/9/16/9/16 22:51:51 PPMM “WE WERE TOLD THAT possible mutations scattered across a person’s bone marrow, which is where single person’s nineteen thousand genes MYRRAH’S DISEASE all blood cells are manufactured, is now was an ambitious task, usually under- devoting itself almost exclusively to pro- taken only as part of a major research MIGHT BE TREATABLE, ducing monstrously deformed cancerous project aimed at identifying genes associ- white blood cells. ated with a particular disease. In clinical By the time Myrrah Shapoo arrived at situations, whole-exome sequencing was BUT THAT IT CUMC in January 2015, her blood had a used sparingly. Health-insurance com- ghostly translucence. She was also begin- panies almost never paid for it, and few WOULD REQUIRE AN ning to feel lethargic, the fi rst sign of studies had even attempted to quantify oxygen deprivation. Without treatment, the potential clinical payoff of analyzing UNUSUALLY IN-DEPTH she likely would die within days or weeks DNA on this scale. — either from infection or from her “It was a chicken-or-egg dilemma,” INVESTIGATION TO oxygen-starved organs shutting down. says Kung. “Since no hospital had To stabilize her, a team of physi- ever made a serious attempt to show FIGURE OUT HOW. cians led by Maria Luisa Sulis ’15PH, what comprehensive sequencing could a childhood-leukemia specialist, opted achieve in the clinic if used routinely, its THIS WAS OUR to give her a cocktail of chemotherapy benefi ts were unproven.” drugs similar to the one she had received But Kung, who had been recruited to ONLY CHANCE.” during her fi rst few months of treatment Columbia from Harvard in 2012 in part in India. Based on the course that Myr- to advance the use of genomics in pedi- — Rubina Shapoo rah’s disease had taken, they could tell atric oncology, believed that his division that those drugs had done a decent job had an opportunity to help shape the of combating her cancer. future of medicine. It was only a matter “The problem seemed to have of time, he was convinced, before this occurred later, with the drug she was type of highly sophisticated genetic given at the end of her treatment, after sequencing became cheap enough, fast her cancer levels had dropped so low as enough, and easy enough to use rou- to be undetectable,” says Sulis. “Our goal tinely, not only for the diagnosis and now was to knock her cancer cells back treatment of cancer but for a wide variety down to that level and keep her alive of conditions. He saw that research on under the umbrella of its recently estab- long enough for the genetic analysts to human genetics was already having lished Institute for Genomic Medicine, help us fi gure out a more personalized profound intellectual implications, was ideally positioned to fi gure out how path to take.” causing scientists to rethink the defi ni- these new types of collaborations should Soon after Sajid and Myrrah arrived tions of many diseases. It had revealed, work. His bosses agreed, and in the fall of at Columbia, the rest of the family for example, how cancers that started 2014, Columbia University Medical Cen- joined them in the United States. They in diff erent parts of the body sometimes ter began off ering DNA sequencing and stayed with cousins in New Jersey and shared the same physiological roots and analysis to the family of every pediatric would make the long commute to the were responsive to the same medicines. cancer patient, on the understanding intensive-care unit of CUMC’s pediatric He anticipated that genetics research that CUMC would pick up the estimated cancer ward every day. When Myrrah would also have disruptive eff ects on $8,000 tab if the family’s insurance com- was strong, the family would Skype with how medical institutions are organized. pany declined to pay. relatives back home. When Myrrah felt Gone would be the days when physicians “I think that many other institutions too ill to socialize, Sajid or Rubina would operated more or less independently were waiting for genetic sequencing to read her stories from a collection of from laboratory scientists, learning about become cheaper and easier,” says Kung. Indian adventure tales or simply cuddle medical breakthroughs at annual confer- “My colleagues and I thought that with her on her tiny bed. ences and then going back to their clinics CUMC should chart the way forward, “Back in New Jersey each night, I’d to ponder the fi ndings. He envisioned a even if we had to absorb the costs.” bury myself in scientifi c papers about hospital in which physicians would be in the genetics of leukemia,” says Sajid, a constant conversation with geneticists, ELEVENTH HOUR handsome and gentle-natured man of cellular biologists, and molecular pathol- When a person with advanced leukemia forty-one. “It was important to me that ogists. Kung thought that CUMC, which has blood drawn, the fl uid that comes I try to understand what was going on was making major investments in its out is thin, watery, and pinkish. This with my daughter’s disease. Somehow genomics research and clinical programs is because the spongy tissue inside the that made the situation more tolerable.”

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 17

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 17 5/9/16 2:52 PM As Myrrah fought for her life, clini- Mansukhani and other members of leukemia in small numbers of kids who cians and scientists from several CUMC his lab began analyzing Myrrah’s genetic have rare subtypes of the disease. Now departments and research laboratories profi le three days after she was admitted. it’s becoming a very complex mathemat- joined forces to fi gure out a treatment Over the next several weeks, they would ical problem, right? Meanwhile, you’ve plan. First on the case were pathologists consult regularly with pathologists, data got a child whose family is depending at CUMC’s Laboratory of Personalized specialists, and oncologists from other on you to solve this puzzle pretty darn Genomic Medicine, a diagnostic facility CUMC labs to help them determine quickly. So you’d better have a plan that provides genetic testing for a wide which statistical correlations were most about what you’re looking for when you range of diseases. They had received a relevant. This is crucial, Mansukhani turn on your computer.” vial of Myrrah’s blood and bone-marrow says, because a team of analysts could tissue the day after she arrived at the easily spend years searching for mean- ONE GIRL’S ILLNESS, DECODED hospital and had immediately gone ingful patterns in data sets as vast as By early February 2015, a picture began to work extracting DNA from both those his team wrestles with. to emerge of what was making Myrrah’s her cancerous white blood cells and “Consider that you’re looking at disease so stubborn. The fi rst break- her healthy cells. After processing the nineteen thousand plus genes in this through occurred when Susan Hsiao, a DNA, they loaded it onto a glass slide, child, and that fi fteen or twenty genetic molecular pathologist in Mansukhani’s which they placed into a computerized aberrations have so far been defi nitely group, discovered that Myrrah’s cancer sequencing machine. The sequencer, linked to acute lymphoblastic leuke- cells carried a mutation in a gene called which painstakingly examined strands mia,” says Mansukhani. “That doesn’t NT5C2. This mutated gene does not of DNA to determine the identity of sound like an impossible puzzle to solve, cause cancer, but it can derail a patient’s all thirty million nucleotides in the right? But consider that each of those treatment by making leukemia cells protein-coding genes of each cell, then genes linked to leukemia has numerous resistant to certain chemotherapy drugs, downloaded two composite genetic mutated forms, each of which may have including 6-mercaptopurine, or 6-MP. blueprints: one representing a typical a diff erent physiological eff ect. And con- One of the fi rst chemotherapy drugs ever cancer cell in Myrrah’s bloodstream, sider that dozens of other genetic errors invented, 6-MP is often given to leu- and the other its healthy counterpart. have been hypothesized to contribute to kemia patients in the very last stage of Next, software designed by bioinforma- treatment in what is called the “mainte- ticians in the laboratory organized that nance” period of chemotherapy. Myrrah data into spreadsheets that highlighted had received it every day for nearly two the diff erences between the two. This years, from the spring of 2013 through would enable scientists to spot not only the end of 2014. mutations in Myrrah’s cancer cells but “She had variants in others genes also diff erences between the DNA in linked to cancer, too, but this one stuck Myrrah’s noncancerous cells and the out as being the most immediately DNA of an average human cell — as IN 2014, THE relevant to her care,” says Hsiao. “It represented by the fi ndings of the provided a perfect explanation for why Human Genome Project. PEDIATRIC she had relapsed.” “What comes next is a massive The mutation that Hsiao found in cross-referencing project, in which ONCOLOGY UNIT Myrrah’s NT5C2 gene was the simplest you’re searching for commonalities type of genetic aberration there is: a among the genetic mutations you fi nd AT CUMC BECAME point mutation, which is the result of a in the patient and those that have been single nucleotide being missing, inserted documented as possibly contributing to where it doesn’t belong, or swapped leukemia,” says Mahesh Mansukhani, an ONE OF THE FIRST out for another. In Myrrah’s version of associate professor of clinical pathology NT5C2, the 1,219th of its 1,683 nucleo- who, as director of the Laboratory of IN THE WORLD TO tides, which should have been a guanine Personalized Genomic Medicine, over- molecule, was a thymine molecule. sees the genetic sequencing and analysis OFFER WHOLE- Hsiao says that in the course of her done as part of PIPseq. “Your analysis analysis she will sometimes contact goes in both directions — you see if the EXOME SEQUENCING scientists who have studied a particular patient carries any mutations described gene to discuss the clinical ramifi ca- in the scientifi c literature, and you scan TO EVERY CHILD WITH tions of the variation she has found. In the literature for references to variations this case, her job was easier than usual: that the child is carrying.” CANCER IN ITS CARE. the scientist who had fi rst described

18 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 18 5/9/16 2:52 PM as a result of their interactions with other genes. And sometimes you need that level of understanding to tease out what’s happening in a particular person’s disease.” In April, Alberto Ambesi-Impiombato, a postdoctoral researcher in Ferrando’s group, made an important discovery. Using a computational technique called cluster analysis, he observed that hundreds of genes in Myrrah’s cancer cells were turning on and off in a pattern that suggested her disease shared deep similarities with the form of ALL that is caused when a part of chromosome 9 fuses onto chromosome 22, resulting in what is known as the Philadelphia chromosome. The drug Gleevec was designed specifi cally to treat that form of ALL; it works by dismantling a mutant protein produced by the Philadelphia chromosome that tells other molecules inside of a cell to continually make the cell divide. “So now the question was whether or not this patient’s disease was driven by a similar mechanism,” says Ferrando. “And if it was, perhaps Gleevec or a similar drug might be used therapeutically.” Maria Luisa Sulis, the physician overseeing Myrrah’s care and herself a former laboratory scientist, solved the fi nal piece of the puzzle. She ordered targeted DNA tests to look for a handful of genetic mutations that are known to LEUKEMIA cause malfunctions in a cell’s metabolic RESEARCHERS signaling very similar to those caused ALBERTO AMBESI- by the Philadelphia chromosome. And NT5C2’s role in chemotherapy resis- they give her IMPIOMBATO they found one: in Myrrah’s cancer cells, tance was a CUMC leukemia researcher instead? To AND ADOLFO one entire gene in chromosome 9 had named Adolfo Ferrando. Ferrando is answer this FERRANDO been folded back onto its neighbor so an expert on the genetic and molecular question, the PIPseq team turned again that their nucleotides mixed to create a basis of the disease, and in 2013, his to Ferrando, whose laboratory is among hybrid gene known as NUP214-ABL1. research team had analyzed the genes of several at CUMC that regularly provide The protein manufactured by this hybrid 140 leukemia patients who had relapsed analytic support to the pediatric oncol- gene had previously been shown to act after receiving 6-MP or a closely related ogists. Ferrando’s team, in addition to similarly to the one produced by the drug. The scientists had found that analyzing the chemical composition Philadelphia chromosome, instructing a 15 percent of the patients had mutated of DNA, can analyze the RNA and cell to incessantly divide. versions of NT5C2. proteins made by genes and determine “This was a chromosomal rearrange- “Adolfo’s team was able to confi rm that which genes are active and which are ment much smaller and more diffi cult a point mutation at that location was inactive, both in normal development to spot than the Philadelphia chromo- likely to cause problems,” says Hsiao. and in cancer. some,” says Mansukhani. “You wouldn’t Now Myrrah’s physicians knew what “Genes are not static entities,” says see this one unless you analyzed how the drug not to give her. But what should Ferrando. “They turn on and off , often DNA expresses itself as RNA.”

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 19

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 19 5/9/16 2:58 PM The fi nding was all the more remark- together experts from across the entire because there are only a few targeted able because it pointed to a specifi c treat- medical center that makes precision therapies approved for use in children. ment strategy. In 2006, the pharma- medicine work.” But the genetic analyses have guided ceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb Since the PIPseq program was treatment in other ways. On many occa- released a drug called Sprycel, which launched, in 2014, more than one hun- sions, they have indicated that a child has works very similarly to Gleevec, targeting dred pediatric cancer patients have had a particularly aggressive type of cancer the specifi c types of proteins that both their genes sequenced at CUMC. In about and needs unusually high doses of che- the Philadelphia chromosome and the two-thirds of these cases, Kung says, motherapy. In other instances, the analy- NUP214-ABL1 gene produce. Experi- Columbia researchers have discovered ses have motivated physicians to perform ments had shown that Sprycel would be something in a child’s DNA or RNA that a bone-marrow transplant earlier in the particularly eff ective in Myrrah’s case. has helped physicians decide how to treat treatment process than is typical. So now the path forward was clear: the patient. The researchers’ discoveries Conversely, the Columbia researchers’ Myrrah’s doctors would add Sprycel to have led to children receiving gene-tar- analyses have sometimes indicated that the traditional chemotherapy cocktail geting drugs like Gleevec or Sprycel MOLECULAR physicians could save she was receiving, and continue giving in just a handful of cases, Kung says, PATHOLOGISTS a child with unusually her the drug for as long as it took to wipe SUSAN HSIAO out any remaining cancer cells. AND MAHESH MANSUKHANI HOPE FOR OTHERS On a recent Wednesday morning, about twenty-fi ve Columbia physicians and medical researchers gathered in a con- ference room at CUMC to update one another on cases they were working on as part of the PIPseq program. Man- sukhani took the fl oor fi rst, presenting his team’s analyses of the DNA of several children recently admitted to the hospi- tal. He spoke in the dense, super special- ized language of genetics, using alpha- numeric code to describe the glitches in the children’s genes. “We found a muta- tion at c.884C>T, p.P295 in 104 of one thousand cells,” he said, referring to a young boy with a tumor. The physicians peppered him with questions: “Isn’t that in the same region as the famous Sonic Hedgehog mutation?” “Would we expect to fi nd a mutation there in someone with this kind of tumor?” “What does this tell us about his chances of relapse?” Andrew Kung, after presiding over a lengthy discussion of the case, summa- rized the group’s consensus: the physi- cians should start the boy on a standard chemotherapy regimen, and the analysts would continue looking for clues about what experimental drugs he might be given, should he need an alternative. After the meeting, Kung expressed

his excitement at seeing physicians and CREDITS medical researchers collaborating so

GO

intimately: “Five years ago, that wouldn’t HERE have happened. It’s our ability to bring

20 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 20 5/9/16 2:59 PM “RIGHT NOW, WE’RE low doses of chemotherapy, or without Friday nights,” she says. “He wants me a bone-marrow transplant. Physicians TRYING TO CURE to be a doctor. I might do that, too. But would prefer to scale back treatment if fi rst a chef.” possible, because all cancer treatments MYRRAH SHAPOO’S There is ultimately more than one carry risks: the toxicity of chemotherapy life at stake in the eff ort to save Myr- drugs, for instance, not only cause severe CANCER. THEN WE’LL rah. Many other children have similar short-term side eff ects but also increase genetic mutations. How many more a patient’s long-term risk of developing FIND OTHER KIDS WITH children with the NUP214-ABL1 gene other cancers; and a donor’s bone mar- are out there? It is impossible for scien- row might be rejected by the recipient’s THE SAME SUBTYPE tists to know, but studies have suggested body, or even attack it, both of which are that NUP214-ABL1 is likely to be among often fatal. OF THE DISEASE the most common mutations carried by “One of the most active areas of the 10 percent of children with ALL who leukemia research today is fi guring out AND TREAT THEM still cannot be saved through traditional how to identify patients who require chemotherapy. So identifying these less intensive treatment,” says Kung. THE SAME WAY.” children, and treating them with drugs “Just because we’re curing 90 percent best suited for their individual cases, of children with ALL doesn’t mean that — Maria Luisa Sulis could have a pronounced impact on ALL we accept the toxicities that we infl ict in survival rates. pursuit of a cure.” “The development of drugs like It is too soon to know if any children Gleevec and Sprycel was a big deal, who have participated in the PIPseq because they happen to target some of program have been cured as a result the most aggressive and deadly subtypes of having had their genes sequenced. of leukemia,” says Maria Luisa Sulis. This will take several years to establish, “Kids with the Philadelphia chromo- since cancer patients are generally con- needed to annihilate the few leukemia some had a dismal survival rate before sidered cured only after having been cells that had remained in her body. Gleevec was invented. And we need in remission for fi ve years or longer. “What we can presume is that more targeted therapies to be invented, One thing that can be said for certain, Myrrah’s immune system originally of course. But we also need to identify though, is that there are children alive had some sort of fl aw that enabled the everybody who could benefi t from the today because of this program. Among cancer to take root and proliferate,” targeted therapies we do have. And we’re them is Myrrah Shapoo. This spring, says Satwani, who has been overseeing not yet doing that as well as we could.” just fi fteen months after she and her her care since the procedure. “You do a Sulis is now working with other father fi rst arrived at the hospital, look- transplant in the hope that the donor’s members of the PIPseq team to fi ne- ing for a miracle, the family received marrow is innately stronger. So far, this tune their procedures for identifying wonderful news. There is no more seems to be the case.” children with mutations whose eff ects cancer detectable in her blood. Her The Shapoos are now living in are similar to those of the Philadelphia physicians are cautiously optimistic Morningside Heights, where Ruhayl chromosome, in hopes of diagnosing that she will stay in remission, because is attending high school and Myrrah, them more quickly. “People often talk they have examined her blood using a now ten, is being tutored at home. Her about curing cancer as if there is a magic newer, much more sensitive diagnostic parents expect the family to remain in pill we’ll fi nd that heals everybody,” test than the one used by her Indian New York City for another year or two so she says. “The reality is much messier, doctors when they initially announced that Columbia doctors can continue to slower, and more incremental. Cancer is that she was in remission three years monitor their daughter. This suits Myr- hundreds of diseases. Right now, we’re ago. Her recovery seems attributable rah fi ne. She has become close friends trying to cure Myrrah Shapoo’s cancer. both to Sprycel and to a transplant that with several other young cancer patients. Then we’ll fi nd other kids with the same CUMC oncologist Prakash Satwani And she loves American television — subtype of the disease and treat them performed last summer, when he especially the cooking shows, which the same way. This is how we’ll push the replaced Myrrah’s bone marrow with she credits with inspiring her dream of cure rate for pediatric ALL up from 90 bone marrow from her older brother, becoming a chef when she grows up. to 95 percent, and so on. And this is how Ruhayl. The transplant seems to have “Right now, I’m focused mostly on we’ll beat all cancers. We will cure them given her immune system the boost it spaghetti, which my papa lets me cook one by one.”

To learn more about precision-medicine initiatives at Columbia, visit newsroom.cumc.columbia.edu/precision-medicine.

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 21

CU_2.16_GeneTherapy.FINAL.indd 21 5/9/16 2:53 PM CREDITS GO HERE 5/11/16 3:24 PM5/11/16 3:24 PM fth fth ghting this.” rst part of Basically, I’m I’m . Basically, otsam and novelty By Paul Hond Paul By Weeds condom, and a Weeds C. Orange in the can, the Illustration by Conor by LangtonIllustration ff “Whenever told me I couldn’t anyone ce. exudesce warmth and comfort, as does o o Life wasn’t always this good. “I spent the fi Life wasn’t always From early on, Kohan clashed with naysayers. In fi In early on, Kohan clashed with naysayers. From With the latest season of With the latest ee beanbag emblazoned with an unprintable four-letter beanbag emblazoned with an unprintable four-letter word starting with the letter my life verymy frustrated, feeling patronized, and fi injustice, and it doesn’t work when you’re young,” young,” work when you’re injustice, and it doesn’t in an armchair with her feet seated tucked Kohan says, frustration turned into “But that under her. This being the whole schmear: the hit shows, the peaceful offi do something, buttons it pushed my driven by vengeance.” she grade, as a “strange, depressed, and chubby kid,” circulated an anti-censorship petition after her play was canceled when a teacher objected to a scene in which an Asian character gives someone egg foo young. building is quiet today, and Kohan is relaxed. Her and Kohan is relaxed. Her building is quiet today, private offi Kohan herself. Her hair is the vivid indigo of blue of blue hair is the vivid indigo Her Kohan herself. been teleported cat-eye have glasses could velvet. Her from a 1962 mahjong game. Objects on her desk to a fondness for thrift-shop fl attest 8 Balls, a Magic doodads: two anan lled ngng hh e

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njnj enji Kohan ’91CC is a rare bird among enji Kohan ’91CC is a rare television showrunners: blue-haired and earth mother with female, a punkish Jewish a darkly comic vision so basic to her nature of political correctnessthat the goblin

SUMMER 2016 SUMMER ee

in everything,nd the funny especially the inap-

Kohan’s company, Tilted Productions, is based in Tilted Productions, company, Kohan’s “I fi

ThTh JJ with brightly colored educational toys. This is where Black Orange Is the New central Los build- Colonial–style Angeles, in a Spanish ing of pink stucco, arched windows, and iron grillwork. it was later Playhouse, Built in 1926 as the Masque Theatre (legend has it that renamed the Hayworth studio there). father once ran a dance Rita Hayworth’s after a major Now, Kohan bought the place in 2013. feng shui triumph a clean, spare, sunny, renovation, it’s with long hall- of orderly space and calming energy, and private writing rooms, a large open kitchen ways fi playroom and dining area, and even a children’s propriate,” she says. “Maybe it’s my survival my technique.” it’s “Maybe she says. propriate,” dramedy series, is conceived, women’s-prison birthed. edited, and discussed, mapped out, written, shrinks in her presence. As a writer, she is fearless. shrinks in her presence. As a writer, going. there, and keep She will go the last laugh laugh last the Is the New Black smoked the doubters and got doubters the smoked Black New the Is creator of the hit TV shows Weeds and OrangeWeeds shows TV hit of the creator Smart. Funny. Obsessive. Subversive. How the the How Subversive. Obsessive. Smart. Funny. J

COLUMBIA 22 CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.indd 22CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.indd 22 HERE

GO

CREDITS

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CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.indd 23 5/11/16 3:24 PM CREDITS GO HERE 5/12/16 10:47 AM5/12/16 10:47 AM awed, awed, The Carol awed people,” she says. she says. people,” awed uential people. “She’s turned criminals turned criminals people. “She’s uential PARENTAL VOICE VOICE PARENTAL room) (from next tennis! Go learn to play , crediting Kohan with “creating characters of Kohan with “creating , crediting i “ “It was a fascinating culture,” she says. “Everyone she says. “It was a fascinating culture,” e a e i e EXT. A HOUSE IN BEVERLY HILLS - 1982 HILLS IN BEVERLY A HOUSE EXT. sounds hear we of From within, Go TV! the off “Shut EDICTS: PARENTAL be social! Go do something productive!” - CONTINUOUS HOUSE SAME INT. the through pushes THE CAMERA As rooms, see bookcase, we crammed a a Emmy with crowded a shelf menorah, statuettes. room, TV in the arrives THE CAMERA on is curled a sofa, GIRL a TEENAGE where Cheers. watching e m te j h K Kohan was an erratic student, but she tested well. ea f h we weren’t strictweren’t interest like hierarchies. It was more rn ar w was trying there so hard to be sophisticated that Kohan pleads guilty. “I love fl Kohan pleads guilty. t the coeducational wilderness of Beverly Hills High.the coeducational wilderness of Beverly Hills n m h w which had cutthroat social divisions, she transferred to social divisions, which had cutthroat o b A After some unhappy years in an all-girls private school, f and and lawyers, preferably. Something secure. preferably. and lawyers, win t to be readers, not viewers. And not writers. Doctors E Emmys — they were books. TheEmmys kids were encouraged and sometimes unpleasant, but always human.” and sometimes but always unpleasant, so human in these characters.“I love the damage It’s spend so much time trying People and so relatable. succeeding. I love it, and no one’s to hide it and cover areas. I want to mess. I love gray embracing it. I love areas.” live in the gray Kohan grew with her older up in Beverly Hills Jenji Jen and her parents, and Jono, brothers, David twin t Rhea and Buz. Rhea was a novelist, and Buz was anR on hundreds TV writer who worked award-winning aw of network specials and series, including o But the most Awards. Burnett Show and the Academy Bu sacred objectssacr his collection in the house were not of azine, which in 2014 named Kohan one of its hun- one of its Kohan named 2014 which in azine, infl dred most we care about, women women we know, into women the is Black, also praised Rhimes, who we root for.” of riot of color and sexual “breathtaking orientation” Orange are three-dimensional, fl all backgrounds who .” ered ix granted ix , off Orange as one for its ng sons. Noted ix, which, after hearing , was a half-hour Show- Weeds rst showrunners to sign with Another time, she was suspended for was suspended time, she Another sick of “I’m administrator, to an saying bullshit”this bureaucratic — a line that from one of her easily come could have child characters. hot on the She was rst show, show, rst Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, in Time mag- Grey’s

, now entering its fourth season, is loosely based

vengeance.”

Basically, I’m driven by by driven I’m Basically,

pushed my buttons. buttons. my pushed

do something, it it something, do

Not surprisingly, Kohan’s child characters child are often Kohan’s surprisingly, Not couldn’t I me told The show’s success led to a great leap in Kohan’s success led to a great leap in Kohan’s The show’s Orange “The are dark, twisted, creates characters Jenji “ Whenever anyone anyone “Whenever the moral center of the damaged adult universe they center of the damaged the moral fi inhabit. Her scent of hypocrisy and found battles everywhere. and found battles scent of hypocrisy a “I did really hard to be “It’s she says. lot of tilting at windmills,” off are written You no power. a kid, because you have career, and for the television paradigm generally: and for the television generally: paradigm career, Kohan was one of the fi crack writing, its warped humor, and Parker’s nuanced and Parker’s humor, crack writing, its warped ran from 2005 to 2012. performance, Weeds the streaming service Netfl Black pitch for Orange Is the New Kohan’s time comedy about a widowed suburban California time comedy about a who becomes by Mary-Louise Parker) mom (played for herself a comfy lifestyle a pot dealer to maintain and her young, hypocrisy-sniffi funny, and startlingly honest,” wrote Shonda Rhimes, and startlingly honest,” funny, creator of her the remarkable opportunity to make an entire her the remarkable opportunity to make thirteen-episode season up front. The would season once, and subscribers could stream be released all at televi- not only to create was a newit online. It way sion but also to consume it. Best of all, Netfl Kohan an unprecedented level freedom. of creative graduateon a memoir by Piper Kerman, a Smith College from a patrician family who served thirteen months in Connecti- the federal correctional institution in Danbury, cut, regard on drug-related charges. Critics of the best and most important shows on television. CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.V2.indd 24CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.V2.indd 24 CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.V2.indd 25

CREDITS GO HERE it comedic. Humor is how you survive thedarkness.”it comedic.Humor ishowyousurvive thinkwe’rebut Idon’t beingdisingenuousbymaking pleasure. It’s gottobefun.Prison isadark,darkworld, PeopleNo onewantstobelectured. watchTV for the needleorplantideasunlesspeopleareinvested. and stories.You’ll yourpointacrossormove get never and make theaudience careaboutthosecharacters always have anagenda, butmy fi However, it’s noteff ifyou’re ective scoldingpeople. I box,” she says. “Having asoapboxisgreatprivilege. “out-of-control prison-industrialcomplex.” skewering whatKohancallsthe whilesmartly sorts, ofall itsownreprisalsagainstpieties the showexacts nizingly, clumsily. play Andasthey theirrisky games, whointurnloveeachother—intensely,acters, ago- relationship in matter enterevery dynamicsofretaliation ofstyle. The becomes lessalegalormoral questionandmorea arbitrary, andpassionsosuppressed,thatpayback Litchfi sawnever OrangeIstheNew Black are avenged.” wrote SamuelJohnson. “Injuries crimes arerevenged; “ me? Ijustwon$250.You mein.’” shouldreallylet mein.’me in,let two weekslater:‘Hi. Then Remember won awritingcontest!I’m mein,let doingso well!Let bia andsay, Ijust ‘Ithinkyoumadeamistake. Look! weeksI’d few atBrandeis.Every started writetoColum- New York, toColumbia.Buttherewasasnag. the cocaine,becauseitwaseighties.” in thehouse,thenreallygoodfriendsroomwith friends of hell:friendsonthetenniscourts, security. “Onceyougotpastthem,itwaslike therings the turntable.UCLAfootballplayers werehiredas that endwithamannequininthepoolandpizzaon Kohan recallsJohn Hughes–caliber blowouts,thekind Presents:Productions Party atLarry’s Mom’s House.’” wereamazing:‘So-and-So groups. Andtheparties women, andcriminals.”) Equally strikingistheshow’s women, andold tales ofBlackwomen,andLatina show, and could nothave solditonthe“fascinating meaning that sheneededapretty whiteleadtosellthe sion. (“Piperwasmy Trojan horse,” Kohanhassaid, and fi unlikegures and sexualities anything ontelevi- gates, whereitmorphedintoahumanmosaicoffaces Benjamin goestojail”hookgottheshowpast Revenge Orange “It’s thattheworkIdoisalsomy soap- notasecret Fortunately, Kohanalsohasgreatloveforherchar- That’s butclearly, ahelpfuldistinction, Dr. Johnson mein,”“Columbia wouldn’tlet Kohansays. “SoI Kohandesperately wantedtogo College wasnext. eld Prison inupstateNew York, justiceisso is an act ofpassion;vengeancejustice,” isanact isessentiallyacomedy. Itssnappy“ Orange . rst job is to entertain rst jobistoentertain . Atthefi ctional ctional Private sophomore year Kohan transferredtoColumbiahalfway throughher show withpeopleIwantedtowatch.” ofwhatIwantedtodo:makenatural extension agreat going tochangethefaceoftelevision.’ Itwasjustthe outsaying,talking aboutbefore.ButIdidn’t set ‘I’m she says. “People weren’t aretalkingaboutthingsthey ofbodies,”sions abouttheportrayalonTVofallsorts attention openeddiscus- toprisonreform,andwe’ve on thediscourse.“IthinkOrange and organized,” shetakes prideintheshow’s infl leaves topeople“whoarefarmorecapable activism right upagainsttragedy.” whenyoujuxtaposethem—slamcomedy powerful sometimes,” Kohansays. “ButIthinkbotharemore dark; whenwego funny, big wecanget family hour. wego dark,wego “When lightyearsfrom toplacesseveral sex as itdeploysgross-outgagsandtakes ability tostay emotionallytrenchanteven big, wildcity. She feltfree. and beinNew York. Shewasyoung andbroke inthe education aliberal-arts wanted todotheCoreandget declareamajor.tration inEnglishbutdidn’t Shejust and Hume,on Locke andgot anA.) Shehad aconcen- her musingsonanElvis-bustlamp tokickoff (Accordingtooneformerclassmate, sheused for poets. took classesonshamanism,fi Though Kohanconsidersherselfanentertainer,Though and in thein show notice. to engrossed window. istoo woman The young We hear SIRENS SHOUTS and out the New York, played by Blair Brown. divorced in thirty-something woman professional and lifepersonal ofa inflected comedy-drama about the ahalf-hourDodd, magical-realism- TV show --The Days Nights and ofMolly YOUNG WOMAN iswatching her favorite CAMERATHE reaches the couch, where a Marquez, John and Cheever. Anthony Trollope, Homer, Gabriel Garcia with soup; astack ofbooks, titlessour by plate; half-empty ofhot-and- containers kitchen ahot dead counter; roaches on PAN show: to roaches crawling over a A r INT. WELFARE -NEWYORK, HOTEL 1990 oom inside a hotel on W. inside ahotel on oom 110th Street. . Her she academictasteswereeclectic: lm editing, and physics lm editing,andphysics hashelpedbring COLUMBIA SUMMER 201625 a paper apaper uence 5/12/16 10:48 AM CREDITS GO HERE 5/11/16 3:25 PM5/11/16 3:25 PM

of of gure out her life. There, .) NBC sitcom The Fresh of the

rst job is to Will & Grace red after thirteen episodes. Distraught, she

“I always have an agenda, but my fi entertain and make the audience care about those characters and stories.” The agent was receptive, and soon Kohan, at twenty- Ullman, the protean performer Tracey Meanwhile, Ullman was a huge turning point for me,” “Tracey Kohan spent three years with Ullman and would two, joined the staff two, Prince of Bel-Air. She remembers a dysfunctional, into quarrelsome writers’ room — a “rough entrance” , where she next job was on Friends show biz. Her of more argued with her older bosses for the inclusion authentic details about the lives of twenty-somethings. She was fi to fi escaped to the Himalayas she couldn’t help writing a spec script between hikes, done she wasn’t . She took it as a sign that for Frasier with television. on one of Kohan’s her hands had gotten and writer, the staff scripts. Ullman hired Kohan to work on On . . . Kohan was part of the Takes Tracey HBO’s for out- producing team that won the 1997 Emmy music, or comedy series. standing variety, “It was so healing, because she ran a sane Kohan says. everythingand wonderful room. She gave a shot and set the room with an incredible example. She packed and then we would go off hitters, old-school heavy of work per week. and come back for one serious day She had a wonderful did everything family life and just a stellar example and talent. My right, and she’s I was the baby in the time with her was invaluable. room, and they were lovely to me. I’ll be grate- always ful to Tracey.” later heed the lessons, implementing a “no-assholes” policy her in her own writers’ room and prioritizing a husband, Christopher She and her Noxon, family. sight of blood.” (David Kohan went on to co-create Kohan went on to co-create (David sight of blood.” the NBC show

ly rt ese st g a - - n e a o Los Angeles of a show,” of a show,” ction, but TV, ction, but TV, a campus, she got iers”). She was a devotee and wrote spec scripts.

“I had a Japanese erent education. In her senior year she didn’t year her senior get In campus housing and moved into a and moved into campus housing was all part It welfare hotel. of the Off adventure. diff Seinfeld and

She would have to write, then. After to write, then. she college, She would have Success in television. The Kohan’s words raised his fateful opinion. when the boyfriend uttered That’s chance of being elected told me I had a better “He stirred in their were pushed. Missiles buttons Kohan’s She returned and to LA with a stack of scripts occurred, naturally, in the elevator). Kohan had in the elevator). Kohan had occurred, naturally, sugar daddy,” she says with a laugh. “But it was mostly a laugh. “But it was with she says sugar daddy,” long walks down- take she’d On weekends, chaste.” a performance-art Furnace, Franklin town, ending at As set the intern, Kohan helped space in Tribeca. I had no visual sense; appar- up shows (“I was told I made very ugly fl ently, returned to Los up odd jobs. She picked Angeles and and a video store on in a juice bar in Venice worked Sunset, and wrote restaurant reviews for the short fi written competitive hairs. She’d on the staff to Congress than I did getting silos. Schmershwin had unleashed Schmarmageddon. Kohan quit her jobs and moved to Santa Cruz to stay with a friend who was going to medical school. There, she watched tapes of apartment,” “shitty in the friend’s Roseanne father to pass them to an got her ex-sister-in-law’s in the same building (the hand- agent who worked off known that if she pursued television, she’d always parents’ philosophy was, to be resourceful. “My have had support, We it on your own.’ got to make ‘You’ve kids ‘Give my we had education, but it was not like, or a well- I was supposed to be a lawyer this job.’ was sup- brother David heeled housewife, and my even stand the though he can’t posed to be a doctor, of spoken-word performance,of spoken-word and caught shows Spalding around town by artists Eric Bogosian, like and Laurie ’72SOA. Anderson ’69BC, She Gray, space, empty on a stool in an dreamed of sitting with her own tales. But rapt holding an audience comfortablein truth, she wasn’t onstage. She was nasal. she felt. Too too blinky, a budgetReader (“they to send me to restau- didn’t have rants, so whoever on the phone got a was nice to me told her about his her boyfriend good review”). One day, This he friend, best friend from camp, who was a writer. success in television.said, was having then, she should give TV Maybe, too, was in her DNA. a shot. one-liner. winding up to her signature Kohan says, — er, Gershwin’ you, David career is ‘Fuck whole “My Schmershwin.” Schmavid

SUMMER 2016 SUMMER 26 COLUMBIA CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.indd 26CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.indd 26 CU_2.16.Jenji_FINAL.V2.indd 27

CREDITS GO HERE “in “Revenge,” Nozick wrotethephilosopherRobert ’59CC, it canallbeaccomplishedifyou’re organized.” fairly sanehours.I’m usuallyhomefordinner. Ithink time what Iwantedmy worklifetobelike. Sowehave worked alotandreallylearnedover things at once.I’ve hen,” shesays. “Tough love,andaneedtodomillion a similarinfluence atwork.“I’m defi nitely amother havedidn’t kidsforotherpeopletoraise”)andexerts andsixteen.Kohanisahands-onmother(“I fourteen, journalist andauthor, have threechildren,ages ten, (he usedtheword “retribution”), bycontrast, “need suff volves a particular emotionaltone—pleasureinthe volves aparticular ering ofanother.” Nozick arguedthatvengeance out ideas. isseatedteam the table, around tossing creative many team, ofthem The women. ANGLE:ANOTHER We the see Orange for ensemble best acomedy.) in Actors the 2015 Guildwon Screen Award cast star Blair (The Brown. season-three host playedcooking-show by Molly Dodd new inmate, JUDY KING, atax-evading TV more,including dozens and Polanco); a DAYA artist pen-and-pad DIAZ (Dascha BIG the young, dreamy (LeaDeLaria); BOO (Laverne the Cox); burly, tank-top-clad SOPHIA hairdresser BURSETtransgender kitchen empress (Kate “RED” Mulgrew); the for the role); the hard-bitten prison- Warren (Uzo Aduba, who two Emmys haswon savantquoting “CRAZY Suzanne EYES” Taylor the Schilling); Shakespeare- the fish out ofwater PIPER (played by Is the New Orange from Black. There’s wall with iscovered photos ofcharacters colored markers the table. on The front A l INT. -DAY WRITERS’ ROOM ong tableong Jars asunny in room. of talent with tits, terrific. what’s Ifyou find can dangling. writer,find agood Idon’t care so forgender me. It’s to hardenough about talent. Talent overrides they’re alltalented. It’s always atthe scenes company. our And crew, our show on behind and and We have the alot on of women KOHAN (v.o.) this iswhereIwant tobe,andI’m notafraid .” worked here, and toohardtoget pull my punches.I’ve beengiventhisopportunity,“I’ve andI’m notgoingto phrase goes, takes noprisoners. and poke. Whenitcomestoherwork,Kohan, asthe be suretoamuseandoff she’sbaseline ishigh.Butwhatever gotinstore,itwill excited,”it, andvery shesays. “It’s goingtobebig.” date: June 17), proudof forobviousreasons.“I’m very endup? going?Wherewill they violence. Wherearethey acceptance, atthehazardofphysicaloremotional tobreakaway,struggles tocrossboundaries, toseek Much ofthedramaconcernspeople’sself-preservation. Orange withothers.”comfort fi overyourbias.Onceyoudothat,you’ll to get to talkaboutwithpeoplewhoaren’t like you.You have yourself outofthat bubbleandrealizethat there’s stuff what’s youhave Butsometimes toforce comfortable. understand tribalismandwantingtobesurroundedby a cabalofmensaying, ‘Let’s keep womenout.’ Ideeply think it’s necessarilyintentional—Idon’tthinkthere’s majority oftheaudienceisfemale,” shesays. “Idon’t innotacknowledgingthat the and shortsighted the way she looksatajoke: eitheritworksordoesn’t. as that happensIthinktherewillbeanexplosion.” says. “Communication amongwomenischanging,and off erhelp.“Ilovetohelp,andIcallforhelp,” Kohan to andbeenreluctant eachotherascompetition, view that women,vyingforlimitedspots,have tendedto good forthem,” is result,shesuggests, she says. The andit’s thatwomendon’t, that mennetwork been very it’s like tobeaminority intheroom.“There’s away before shescoredwith have doneitHer Way. BlueEyes,And like besaidto Ol’ shecancertainly “is massivesuccess.” bestrevenge,”Sinatra. “The saidthegreatshowman, that peoplecanbemovedbymixedmotives.” deny that therecanbemixed cases,or the two overlap.“Idonot conceptsoften being done.” ButNozick admitted that another one,namely, pleasureat justice involve noemotionaltone,orinvolves entertainment, too,” ismyfunandentertainment, “This shesays. Coming fromKohan,that’s apotentpromise.Her season(release Kohan istightlippedaboutthenew She couldeasilybetalkingaboutthewomenin “I justthinkthebusinesshasbeenincrediblystupid But Kohanisn’tafi beeneasy.It hasn’t She’d written pilots seventeen Kohan seemstobeanadherentoftheSinatra school. there’sThen thewisdomofphilosopherFrank Such arethegray areaswhereKohanlikes tolive. , forwhomtribalismisafundamentalmatter of nger-pointer. Shelooksatasystem Weeds. Sheknows,too,what end, inspireandenrage,stroke COLUMBIA SUMMER 201627 nd that

5/12/16 10:48 AM DIAMOND DAY NCAA Ivy League baseball champs past and present meet on their home turf By Eric Kester ’15SOA

28 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CCU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.V2.inddU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.V2.indd 2288 55/11/16/11/16 33:09:09 PPMM ormally, Rolando Acosta ’79CC, N ’82LAW cherishes shadows. Like the double play, shadows are a pitcher’s best friend, adding an extra layer of deception to a curveball as it fl itters toward the batter through the dark lines cast by a tree or grand- stand. But during a frigid afternoon last Feb- ruary, Acosta, four decades remov ed from his days as ace of the Lions’ pitching staff , became troubled when he looked out on Robertson Field and noticed a cluster of shadowy fi gures in the distance. Acosta had been running on the track next to the diamond, trying to sneak in some exercise. Free time had become scarce since he’d been elected a New York Supreme Court justice in 2002. What puzzled him now was why, in such un-baseball-like weather, people were on the fi eld — his field, the one he’d played on as a Lion and over which he felt a kind of guardianship. That feeling is understandable, given what he achieved there. In the history of Columbia baseball, nobody has pitched more innings (336.2) or won more games (22) than Acosta. This slice of real estate at the northern tip of Manhattan is as much a home to him as the Dominican Republic, where he was born and raised. He often jokes that the only two things that matter in the DR are religion and baseball, and that sometimes it’s hard to tell the diff erence between the two. Acosta’s childhood revolved around baseball. When he wasn’t playing it, he’d gather in the center of town with other poor kids to watch the San Francisco Giants on television. In the 1960s, the Giants were island favorites: their star pitcher was Juan Marichal, known as the “Dominican Dandy.” But Acosta’s parents wanted more for their kids. So, at the age of fourteen, Acosta moved with his parents and four siblings to the Bronx, where he had to learn a new language, a new measuring sys- tem, and a new culture. Baseball, though — that was the same. Here, the mound was still 18.4 meters (or 60 feet, 6 inches) from home plate. Here, a catcher flashing an index finger still meant JUSTICE ON “bring the heat.” Upon arriving in the Bronx, THE MOUND: it didn’t take long for Acosta to fi nd the near- Rolando Acosta, a New York

MIKE est pitcher’s mound — that little island where Supreme Court

MCLAUGHLIN he felt most at home. judge, was once Home for Randell Kanemaru is Santa Ana, a star pitcher for Columbia. California. But on that February day, as wet

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 29

CCU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.inddU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.indd 2299 55/11/16/11/16 99:45:45 AAMM snowfl akes pelted his cleats and cap, home surely felt even farther away. The sophomore second baseman took the 1 train up to Hal Robertson Field at Phillip Satow Stadium, where he joined a small group huddled on the infi eld. The snow was picking up, but when it landed on the fi eld’s synthetic turf, it instantly melted. “It doesn’t matter if it snows or rains,” Kanemaru says. “If it’s above 32 degrees, we’re defi nitely going to squeeze some work in.” For college-baseball powerhouses like So instead, Acosta planted himself on the hands of the Elis didn’t exactly the University of Central Florida and the the third-base line and watched. He had spread baseball fever across campus. University of Houston, year-round mild an endless list of things to do: appeals Baseball returned to Columbia in 1884, weather is a major advantage. But what to hear; decisions to write; Columbia but the sport truly caught on in 1921 with the Lions lack in climate they make up trustee business to attend to; a workout the arrival of a student-athlete known for in commitment (and synthetic turf). to fi nish. But as the late-day sun began around campus as “Biscuit Pants.” This That’s why they’re out there on days to push through the clouds, and the moniker, a reference to the baggy trou- when fl y balls twist wildly in winter gales, sound of balls popping in leather mitts sers he wore over his thick lower body, and when cold metal bats punish your echoed across the fi eld, he knew he was probably not one he relished. No hands with a bone-rattling sting if you wasn’t going anywhere. matter: when the slugger, the quiet son miss the sweet spot. of German immigrants, began launching The hard work has paid off . From 2013 ¹ ¸ ¹ majestic blasts that soared over the wall to 2015, the Lions won three consecutive of old South Field, over 116th Street, and Ivy League championships. The program When Acosta fi rst stood on the mound landed on the steps of Low Library, a is now capable of attracting even the most for Columbia in 1976, he was standing new nickname took hold. “Biscuit Pants” elite players, like Kanemaru, who, as a atop a tradition already more than a would no longer suffi ce; he became freshman, started 41 games and batted hundred years old. Columbia’s fi rst known simply as “Columbia Lou,” a name .296 on his way to being named the 2015 recorded baseball game took place on that stuck on campus even after Lou Ivy League Rookie of the Year. It was one May 27, 1867, when a group of young Gehrig ’23CC left for Yankee Stadium of the best years by a Lion freshman since Columbia men, the Civil War and its to become one of the greatest hitters the 1976, when a young right-hander notched raw lessons of mortality still fresh in game has ever known. In 1930 the Lions joined the Eastern Intercollegiate Baseball League (EIBL), “I didn’t exactly guarantee victory which included Army and Navy teams

52 strikeouts in 73 innings and posted a 3.33 ERA. Those numbers belonged over Harvard in my interview with to the lone fi gure now poised by the running track, watching Kanemaru the Crimson. But I came pretty close.” and his teammates. “Hey, isn’t that the judge?” their minds, happily traded bayonets in addition to the traditional Ivy League. The players waved, shouted hello, for bats. They defeated a squad from They had some early success, but as the urged Acosta to come down and throw NYU by the no-that’s-not-a-typo score decades wore on, the Lions’ luck faded, some batting practice. Acosta smiled and of 43–21. The following fall, the team until they found themselves entering the declined. The last time he accepted their traveled to New Haven to face Yale. 1976 season with a thirty-two-year cham- invitation, his body couldn’t keep pace This was the last Columbia baseball pionship drought (excluding a three-way with his ageless competitive streak. He game for almost two decades, and share of the EIBL title in 1967). Harvard threw hard and he threw well, but he was while the reason for the sport’s sudden had a death grip on the league, gunning so sore the next day that he couldn’t raise disappearance remains unknown, one for a fi fth straight title. Of course, they his arm to wash his hair. imagines that the 46–12 drubbing at had yet to meet Columbia’s freshman

30 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.indd 30 5/11/16 9:45 AM “Everyone got along. No cliques, no per- sonality questions. We had a great mix of upperclassmen and newer players, and we fed off of each other.” Forty years later, the Lions, under coach Brett Boretti, are making their own history. Since Boretti took over in 2005, the Lions have won four Ivy League titles. “The coaches do a great job at building team culture,” says Kanemaru. “They’re diff erent because they DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER: The don’t necessarily recruit the guys 1976 Ivy League who are the best players but the pitcher, a kid from the Bronx who of Bob Kimutis ’76CC, the champs, then guys who are the best fi t. We and now. brought with him an electric fastball and 245-pounder so intimidating want the players who will become something more than confi dence. that opposing pitchers walked him 25 a part of our family, not selfi sh players “I didn’t exactly guarantee victory times in 29 games. who care about stats.” over Harvard in my interview with A tight-knit clubhouse has become the Crimson,” Acosta recalls now with a ¹ ¸ ¹ one of the program’s main selling points wry grin. “But I came pretty close.” to recruits, and it’s yielded tremendous Closer, at any rate, than Harvard On April 23 of this year, in the mid- return. Kanemaru is a prime example. bats came to Acosta’s pitches. Despite dle of a Lions double-header against “Aside from Columbia, a few schools in a hostile Harvard crowd jeering the Princeton, the 1976 team gathered on California were recruiting me,” he says. freshman, Acosta took the mound with a Robertson Field to celebrate the fortieth “So I called around and asked about cunning game plan and a sense of justice anniversary of their championship the environment on campus and in the befitting a future judge. season. When these guys get together, locker room. I talked to Coach Boretti, “The best hitters are always crowding it’s like stepping into a time machine. and he really emphasized what the team the plate,” he explains, “not letting you Yes, Acosta is now offi cially titled the is all about.” pitch to the inside corner. But I went out Honorable Rolando T. Acosta. But Bob Kanemaru hopes to soon join there with an attitude of, ‘Hey, that plate Kimutis still calls him “Freshman.” teammates George Thanopoulos ’16CC is just as much mine as it is yours.’” Among the ’76ers on hand that sunny (drafted as a pitcher by the New York Acosta owned the inside corner that Saturday was the coach, Dick Sakala Mets), Jordan Serena ’15CC (drafted as day, shutting down Harvard in one of ’62CC, who led the Lions from 1973 to an infi elder by the Los Angeles Angels), the great performances of a career that 1977. Ask Sakala about Acosta, and he and Gus Craig ’15SEAS (drafted as an featured four straight All-Ivy honors and has two words: Juan Marichal. “That outfi elder by the Seattle Mariners) as EIBL Pitcher of the Year honors in 1977 high leg kick, that beautiful motion. a Major League Baseball draft pick. and 1979. Rolando was our diff erence maker,” His 2016 numbers shouldn’t hurt his Today, you’ll find Acosta at most Lions Sakala says. “We played three games a case: a .340 batting average (second home games, in dark sunglasses and a week, one on Friday and a double-head- on the team to infi elder Will Savage’s polo shirt, riding the umpire (“Come on, er on Saturday, and we always started .367), and a team-leading .573 slugging Blue! It’s right down the middle, Blue! Rolando on Friday so that we could go percentage. You’ve got to call it both ways!”), and into the weekend feeling relaxed.” Still, he considers himself as much a happy to recount those magical seasons. Right fi elder Charlie Manzione psychology major as a ballplayer. After all, You won’t hear even a whisper of his ’76SEAS was there with his Worth like Acosta, Kanemaru chose Columbia honors. Instead, the Columbia Hall of aluminum bat, with which he hit .303 primarily for the education. Famer will proudly reel off the names of in 1976. He points to his head when he “I know baseball won’t be there forever,” his teammates. He’ll gush about Mike talks about Acosta. “Rolando was an he says. Wilhite ’78CC, ’07GSAPP, the center extremely smart pitcher. He had this It’s a mature perspective. But some- fi elder who batted .448 in 1977, and then, ability to read the hitter and set him day, perhaps, Kanemaru will be like in 1978, hit eight home runs, breaking up so that certain pitches were almost Acosta, sitting in the stands with his old the Lions record set by Columbia Lou. impossible to hit. And he’d locate his teammates, telling stories of the past He’ll recommend the baseball books pitches: up and down, side to side. He while watching the future, and he’ll written by pitcher Bob Klapisch ’79CC. never threw down the middle of the know that this perspective, while wise, He’ll tell you Paul Bunyan-esque tales plate.” As for the team, Manzione says, is not necessarily true.

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 31

CCU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.inddU_2.16_Baseball_FINAL.indd 3311 55/11/16/11/16 99:46:46 AAMM UNDER THE Today, there are thousands of LGBTQ groups on college campuses around the world. In 1966, there was only one By Bill Retherford ’14JRN

nlike Dorian Gray, whose portrait festered in an attic, the photograph of Stephen Donaldson languishes underground, framed yet unhung, placed unceremoniously on a tile fl oor and shoved uncelebrated next to a bookcase in a basement room of Furnald Hall, a century-old dorm on the Columbia campus. Sunshine-yellow walls and Caribbean-blue support beams brighten the room, known Ufor twenty years as the Stephen Donaldson Lounge. Little happens here until Sunday afternoons, when the students of the Columbia Queer Alliance meet. They “vaguely” know about Donaldson. “He started the precursor of our group,” said one, which is true. And he “looks jaunty in his portrait,” which he does — half-Italian, young, grinning and buoyant, his dark curly hair topped by a sailor hat. The queer lounge, in a delicious historical paradox, actually functioned as a closet for quite some years, a place for the building’s janitors to stash supplies. When the room was posthumously dedicated to Donaldson in November of 1996, its namesake had largely been forgotten. Donaldson surely would have hated that. “He was very self-promoting,” said Wayne Dynes, a friend and former Columbia professor. “And very solicitous of his role in history.” A role indisputably singular: a half century ago, in Columbia’s 1966 fall semester, Illustration by Brian Stauff er

32 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

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2.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 33 5/6/16 2:59 PM twenty-year-old Stephen Donaldson, College in Oakland, California. “But (Columbia Law School), Queer TC a sophomore, founded the fi rst queer then he would try to fi x the problem. (Teachers College), Cluster Q (Colum- student organization ever on a college He was always fi xing things for the bia Business School), and Q (Barnard campus. Undercover, unoffi cial, and people ahead of him, to make sure College). And then, subcategorizing: unfunded — the Columbia adminis- it never happened to them.” And as GendeRevolution (transgender), Proud tration dithered a while before coming Martin’s activism accelerated, and the Colors (queer/trans people of color), around — but still, the fi rst of its kind fallout landed, the pummeling he took, and JQ (Jews). No one knows exactly in the “whole wide world,” as Donaldson whether physical or psychological, how many queer students attend liked to say. never stopped him. “Just an extraordi- Columbia — there’s no data — but edu- For a man adoring of attention, nary fi gure,” said Peter Awn, the venera- cated conjecture suggests at least three a glaring absurdity exists. Stephen ble Columbia professor of religion who thousand, about 10 percent of the total Donaldson was not his name. But spoke at the Donaldson Lounge dedica- campus population. the pseudonym refl ected a sensible tion. “He fought the culture.” “Inclusion is now a core value,” said precaution; in 1966, one rarely revealed “That was the thread of his life,” said Dennis Mitchell ’97PH, a Columbia his real name in a gay bar, and abso- the Reverend Troy Perry, founder of the professor for twenty-fi ve years and lutely never as the de facto president of Metropolitan Community Churches, vice provost for faculty diversity and a clandestine queer club at Columbia and Martin’s friend from the sixties. inclusion. “Today you can’t achieve University. Donaldson, actually Robert “Bob willingly gave of himself to see the excellence without diversity.” Or with- Martin, was interchangeably called Bob, movement grow. He was actually a very out investment. Mitchell’s $3 million Stephen, or Donny by friends, acquain- gentle man. In the weirdest way, he was LGBTQ faculty-diversity initiative, a tances, and lovers, all of whom repeat- almost Christlike.” plan to hire four professors focused edly corroborated one thing about exclusively on queer studies, is “a very him — Martin, the gay activist, wasn’t ¢¢¢¢¢¢ big deal,” he said. “A fi rst. No other uni- gay. Not by the rigorous defi nition of versity has ever supported a cluster hire the word, at least. Wildly adventurous If Bob Martin was a martyr, consider of scholars engaged in LGBTQ studies.” sexually, yes. Crazy about men, sure. the following a national act of vener- The new faculty could be in place as But exclusively gay — no. “He always ation: in 2016, thousands of LGBTQ early as the fall semester of 2017. claimed to be bisexual,” said Dynes. student organizations endure on US “This really changes the game for queer students,” said Jared Odessky ’15CC, an LGBTQ advocate and legisla- tive aide to Brad Hoylman, New York’s only openly gay state senator. “The hires are a clear message from the university that this is a priority.” Right now, the school’s LGBTQ classes, though out there, aren’t always available; ferreting out Columbia’s fi tful off erings is chancy. Th e pummeling Martin took, “I had to hunt them down,” remem- bered Odessky. “But now we’re going to whether physical or psychological, see a robust program. This may encour- age more Columbia students to pursue never stopped him. research on LGBTQ topics.” Not that long ago, the notion of any queer academia at all, much less a burgeoning curriculum, was “a joke, just ridiculous,” said Sharon Marcus, Something else about Martin, and college campuses. Any university with- Columbia’s dean of humanities. But this too is completely contrary to his out one is now the deviation; Columbia today, not only do queer students supposed self-aggrandizement: he’d currently maintains more than a dozen. demand the classes — so do straights. always take the hit, and usually without “Each school has its own group,” said “Students are interested in these issues a shield. “Terrible things happened to Chris Woods, assistant director of mul- no matter how they identify,” said Mar- him,” said Ellen Spertus, a colleague ticultural aff airs and LGBTQ outreach. cus. “No one knows what the sexuality during the mid-nineties, and now a “Like Lambda Health Alliance — that’s of their child will be. They’re interested computer-science professor at Mills the medical school.” Also OutLaws in learning about sexuality, period.”

34 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

22.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 3344 55/6/16/6/16 22:59:59 PPMM Although Columbia has no major “I went to a faculty meeting to in LGBTQ studies, the school may evaluate student applications,” off er a minor “as we go down the said Dynes, who taught art road,” said Mitchell. That road, history at Columbia in the sixties he hopes, will leave the other and seventies. “Someone would Ivies staring at Columbia-blue see a photograph and say, ‘This taillights: “I’m clearly biased, but I looks like a weak sister.’ That was believe we lead on this.” the euphemism for it.” Presum- “Fifty years of remarkable ably queer students weren’t change,” said Awn, summing up a blacklisted, but “the assumption half century of progress. “It rep- was they would not do well.” resents a triumph of the human Dynes, who is gay, didn’t protest. spirit. To engage in a battle that But the “gossip mill was work- no one ever thought you could ing,” and he remembered how win. And then — to actually win.” one homophobic male professor would recurrently scold a female ¢¢¢¢¢¢ colleague: “He’d say, ‘Why are you hanging around Columbian During Bob Martin’s early years yearbook photo with Dynes? He’s a fag.’ at Columbia, barely anyone was of Robert She would say, ‘Well, battling; politically speaking, Martin. I don’t know anything not even a spat had occurred. Nobody average homosexual, if there be such, about that.’” Later, dared. Stonewall was still to come. New is promiscuous. He is not interested Dynes learned his York’s Gay Pride Parade was nary a in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship female friend was a lesbian. fi gment. Go to a gay bar in the Village like that of a heterosexual marriage.” Against this monolith, Martin hardly and the cops could jail you. Reveal “We had to keep our sexuality a appeared a candidate to sling the fi rst your real orientation at work and the secret,” said Don Collins, a retired stone. Arriving in New York City in boss might fi re you. Open up to friends psychologist and a friend of Martin’s. August of 1965, he had no money, no and most would ostracize you. Dis- “I would go down to the Village on the friends, and no plan. Friends he found close to family and they could disown weekend and hang out in gay bars. But quickly. After all, he was “gorgeous, you. Walk down the wrong street and you couldn’t relax in straight company. just a stunner,” said Perry. “With a they’d scream out an F-word: fairy, They would hate you if they found out. charisma. When Bob spoke, people faggot, fruit, fl ower, fl amer. (Or pansy, So you would say, ‘I saw the gals in the would lean in. He could talk about perv, limp wrist, lesbo, homo, or any of Village — man oh man, they were hot!’” anything. I thought he was one of the another hundred pejoratives, most far Collins, who could pass for straight, got smartest men I had ever met.” (Martin nastier.) More erudite company chose by: “You know what the word ‘butch’ claimed a Mensa-certifi ed IQ of 175.) the word “degenerate” — not any better, means, right? Well, I came from the But he was “soft-spoken,” said Perry. really — icy, unforgiving, and clinical. Bronx, from working-class people. I “And spiritual. I never saw him hateful Admittedly, Paul Lynde was spouting had a front.” with anybody.” double-entendres, saturated with gay On campus, queer students were Over the decades, Martin would subtext, as the amusing center space watchful. “Columbia was not a wel- morph from Quaker pacifi st to Bud- on The Hollywood Squares; Truman coming place,” recalled Dotson Rader, dhist monk. But even he would not Capote was suitably celebrated for his a celebrity interviewer and writer, and declare that Divine Providence drove masterpiece In Cold Blood, which came one of Martin’s classmates. “If you were him to Columbia University at age out about the same time Martin did at openly gay at Columbia, they would nineteen. That one’s on Lois, his Columbia. But otherwise, media depic- send you to a shrink. Or kick you out. mother; long divorced from Martin’s tion of gays, negligible anyway, nearly The basic attitude was ‘go away.’” Even father, she lived alone in Miami. Martin always portrayed them as frightening, the school’s queer faculty, always on tried to spend the summer there, but predatory creeps. The Homosexuals, a yellow alert and ruminating about job she ran him off , with her “hysteria over relatively sympathetic CBS-TV doc- security, stood cautious. “Everyone homosexuality,” as Martin put it. He umentary of the time, nevertheless knew who was gay,” said Awn, today the doubted Columbia would take a queer, sustained a gloomy and sometimes dean of the School of General Studies. but a friend called the dean’s offi ce to spooky narrative. From the voice-over “But the fear was whether or not it ask. Columbia said yes, it would. With of correspondent Mike Wallace: “The would impact your tenure review.” two stipulations. Commit to ongoing

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 35

22.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 3355 55/6/16/6/16 22:59:59 PPMM But that’s a what-if hypothetical. Smacked with unwelcome news in their living room, many parents react with resentment and rage. “They have a lot of expectations,” said Woods. A sense of ownership prevails, as “parents think of the investment they’ve made all these years.” At the lounge, students readily confi rmed family confl ict and cutoff s. Acknowledged one: “A lot of us tend to have terrible relationships with our parents.” Said another: “My dad doesn’t believe bisexuality is real. My mom just believes it’s a phase.” And another: “I told my mom when I was a senior in high school. She told me she should have sent me to church when I was a kid. I never brought it up again.” Recruiting members on Just ahead for Colum- campus for bia’s queer students is the Student graduation, which today Homophile psychotherapy — and promise not to identities. Only four of the ten League, 1970s. carries a new risk — job seduce classmates. Martin agreed. members interviewed would hunting while out. As During freshman year he found no reveal a fi rst name, and none described in a January gay students or faculty. And his three their surnames. 2016 study published in Socius, a roommates, with whom he shared a “They are cautious,” said Chris journal of the American Sociological suite at Carman Hall, told the dean Woods, who oversees the group. “Oh, Association: a researcher sent a pair of they didn’t want to live with a homo- yeah. Cautious on Facebook, cautious fake résumés from fi ctional women to sexual. The boys tried to be decent, and about who they tell.” Including family more than eight hundred employers. tendered awkward apologies. But the members — many queer kids haven’t One résumé listed membership in an incident, Martin wrote, was “traumatic.” yet come out to their parents. LGBTQ student organization. The Columbia assigned him a single room. “And they have no intention of other did not. Those with the queer Now he felt truly alone. doing it anytime soon,” said Woods. distinction received 30 percent fewer Perhaps nothing characterized his “Some depend on parents for fi nan- responses. isolation more than this wistful post- cial support. What happens if you are “For graduates going out into the script in a letter to a friend: “Now and disowned?” world, it’s an eye-opening experience,” then, say a prayer for me. There is no Said one student: “I have lots of said Adam Nguyen ’98CC, president one on Earth who doesn’t need it.” friends who have been cut off fi nancially. of the LGBTQ alumni group Colum- Or the parents say, ‘I’ll pay for college, bia Pride. “Your self-expression may ¢¢¢¢¢¢ but after that, don’t come home.’ How not be easily accepted.” And even after do you get through school, how do you you get the job, you’re not always Notwithstanding society’s ever-quick- live, if your parents won’t pay for your sheltered. “There’s subtle, day-to-day ening acceptance of queer — in 2016, education? It’s a disaster.” discrimination,” he said. “Like not being coming to terms with your sexuality, Conversely, and perhaps curiously, a promoted. Not being staff ed on certain while simultaneously coming out to May 2015 survey by the Pew Research projects. ‘Is so-and-so too fl amboyant everyone around you, remains an ago- Center said most Americans — 57 per- to meet a client?’” That’s “prevalent,” nizingly lonesome place. cent — claim they “would not be upset” Nguyen said, even at companies with At the Donaldson Lounge, the stu- if they had a child who came out as gay nondiscrimination policies in place. dents of the Columbia Queer Alliance, or lesbian; only 17 percent would be “The fi ght is not over,” said Troy Perry, like Bob Martin, carefully guard their “very upset.” alluding to the same-sex marriage

36 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

2.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 36 5/6/16 3:00 PM victory in the US Supreme Court. “Now From the outset, Martin knew the rides” while in elementary school. we’ve got to fi ght for everything else.” trickiest part would be fi nding mem- With that background, signing on Perry, along with many LGBTQ leaders, bers for the organization. Plenty of with a queer organization didn’t seem contends the win induced a drowsy homosexuals were on campus, cer- much of a stretch. “Anyone who was languor; that within the queer com- tainly, but very few ever bolted from oppressed,” said Lee. “To us, it was all munity there lolls a widespread conceit the closet. Martin had met another relevant.” The stitched-together alli- — that marriage is not just a milestone, gay student, Jim Millham ’67CC, a ance now had about ten members. but a capstone. “In other words, ‘Now psychology major; Millham, in turn, Not a few administrators envisioned we have same-sex marriage, so we’re pushed several highly disinclined gay alumni contributions hitting cement. done,’” said Nguyen. classmates to join up. (“Keep us out of Others wondered about government But in twenty-eight states, gays and it” was the initial response.) Superstar harassment. Surely the FBI would deem lesbians don’t have full job protections. students were recruited, whatever any homosexual organization subversive. A queer couple can marry on Saturday, their orientation — popularity and But Columbia’s Committee on Student share wedding photos online Sunday, clout were what counted — and a few Organizations, charged with conferring and be terminated by a social-media- went along. “Seems to me I signed a recognition to campus groups, was savvy yet homophobic boss on Monday. paper that made me a member,” said receptive to Martin’s request for a Not only is the movement not over Dotson Rader, who then identifi ed charter. There was one caveat: provide a — perhaps it has not even entered the as bisexual. “But I don’t remember membership list — and no pseudonyms, endgame. Perhaps, in too much of the going to any meetings.” Two straight please. That was a sticking point; queer community today, the battle is women from Barnard enlisted; Martin, nearly everyone rankled at identifying not only about discrimination from though more into men, briefl y dated themselves publicly. Martin demanded the outside — but disengagement from one of them. “And I wanted to pursue anonymity. “Bob thought it would be within. the relationship,” said Seana Ander- dangerous to give them our real names,” “We’re not under siege anymore,” son. But when Martin sat her down to said Anderson. Six months of wrangling said Peter Awn. “So we’re not all that explain he liked guys too, Anderson followed until the school relented. Their well-organized anymore. The percep- made it easy. “That’s OK,” she said. identities would remain confi dential. tion is that the battle is won. And that’s a shame.”

¢¢¢¢¢¢

October 28, 1966, was the “birthday,” as Bob Martin called it, of Columbia’s Student Homophile League. But in lieu of a party that Friday afternoon, Barely anyone was battling then; a rather twitchy engagement was held at Earl Hall, attended by two dozen of politically speaking, not even a the school’s administrators and mental health counselors. All had assembled spat had occurred. Nobody dared. to absorb a mortifying announcement: the world’s fi rst homosexual student organization was starting, right there, at Columbia. Granted, the group was tiny — early on, there were maybe three members, scarcely enough for the “Let’s just be friends.” Named group When Columbia granted approval school’s skeptical bureaucracy to take secretary, Anderson then conscripted on April 19, 1967, Martin instantly seriously. But Martin had procured a her roommate, Carol Mon Lee; that dispatched a press release to every formidable sponsor — the University’s was easy too. “Seana and I didn’t have a media outlet he could think of, and controversial chaplain, the Reverend big conversation about it,” recalled Lee. received nearly no response at all — John Cannon, a straight Episcopal “I just said, ‘Sure, of course, I’ll help just a brief interview on WNEW, a priest. “Our lightning rod,” wrote any way I can.’” Already, both women New York radio station, and a front- Martin. “He put his own neck on the had been energized by the escalating page article in the Columbia Spectator. chopping block for us.” As for the Earl women’s movement, and Anderson was Not much else happened until May 3, Hall meeting: “A lively debate.” immersed in “civil rights and freedom when the New York Times sniff ed out

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 37

22.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 3377 55/6/16/6/16 33:01:01 PPMM the story and slapped it on page one. accruing tax on his psyche. A couple protest; he was put in a cell called “the Now, suddenly, everyone noticed. “All of years following the commencement playground,” where dozens of prisoners the papers, all the TV stations, all the of the Student Homophile League, took turns raping him. (“Forty-three radio stations,” wrote Martin. “The Dotson Rader was visiting Cowboys times,” said Perry.) Martin went public next couple days were frantic as media and Cowgirls, a gay bar in Manhattan. with the hideous story and made — which had ignored the press release There he saw Martin, in a sailor suit. national news. — suddenly wanted the information I Rader brought Martin to his table Then, in 1980, what Martin charac- had already given them.” and introduced him to Tennessee terized as “the last straw” — actually, If October 28, 1966, was the group’s Williams the Pulitzer Prize–winning a staggering act of self-detonation — birthday, then May 3, 1967, was its bap- playwright, and Rader’s companion unspooled at the VA hospital in the tism. The story went worldwide. Colum- for the evening. Martin stayed about Bronx. Seeking treatment for a sexually bia administrators were horrifi ed by the fi fteen minutes, long enough for both transmitted disease, he was turned publicity; a homophile organization was men to notice something peculiar. “Bob away by the attending physician after “a quite unnecessary thing,” said one, had a resentment, an anger inside of a four-hour wait. Martin went home, “and sure as hell won’t help” funding him,” said Rader. “I had the sense he drank “two tall glasses of straight liquor,” or recruitment. Sacks of mail — fum- was walking on the edge of hysteria. returned to the hospital, pointed a ing, hysterical — arrived at the school. Tennessee didn’t like him.” Indeed, loaded pistol at the doctor’s throat, Martin was not displeased. “We were when Martin departed, Williams and demanded a penicillin injection. celebrities,” he chortled. And already he lyrically opined that Martin was “a “I don’t want to hurt anyone,” he said. had a vision: “I saw Columbia as the fi rst collector of grievances.” He seemed “I’ll surrender as soon as I get treated.” chapter of a spreading confederation of “so twisted by abuse,” said Rader, “that They convicted him on six felony counts, student homophile groups.” all that was left was victimhood. He including kidnapping and attempted That’s exactly what happened. Within took on victimhood as an identity.” murder. Sentenced to ten years, Martin two years, Cornell, NYU, Stanford, MIT, got out in four. He described his folly as and Rutgers, inspired by Columbia’s ¢¢¢¢¢¢ “a revolt against the system.” daring, established gay organizations. Martin always said prison gave him Within four years, about 150 queer Martin graduated from Columbia in HIV. Even in his last years, he occasion- student groups had launched on college 1970 with a degree in political science, ally submitted to interviews on televi- campuses. And at Columbia, within a and straightaway joined the Navy. sion talk shows to detail his gruesome few months of the Times article, much (“He told me he went in because of jailhouse experiences. “So we bought him a suit at Bloomingdale’s,” said Ellen Spertus. “By then he had a big middle and his hair was gray. You could tell he had a rough life.” Martin had little opportunity to wear the suit. AIDS killed him a few months later, in July of 1996, about a week before his fi ftieth birthday, and four months before the “ Inclusion is now a core value. dedication of the Donaldson Lounge. Throughout much of his life, Bob Today you can’t achieve Martin suff ered from depression, insomnia, and panic attacks. As did excellence without diversity.” his mother, Lois. Somewhere along the way, between his battles, they reached out to each other. The son wanted reconciliation. The mother needed absolution. What she had of the initial controversy had subsided. all the beautiful men,” remembered done, he forgave; what he had become, As Martin noted: “All my friends know Anderson.) In 1971, the Navy kicked she accepted. They resurrected their about me now, but I have not encoun- him out for “suspected homosexual relationship. Martin saved her letters tered any hostility yet.” A penniless involvement”; he fought six years before until his dying day. “I hope very much outcast had kindled a global movement. getting an honorable discharge. In you have love, Cheri,” she once wrote. But commingling with Martin’s 1973, police arrested him in front of the “Always I hope that. I don’t care what ceaseless crusading was a swiftly White House during a Vietnam War kind. As long as it’s love.”

38 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

22.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 3388 55/6/16/6/16 33:01:01 PPMM ACRONYM ACROBATICS LGBTQQIPAA BISEXUAL LESBIAN INTERSEX ASEXUAL QUEER PANSEXUAL ALLIES GAY MEN QUESTIONING TRANSGENDER

ven those who resolutely cling to the lumbering acronym And not just at Columbia. Queer, as a new and improved synonym for LGBTQ readily concede its linguistic clumsiness. Unmem- the LGBTQ acronym, trends globally, though mostly among millennials. orable, unpronounceable, unhitched from vowels, and Odessky confi rms it’s an age thing: “Around my parents, I generally untethered from cadence, the ungainly LGBTQ serves use gay, but among friends I tend to say queer.” our syntax as a shorthand for the spectrum: L (lesbian), But Blount, a Columbia professor for thirty-one years, has issues EG (gay men), B (bisexual), T (transgender), and Q (queer or question- there, too. “We should be very careful how we use queer,” he said. ing, your pick). Hence, the acronym’s singular virtue — inclusiveness. The word’s jarring etymological narrative traces back to the early Supposedly, LGBTQ, an earnest if inelegant cipher, embodies the entire 1500s, when it denoted something strange, even eerie. By the late rainbow community. nineteenth century, queer became “a term of ridicule,” said Blount — a “LGBTQ attempts to be inclusive, and I applaud that,” said Marcellus slur aimed at homosexual men. In the 1990s, gay activists politicized it Blount, an associate professor of English and African-American studies (“we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” was their prevailing mantra). at Columbia. About that same time, LGBTQ attained wide acceptance — and “But it’s still imprecise.” commenced to compete with queer for usage in both academia and Imprecise, because so much is missing. LGBTQ avoids A (asexual). pop culture. LGBTQ ignores I (intersex). LGBTQ precludes P (pansexual). LGBTQ “Queer is now a sign of pride, not derision,” said Odessky. “We’ve averts another A (allies). LGBTQ quashes a second Q (queer or reclaimed a word that was used to harm the community.” questioning — again, your pick). Reclamation is laudable, acknowledges Blount. “But by itself, queer But cram those together and create an even clunkier pile-up: is a weak umbrella,” he said. “It has been used so unevenly it can mean LGBTQQIPAA. (Or concoct a mathematical amalgamation, and conjure anything.” Plus the word’s pejorative history: “That, unfortunately, is lost this gargoyle: LGBT2QIP2A.) on my students.” Picking between the two, Blount prefers the admit- “We don’t really have a terminology that does what we want it to do,” tedly imperfect, but slightly more specifi c, LGBTQ. said Blount. “It gets in the way of what we want to say.” “At least LGBTQ attempts to enunciate differences, rather than Even LGBTQQIPAA (ten letters!) is hardly all-inclusive. Consider smoothing over them,” he said. “It doesn’t speak of identities in a single C, for cisgender. D, for demisexual. TS, Two-Spirit. Bigender, breath.” Then, he suggests: “The language is evolving, just as identities genderqueer, aromantic — just do a Google reconnaissance — and themselves are evolving. Let’s agree to disagree and put this aside.” discover all the ways of slicing the spectrum. Otherwise, get stalled in semantics — and the community won’t go “No matter how many letters you add to LGBTQ, it will never be the forward. “I care about the language, but I care more about the move- perfect term,” said Jared Odessky ’15CC. ment,” he said. Which is why another descriptor — long familiar, but reconstituted Till then, though, the tiff over terminology remains “hotly debated” by a new generation — is an easily pronounced, eminently spellable in Blount’s classes. “Language and identity cannot be separated, so one-syllable word. students are passionate,” he said. And in this war of words, Blount rarely “Queer,” said Odessky. “A much better umbrella term.” As one member gets the last one. “I just try,” he said with a sigh, “to keep the peace.” of the Columbia Queer Alliance put it: “Queer is more encompassing.” — Bill Retherford

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 39

22.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd.16_LGBTQ.FINAL.indd 3399 55/6/16/6/16 33:01:01 PPMM THE BIG IDEA Don’t Drink the Water David Rosner, Columbia’s Ronald H. Lauterstein Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and the codirector of the Mailman School’s Center for the History and Ethics of

Public Health, is known for his Columbia Magazine: How did you fi rst learn of the work on occupational disease Úsituation in Flint? David Rosner: I got an inquiry from an editor at the American and industrial pollution. An Journal of Public Health, asking if I’d peer-review an article on poisoned drinking water in Michigan. expert on lead poisoning, he The paper under review had been written by Mona Hanna- helped bring the water crisis Attisha, a pediatrician at a hospital in Flint. By crosschecking the medical records of her patients, she’d observed that the lead in Flint, Michigan, to national levels in their blood had spiked after Flint stopped buying clean attention, and he regularly water from Detroit in 2014 and started using the Flint River as its primary source of drinking water. This doctor, I could see, serves as an expert witness had documented a major public-health failure. Of course I recommended publication. At the editor’s behest, in lawsuits against the lead I also wrote an accompanying editorial, “Flint, Michigan: A industry. We asked him to Century of Environmental Injustice.” In coupling Dr. Hanna- Attisha’s report with my editorial, the journal’s editors were explain what went wrong putting their prestige behind her. They were signaling to the in Flint, and how we might public-health community: “Pay attention — this isn’t hype.”

prevent future public-health What was your initial reaction to her fi ndings? I was upset and angry. Anyone who knows the history of Flint catastrophes. By Claudia Dreifus knows that beginning in the 1920s, and for roughly the next

40 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_BigIdea_FINAL.indd 40 5/11/16 9:47 AM fi fty years, the automotive industry used that river as an open sewer. We’re talking about acid from batteries, remnants of lead paint, plastics, and solvents being dumped into it. The history of that river is a history of pollution, which is probably why in the 1960s, the municipality’s leaders stopped using it for drinking water and started buying clean, properly treated Lake Huron water from the City of Detroit. So what was my reaction? It was outrage. This disaster was entirely preventable. Why hadn’t this city’s leaders carefully checked the water for heavy metal and bacterial contamination? Why would anyone allow children to drink from that river?

What’s your guess on that? Money. That’s the surface reason. As more information emerges, we are also learning about leadership failures, cover-ups, and what seems like a bureaucratic indiff erence to the fate of the city’s residents. Flint is a bankrupt town. Once a bustling hub of factories, it has lost much of its tax base since the decline of the American automotive industry. It’s a very poor place, with a shrinking and impoverished population. Given this genuine fi nancial crisis, the city’s leadership announced they would stop buying water from Detroit and use treated water from the Flint River. Five million dollars could be saved. What was unforeseen was that the very old pipes connecting the municipal water supply to many homes were made of lead. Once the highly corrosive water was released into the water mains, it ate at the lead in the pipes, interacted with it, and allowed it to leach into the drinking water.

Why is lead so dangerous? It’s a neurotoxin. It can harm people of all ages, and when ingested by children, it can lower IQ, make for behavioral problems, and create permanent neuro- logical damage. The damage is mostly irreversible. The thing that’s so troubling is that we don’t have any idea what a safe level of lead exposure might be. With children especially, it has become clear that you don’t need a lot. In recent years, the medi- cal community has come to recognize that even small amounts can be toxic. But what happened in Flint isn’t small. Among public-health experts, there are consensus guidelines suggesting that fi fteen parts of lead per billion parts of water is the upper level for “acceptable” drinking water. In Flint, levels were some- times at eleven thousand parts of lead per billion parts of water. I recently saw a report about one Flint home where the

TOP: DIANE BONDAREFF; BOTTOM: AP PHOTO / CARLOS OSORIO / CARLOS AP PHOTO BOTTOM: DIANE BONDAREFF; TOP: contamination was at fi fteen thousand!

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 41

CU_2.16_BigIdea_FINAL.indd 41 5/11/16 9:47 AM Has anything good emerged You teach courses in public- from the Flint water crisis? health history at both the Flint has put lead poisoning graduate and undergraduate back into public discussions, levels. Has the Flint water where it badly needs to be. When crisis been a “teachable I was an undergraduate in the moment”? late 1960s, people talked a lot Absolutely. There’s an old saying about lead poisoning. The issue that journalism is the fi rst draft was seen as symbolic of all that of history. Well, I’ve been engag- was wrong and all that needed ing my students in that fi rst draft. fi xing in society, because it was In my undergraduate course, one so devastating to the poor. of our students has been follow- Over the decades, the threat ing Twitter to see what people has slipped from public con- are saying about the Flint crisis. sciousness. Yet the Centers for She wants to see if the scandal is Disease Control and Preven- expanding the national discus- tion tell us that about a half sion on environmental toxins. million American children “Th is disaster was entirely In my graduate-level course, have elevated blood lead levels, preventable. . .Why would there’s another student who is mostly because of contact with reading newspapers and maga- lead-based paint in dilapidated anyone allow children to zines from the 1950s and 1960s older housing. Until the 1950s, drink from that river?” to solve a key question: she’s lead was a key ingredient in trying to pin down the details house paint. About fi fteen pounds of lead were in every gallon. of why Flint’s water supply was, in 1967, switched over to Lake In many older homes, layers of lead paint are still on the walls. Huron and Detroit. Before that, we know the drinking water had When it disintegrates, lead dust and chips can fall to the fl oor, come from the Flint River. This may tell us something about the where curious toddlers will sometimes handle them. If they eat consciousness of pollution at that moment and why we should the chips or ingest the dust, the children could be sick for the have paid attention to it in 2014. In that same class, we have a rest of their lives. group looking at how diff erent sources — new media and old — Flint has pushed many leaders in at-risk communities to covered congressional hearings on Flint. They’re hoping to deter- investigate the environmental hazards around them. I know of mine if we, as a culture, are framing that event as anomalous or some people in Jackson, Mississippi, who read about Flint and as the symptom of a larger problem. then went out and tested their local reservoir for lead contam- If you put it all together, we’re trying to understand, in real ination. It turned out to be OK. However, when they ran tests time, how the history of public health is being written. on tap water , the lead levels were high. I’d guess that, as in Flint, they’ve got lead-lined pipes connecting private homes to Though you research and write about other issues, lead the water system. In older cities where the infrastructure was poisoning has been a constant theme in your career. Why is installed between 1880 and 1930, lead piping is fairly common, it so important to you? since lead pipes were easier to install and generally cheaper After I graduated from the City College of New York in 1968, than copper ones. I wondered what I was going to do with my life. I had studied with Kenneth Clark, the great social psychologist whose testi- There has been a great effort in recent years to revitalize mony was a key element of the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board older urban neighborhoods. Should lead be a particular school-integration decision. I admired him tremendously. I concern to people in these areas? thought that maybe I’d also become a social psychologist, and I think so. We know there’s lead in the water of some of the took a job at a state psychiatric institution. There I gave tests to up-and-coming neighborhoods of Washington, DC. There institutionalized children to rate their eye–motor coordination. again, lead is probably in antiquated connector pipes. But we They had none. The kids would be asked to trace a circle on a don’t know for sure. There’s no central federal agency identify- piece of paper, and they could not do it. The pencil would go ing where lead pipes were installed. In most situations, you lit- just everywhere.

erally have to go door-to-door and look at the pipes themselves. Later, I looked up their medical records and realized that many AP PHOTO / JAKE MAY I’d say a rule of thumb might be: if you’re in a neighborhood had lead poisoning. Their suff ering was the result of society’s originally built for the poor or the working class, homes there failure to protect them from a preventable disability. That under- are more likely to be at risk for lead piping. In terms of lead standing propelled me to study public health. Ever since, I’ve paint, anything built before 1950 probably has it. tried to use writing and scholarship to help.

42 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_BigIdea_FINAL.indd 42 5/11/16 9:48 AM MyM gifts to Columbia “over the past 25 years have brought me closer to my personal goals than I ever had been before.”

—JEROME CHAZEN ’50BUS MOREPLAN NOW TO MAKE POSSIBLE

programs closest to you.

Liz Claiborne co-founder Jerome Chazen fashioned a taxwise gift to Columbia to further both his financial and charitable goals. Funded with appreciated stock and invested alongside Columbia’s endowment, the gift paid income to his children for years and now supports the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business and Columbia University Medical Center.

Find a gift that suits your goals. Call the Office of Gift Planning at 800-338-3294 or email us at [email protected] to learn about custom giving solutions that let you provide more and give more than you otherwise thought possible. HERE

GO giving.columbia.edu/PlanNow2016 CREDITS 800-338-3294 • [email protected]

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 43

CU_2.16_BigIdea_FINAL.indd 43 5/11/16 9:50 AM EXPLORATIONS address this problem by ana- FRONTIERS OF lyzing echocardiogram results RESEARCH AND from all NBA players over DISCOVERY the next several years. They will use the data to establish the fi rst empirical standards of heart anatomy for men of their size and level of fi tness. Engel and his colleagues began their work last year by examining echocardiogram images from 526 NBA players who played in the 2013–14 and 2014–15 seasons. They say their analysis has already shed light on several issues that have fl ummoxed cardiol- ogists in the past. “Until now, no study had ever looked to see whether the heart necessarily grows in direct proportion to a tall person’s body,” Engel says. “We didn’t know, for instance, if its growth might ordinarily Big guys, plateau at a certain point.” Among the Columbia team’s tender hearts preliminary fi ndings is that the left ventricle, or chamber, of an NBA player’s heart is team of Columbia and college teams, as well usually proportional to his cardiologists is col- as all thirty NBA franchises, overall body size, while the laborating with the now mandate that their root of his aorta, which is National Basketball players undergo routine the major artery that carries A Association to iden- cardiac screening. But these blood from the left ventricle tify athletes who are at risk for screening eff orts have a major to the vital organs, is typi- sudden cardiac death (SCD). weakness: physicians must cally smaller than might be Basketball players have examine echocardiogram expected, based on his height. the highest incidence of images of players’ hearts for These two sections of the SCD among all competitive structural abnormalities — heart are inspected closely athletes in the United States, such as enlarged ventricles or by cardiologists, Engel says, because the enlargement of in part because of the inten- arteries — without knowing SCOTT CUNNINGHAM / GETTY IMAGES sity of their sport and also what the healthy heart of an either can indicate a deep because African-Americans, unusually tall and fi t person physiological imbalance in the who dominate the sport at its should look like. heart that can result in SCD. highest levels, have a genetic The Columbia cardiolo- The researchers have predisposition to certain gists, led by David Engel, also identifi ed several heart defects that can lead Shunichi Homma, and Allan race-specifi c variables that to SCD. Many high-school Schwartz ’74PS, hope to they say must be considered

44 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

2.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 44 5/11/16 2:24 PM Now you see

when interpreting echocar- Earth diogram images, such as the fact that the hearts of Afri- Now you can-American men grow in a slightly diff erent pattern than don’t those of white men when they become enlarged. “Knowing exactly what an African-American player’s heart looks like when it is enlarged, as opposed to a ould a laser-powered cloaking device make planet Earth invisible to extraterrestrial white player’s, is a huge step invaders? It sounds like a plot from Star Trek, but in a paper recently published in the forward in screening and pre- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), Columbia professor vention,” says Engel, whose David Kipping and NSF graduate fellow Alex Teachey detail how such a device might fi ndings appear in the journal C work, and even suggest that advanced civilizations could be using the technology to JAMA Cardiology. hide their planets from us. In addition to establishing Kipping, an assistant professor of astronomy, leads the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia, and new standards for interpret- is well known for his research on moons and planets outside our solar system. Many of these ing echocardiograms, the exoplanets have been discovered using the transit method, which is a way of detecting planets Columbia researchers are also by looking for changes in the intensity of light from distant stars. As Teachey explains it, as a developing guidelines that planet orbits a star it periodically crosses (transits) in front of that star, causing a small dip in will help physicians integrate the starlight’s intensity. Using data from the Kepler telescope to observe these periodic dips, the results of echocardio- astronomers have discovered more than a thousand new planets. grams with those of other Kipping and Teachey suggest that we could cloak Earth’s transit by using laser beams to heart tests — like EKGs, compensate for the periodic dips in our sun’s light. “Using lasers might sound counterintuitive, which measure the heart’s because laser beams are very narrow when they are emitted,” says Teachey. “But if that laser electrical activity — to ulti- beam travels across many light years, it widens signifi cantly. The beam width when it reaches mately determine if a player another solar system might be tens of millions of kilometers across.” (See illustration below.) is fi t to play. This is a high- What’s more, it would not take a huge amount of energy (or Star Trek’s “dilithium crystals”) stakes decision, because if a to power the laser: “We’ve calculated that it would take somewhere between thirty and 250 player is judged to be at risk megawatts of power at peak intensity,” Teachey says. “The solar array on the International for SCD, it usually means that Space Station can generate this amount of power.” his playing career is over. Kipping, who was named one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant Ten” last year, is the principal Over the next few years, investigator of the Hunt for Exomoons with the Kepler project. He has often said that his inter- Engel, Homma, and est in astrophysics began when he was a kid watching Star Wars and Star Trek. We can only Schwartz will be providing hope that the Klingons don’t subscribe to MNRAS. expert advice to NBA team physicians in evaluating the ALIEN cardiac health of individ- EARTH RECEIVER ual players. They say the TRANSMITTER millions of km diagnostic standards they are developing should also SUN be applicable to basketball à players and other tall athletes of high-school age and up. NARROW BEAM Meanwhile, they are looking for opportunities to conduct several light years or more similar research on female basketball players. To watch video of Alex Teachey explaining his research, visit magazine.columbia.edu/cloaking.

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 45

22.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 4455 55/11/16/11/16 22:24:24 PPMM EXPLORATIONS

reducing salt intake lowers a Th e great salt debate person’s risk of heart disease, stroke, and death; the other that wasn’t half argued that there was scant evidence to support that claim. “There are two almost re you eating too Health, is that scientists — distinct bodies of scholarship,” much salt? Or are like the rest of us — tend to says Johns. “Each is driven warnings about the pay more attention to infor- by a few prolifi c authors who sodium content of mation that reinforces what evidence that contradicted tend to cite other researchers A the modern Ameri- they already believe. Accord- their hypotheses. who share their point of view.” can diet greatly exaggerated? ing to their meta-analysis of The Columbia researchers, “There’s probably a lesson With respected scientists hundreds of studies investi- who include postdoctoral in here for all scientists, which lined up on both sides of the gating the health eff ects of salt fellow Ludovic Trinquart, is that we seldom pay atten- debate, you may despair of published between 1979 and doctoral student David Johns, tion to how long-held beliefs ever getting a straight answer 2014, experts on both sides and adjunct professor Sandro bias the questions we ask to this question. The reason of the issue were 50 percent Galea ’03PH, discovered this and the results we publish, for this impasse, according more likely to cite reports that practice of academic logroll- even when new data becomes to a recent investigation by drew conclusions similar to ing by studying the citation available,” says Galea, who is researchers from Columbia’s their own, which means they patterns of 269 studies. About also the dean of public health Mailman School of Public did a poor job of addressing half the papers concluded that at Boston University.

Gene-editing technology could treat blindness

he scientifi c community has been abuzz the past two researchers hope they would grow into healthy tissue and years about the potential of CRISPR, a new gene- thereby restore the person’s vision. editing technique that promises to revolutionize the “This would be an example of precision medicine, in that treatment of some inheritable diseases by enabling we’d fi rst identify which of the handful of genetic mutations T physicians to correct mutations as quickly and effi - that can cause retinitis pigmentosa is carried by the patient, ciently as manuscript editors fi x typos. and then fi x it specifi cally,” says Stephen Tsang ’98PS, who Now a team of ophthalmologists from Columbia and the is the László Z. Bitó Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Iowa have demonstrated what they hope will Pathology, and Cell Biology at Columbia University Medical be one of the fi rst practical applications of the technology: Center and one of the paper’s senior authors. repairing a genetic aberration that causes retinitis pig- CRISPR, which stands for “clustered regularly inter- mentosa, a condition that causes tunnel vision or complete spaced short palindromic repeats,” is an adaptation of a blindness. In a study pub- natural defense mechanism lished in the journal Scientifi c that some bacteria use to Reports, the researchers identify and disable the TOP: RITA MAAS / GETTY IMAGES; BOTTOM: JEFFREY SAKS demonstrate how they were DNA of viral intruders. It able to successfully modify has not yet been approved stem cells derived from the for manipulating the human skin of a person who suff ers genome, in part because it from the condition. The can sometimes cause next step, if the procedure unintended modifications. were to be approved by the Tsang and his colleagues are FDA, would be to inject the now working to show that corrected stem cells into Retinitis pigmentosa gradually causes the loss of peripheral vision, as their corrected cells are safe a patient’s retina, where the depicted in the view at right. for transplantation.

46 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

2.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 46 5/11/16 2:25 PM ALL WORK . . . AND SOME PLAY On May 5, Columbia Engineering held its third annual Senior Design Expo to showcase the creativity, teamwork, and problem-solving skills of its fourth-year students. In a nod to a traditional science fair, teams of students displayed their prototypes of new medical devices, biodegradable materials, robotics technologies, game systems, bridge designs, and programming languages. Before the event, students in the school’s mechanical-engineering department gave Columbia Magazine a sneak preview of some of their more whimsical product ideas.

POOL TABLE FOR ONE GIDDYUP TO FEEL BETTER TENNIS ROOMBA PERFECT PUTTER Shooting pool by yourself is “A mechanical bull wants Imagine what a great tennis Golfers cannot blame their no fun, especially since an to throw you off and hurt player you would be if all the equipment, so goes the essential part of the game is you, but this guy wants to time you spent collecting adage. But what if the golfer dealing with the mess left by help you,” says Matthew loose balls strewn around is the equipment? Turki your opponent’s last move. Heartney, who, along the court were devoted Alrashed, Andrew Arren- Pool sharks who want to with Claudia Moreira, instead to perfecting that dondo, Spencer Hobson, polish their tricks in private, Matthew Sheridan, and backhand. Now with the and Rebecca Stussman are though, might enjoy this table Kirsten Arnell, designed assistance of a self-propelled confi dent that their robotic designed by Stefan Boyce, this rig to help improve the ball collector invented by putter won’t be missing John Del Latto, Amogh core strength and blood Gerardo Cervantes, Devon many shots — so long Kumar, Dennis Mars, and circulation of people with Harvey, Eric Simmons, as it’s swinging at a ball Michael Trietsch. The table conditions like cerebral and Nicholas Sun, you can within a few feet of a hole is overlaid with a contraption palsy or muscular dystrophy. focus on improving your on a perfectly fl at green. that can compete against a Horseback riding is a form rather than fi lling your “We designed it mainly to human opponent. It relies on commonly prescribed basket. The device has a demonstrate our ability to a camera positioned above form of physical therapy webcam that can spot tennis combine multiple technol- the table and a computer for people with a variety balls that have rolled to a ogies in one robot,” says program that analyzes the of ailments, and with stop. It then uses an open- Sussman, who explains that likelihood of its making vari- this invention patients source computer program to her team’s putter uses a ous shots. With this technol- wouldn’t have to travel to a orient itself toward the balls, camera to locate a golf ball ogy, it can determine which special ranch to ride. “The fi nally sweeping them up and numerous computer way to whack the cue ball machine’s movements are with a bristle-wheel brush. programs to gauge the ball’s with a metal hammer. “It’s based on our computer Says Cervantes: “One of the distance from the hole and not capable yet of planning analysis of how real horses tricky parts was getting it to to hit it. “It’s a fun way to multiple shots ahead of time,” walk,” says Heartney. “It recognize tennis balls specif- show off what we’ve learned says Mars. “But that could would be a pleasure in the ically, so that it’s not collect- — and that’s what the

TIMOTHY LEE TIMOTHY come in a later version.” saddle, nice and gentle.” ing anybody’s cell phone.” Design Expo is all about.”

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 47

2.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 47 5/11/16 2:25 PM EXPLORATIONS

off the ceiling and scattered of the compound is unclear. Behind the scenes on the fl oor. This tells us that Scholars have previously the person who lived here was speculated that the villa fell at Hadrian’s Villa pretty important.” into disuse during the decline Using ground-penetrating of the Roman empire in the radar equipment, the excava- fourth century, but no solid adrian’s Villa, an Over the last two years, tion team has also spotted the evidence has ever been found enormous country- Francesco de Angelis, an asso- buried foundations of what to indicate that was the case. side compound built ciate professor of art history appear to be several other The Columbia researchers are for the second-cen- and archaeology, and Marco living quarters on the same using their detective skills to Htury Roman emperor Maiuro, an assistant profes- plot. Dozens of Columbia determine exactly when the in what is today Tivoli, Italy, sor of ancient history, have undergraduate and graduate villa was abandoned, why, and has long been admired for been collaborating with local students will begin unearth- whether abruptly or in stages. its architectural and artistic scholars to identify previously ing these structures over the “We’re looking for signs that signifi cance. Since its ruins unexplored areas of the three- next year or so. As they dig, would indiciate, for instance, were discovered in the fi f- hundred-acre compound. The they will be looking for clues that the villa was adapted for teenth century, scholars have Columbia team has already about whether the people more practical purposes after marveled at the site’s unique made several signifi cant who inhabited the build- the emperors stopped coming blend of classical Greek and discoveries. For instance, ings were freemen or slaves, here,” says de Angelis.

Roman design elements and near the center of the com- whether they Columbia students, It will take the written extensively about its plex, on a small plot of land raised families, from left, excavat- researchers years ing the remains of a lavish buildings, baths, pools, surrounded by the standing whether they had residential building at to piece together and fountains. remains of the emperor’s time for leisure Hadrian’s Villa; remov- any clues they fi nd. But although academics own living quarters, they activity, and how ing limestone buildup But the quest itself from the surface of have devoted consider- unearthed the foundation, they worshiped. the building’s mosaic is exciting, they able attention to the site’s fl oors, and partially destroyed One of the fl oor; and restoring wall say, because the aesthetics, little is known walls of what appears to be most important paintings and marble questions they are decorations. LEFT AND RIGHT: KEVIN MACNICHOL; CENTER: FRANCESCO DE ANGELIS about the lives of the esti- the home of a high-ranking questions the asking are new. mated two or three hundred administrator — possibly a researchers hope to answer is “Until now, scholars have administrators, crafts- manager of the estate. how life at the villa changed always come here to study people, and servants who “It’s not as lavishly dec- after Hadrian’s death in the art and architecture of labored on the estate. That orated as the emperor’s 138 CE. While Hadrian is Hadrian’s Villa, since those is why Columbia faculty quarters, but it’s not a lowly known to have visited the aspects of the complex are members and students in servant’s quarters, either,” says estate regularly, and even to truly exceptional,” says de the Advanced Program of de Angelis. “There are some have lived there for periods Angelis. “But this has led Ancient History and Art are gorgeous marble mosaics on of two or three years at a them to ignore the fact that leading a major excavation the fl oors, which our team is time, the extent to which his this was a thriving miniature of the site aimed at learning now preserving. And we’ve successors, including Anton- city that was abandoned at more about the villa’s work- found bits of a brilliantly col- inus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, some point for reasons no ers, not its wonders. ored fresco, which fell down and Lucius Verus, made use one has ever explained.”

48 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

22.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 4488 55/11/16/11/16 22:26:26 PPMM Newborn cells in the STUDY HALL You’re not the boss brain’s RESEARCH BRIEFS of me People tend to dentate seek promotions at work not because they want to gyrus ascend the hierarchy but because they crave autonomy, according to researchers from Columbia, the Univer- sity of Cologne, and the University of Groningen. The Older, mature researchers, led by Columbia business professor Adam cells of the Galinsky, found that people are three times more likely dentate to accept a new job in which they are promised greater Cells of the gyrus freedom than a similar job in which they are promised hippocampus increased authority over subordinates.

The science of happiness Denmark is the world’s happiest country, according to the United Nations’ 2016 World Happiness Report, co-edited by Columbia econ- To create a memory, omist Jeffrey Sachs. The US came in thirteenth, behind Austria and just ahead of Costa Rica. First published in fresh cells required 2012, the report ranks 156 countries, weighing factors such as life expectancy, mental health, per capita gross domestic product, and level of corruption. ost of the cells in our body have a fi nite life span. They are continually dying and being replaced. Even geniuses have bad days Learning about the But the majority of our brain cells have to last an struggles of famous scientists can inspire students to entire lifetime — which means our cerebral cortex perform better in science classes. Columbia psycholo- just keeps operating on the same road-worn gists led by Xiaodong Lin-Siegler divided high-school M students into two groups, one of which learned about neurons it came with. the personal and professional hardships of scientists There are a few select brain regions, though, that do grow like Albert Einstein and Marie Curie as well as their suc- new cells into adulthood. One of these is the dentate gyrus, a cesses, and one of which learned about the successes tiny sliver of tissue in the hippocampus, where memories are alone. The results showed that after six weeks, students formed. Ever since scientists discovered, almost fi ve decades who had learned about the scientists’ setbacks were ago, that this part of the brain can sprout new cells, they have earning better grades than those who had learned only wondered: what special role do these fl edgling neurons play in of their triumphs. memory formation? A team of Columbia neuroscientists say they have found High-prescribing docs brush off warnings Telling at least part of the answer to this question by demonstrating doctors that they overprescribe opioids doesn’t make that the dentate gyrus’s youngest cells play a crucial role in the them stop, according to a new study by Mailman School brain’s ability to distinguish between similar — yet diff erent — public-health expert Adam Sacarny ’07CC and col- leagues from MIT and the White House Social and Be- contexts when forming memories. This process, called pattern havioral Sciences Team. The researchers used Medicare separation, is a key component of the brain’s internal GPS: it data to identify health-care providers who prescribed helps us remember, say, where we parked our car this morning, drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin at higher rates than versus where we parked it yesterday. their peers. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medic- The idea that newly generated cells in the dentate gyrus may aid Services then sent letters to the physicians informing be involved in pattern separation is not new; other neuroscien- them of their high prescription rates, but subsequent tists have hypothesized this before. But the Columbia research- Medicare reports showed that the intervention had no ers, led by assistant professor of neuroscience Attila Losonczy, impact on prescribing patterns. are the fi rst to observe the activity of neurons in this part of the brain in such detail that they could tell what diff erent-aged Playing for grades A new study suggests that playing cells were doing as they formed a memory. video games may be good for kids’ cognitive and social skills. In a study of 3,195 European children aged six to Losonczy and his colleagues say their discovery could one day eleven, researchers from Columbia’s Mailman School have therapeutic implications, since the merging of memories and Paris Descartes University found that children who — what happens, for example, when a person with posttrau- played video games more than fi ve hours per week were matic stress disorder mistakes a car backfi ring for a gunshot twice as likely to do well in school compared to those — is considered a key feature of many psychiatric disorders, who infrequently played video games.

ATTILA LOSONCZY ATTILA including anxiety and depression, as well as PTSD. — Lauren Savage

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 49

22.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd.16_Explorations_FINAL.indd 4499 55/11/16/11/16 22:26:26 PPMM on global food systems and bioclimatologist A. Park Wil- BULLETIN liams a $180,000 grant for his research on historical drought Peter deMenocal and fi re cycles. UNIVERSITY The University is engaging NEWS AND philanthropists to build an VIEWS endowment for the cen- ter, which will enable it to distribute research grants annually. “This will be a new way of funding science,” says deMenocal. “And it will give Columbia scientists the fl exi- bility to invest immediately in the climate-research projects that we feel are most critical.” The center will also transfer emerging scientifi c knowledge to global business and fi nance COLUMBIA LAUNCHES NEW CENTER FOR institutions, in order to help CLIMATE AND LIFE them make environmentally sustainable business decisions. olumbia has launched a the federal budget for climate “Our new Center for Climate Cnew research and educa- research has been subject to and Life is a critical next step tion initiative — the Center some of the worst cuts,” says in applying interdisciplinary for Climate and Life — that Peter deMenocal ’92GSAS, a environmental scholarship to focuses on understanding Columbia paleoclimatologist the social and fi nance sectors,” how climate change aff ects who is the director of the new says G. Michael Purdy, the our access to basic resources center. “Our goal is to make University’s executive vice like food, water, shelter, and sure that this essential science president for research. “The energy. The University is pro- gets done and that we attract center complements Colum- viding initial seed funding to and retain the best talent.” bia’s existing strengths in the center, which is based at The Center for Climate and environmental science and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Life administered its fi rst two policy by highlighting ways Observatory, for its fi rst fi ve grants earlier this year, award- that interventions from the years of operation. ing the hydrologist Michael business and fi nance commu- “Government support for Puma ’98SEAS, ’99SIPA a nities can powerfully improve science research has been $190,000 grant to study the our current state of human declining in recent years, and impact of climate change sustainability.”

MICHAEL A. NUTTER WILL JOIN SIPA FACULTY TOP: EILEEN BARROSO; BOTTOM: MICHAEL DAMES

his spring, Michael A. Nutter, who recently completed his second term as mayor of Phil- Tadelphia, joined the School of International and Public Aff airs as a professor of profes- sional practice. During his time in offi ce, Nutter was widely praised as a reformer, overseeing changes in policing, economic development, taxation, and environmental policy. “The oppor- tunity to work with such distinguished faculty and incredible students at this internationally recognized university is an enormous responsibility, and creates an important platform to continue my focus on the leading urban challenges in the United States and around the world,” says Nutter, who joins David Dinkins as the second former mayor on SIPA’s faculty.

50 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

22.16_Bulletin_FINAL.indd.16_Bulletin_FINAL.indd 5500 55/11/16/11/16 22:21:21 PPMM TEAMS WIN NATIONAL AND IVY CHAMPIONSHIPS

or the second consecutive year men’s épée, while Jackie Dubrovich Postseason Tournament championship Fand fi fteenth time in program ’16CC won silver in the women’s foil. crown; the men’s tennis team history, the Columbia fencing squad Several other Lions teams tri- captured its third consecutive Ivy was crowned the best collegiate team umphed this year. In March, the men’s league title in April; and both the in the country as it earned the 2016 basketball team became the fi rst Ivy men’s and women’s cross-country NCAA Division I fencing title. Two League hoopsters in more than four teams excelled at the Ivy League fencers also took home individual decades to win a postseason tourna- championship meet last fall, fi nishing trophies: Jake Hoyle ’16CC claimed his ment when they beat UC Irvine 73–67 fi rst and third, respectively. second consecutive gold medal in the to claim the 2016 CollegeInsider.com To read more, visit gocolumbialions.com.

Net gain: Lions hire two new basketball coaches This spring, the Columbia Lions hired new head coaches for both its women’s and men’s basketball teams. Check out this chart and get to know Megan Griffi th ’07CC and Jim Engles.

MEGAN GRIFFITH JIM ENGLES

King of Prussia, PA HAILS FROM Staten Island, NY

Assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, PREVIOUS Head coach, New Jersey Institute of Princeton Tigers JOB Technology Highlanders

The Tigers won fi ve Ivy League titles during CAREER Engles turned the Highlanders into winners, Griffi th’s tenure, and Griffi th mentored HIGHLIGHTS going 41–27 over the past two years, and he thirteen All-Ivy League players. was named the National Coach of the Year by CollegeInsider.com in 2015.

A Lions hoops star, Griffi th captained her COLUMBIA Engles served as a Lions assistant coach team for three seasons and was recognized CONNECTION under Joe Jones from 2003 to 2008. with All-Ivy League honors in both 2006 and 2007.

Griffi th played professionally in Europe from FUN Engles comes from a family of hoopsters: his 2007 to 2010. FACTS grandfather played for Georgetown and his uncle for Penn.

“As a player, I walked in their footsteps. IN THEIR “We want to play pretty fast. We really focus I’ve worn their colors. I will outwork anybody OWN WORDS on sharing the basketball and playing as because of that.” unselfi shly as possible.” LEFT: PRINCETON ATHLETICS; RIGHT: LARRY LEVANTI PHOTOGRAPHY FOR NJIT FOR PHOTOGRAPHY LEVANTI LARRY RIGHT: ATHLETICS; PRINCETON LEFT:

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 51

2.16_Bulletin_FINAL.indd 51 5/11/16 2:22 PM BULLETIN HOLLAND GREENE LEE C. BOLLINGER’S JOINS TRUSTEES Daveed Diggs TERM EXTENDED (left), Okieriete anda M. Holland Onaodowan, n March, the Universi- Anthony WGreene ’89CC, ’92TC Ramos, and Ity’s Board of Trustees has been elected to the Lin-Manuel announced that President Trustees of Columbia Uni- Miranda in Lee C. Bollinger has agreed Hamilton. versity, succeeding the late to lead Columbia through Bill Campbell ’62CC, ’64TC, HAMILTON WINS 2016 EDWARD M. 2022, thus adding four more ’15HON, who stepped down KENNEDY PRIZE years to a term that was due in 2015. Holland Greene to end in 2018. is the head of the Ham- in-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton recently won “The Board of Trustees lin School, a private girls’ LColumbia’s 2016 Edward M. Kennedy Prize for makes the decision to extend school in San Francisco Drama Inspired by American History. The hip-hop Lee Bollinger’s term with known for its innovative musical based on Ron Chernow’s 2004 biography great enthusiasm and con- approach to education. Alexander Hamilton reimagines the American viction,” said Trustees chair An advocate for racial and Revolution and the early years of the Republic Jonathan Schiller ’69CC, gender equity in educational with a cast of predominantly Black and Latino ’73LAW. “Under Lee’s exem- leadership, she also serves actors. Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith created plary leadership, Columbia as a trustee of the National the $100,000 prize, administered by Columbia is fi rmly established as one Association of Independent Libraries, to honor her brother, the late sena- of the world’s indispensable tor from Massachusetts. This year’s jury, which research universities.” included Columbia professors Farah Jasmine Schiller credited Bollinger Griffi n, Rashid Khalidi, and James Shapiro ’77CC, with enhancing student selected Hamilton because it “celebrates the evolv- fi nancial aid; diversifying the ing history of the United States, of hip-hop, and of faculty; appointing women the musical theater.” (For more on Hamilton, see to a majority of deanships; Columbia Magazine’s Winter 2015 feature story heightening the University’s “Hamilton Is in the House.”) global presence; and leading the development of the sev- enteen-acre campus expan- sion in Manhattanville. DEFRIES, SACHS NAMED Many of these achieve- UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS ments, he pointed out, can resident Lee C. Bollinger recently appointed be attributed to the alumni- Schools and the Head- PRuth DeFries and Jeff rey Sachs as University outreach and fundraising Royce School in Oakland. Professors, the highest rank Columbia bestows operations that Bollinger and A Brooklyn native, on its faculty. DeFries, an environmental geog- his senior staff have built. Holland Greene began rapher who is an expert on sustainable land-use “Unprecedented levels her career in education at practices, is codirector of the undergraduate of alumni engagement the Columbia Greenhouse program in sustainable development at Colum- and fi nancial support have Nursery School in Morning- bia’s Earth Institute and the Denning Family provided a foundation for side Heights and subse- Professor of Sustainable Development. Sachs, Columbia’s continued prog- quently worked as a teacher, an economist who specializes in poverty erad- ress, including fi nancial aid adviser, and director of ication, is director of the Earth Institute, the for our students and faculty LEFT: SIDNEY ERTHAL; TOP: JOAN MARCUS student life at the Chapin Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, recruitment and retention,” School on Manhattan’s and a professor of health policy and manage- Schiller said. “We believe Upper East Side. She was ment.“It is fi tting that Professors DeFries and Lee’s compelling intellectual a senior administrator and Sachs receive this honor in tandem, as they are vision and his record of fi scal ex offi cio trustee at the Park two of the world’s foremost scholars investigat- management and fund- School in Brookline, Massa- ing how to ensure a sustainable future for our raising success have made chusetts, before leading the planet,” Bollinger said in making the announce- Columbia the most dynamic Hamlin School. ment on April 13. place in higher education.”

52 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

2.16_Bulletin_FINAL.indd 52 5/11/16 2:22 PM A LIFE WELL LIVED

Though Campbell’s life was based in Palo Alto — he even owned a bar there, the Old Pro, where he often held court — he never forgot his roots back East. He became a University Trustee in 2003 and was appointed board chair in 2005. Over the next decade, Campbell helped guide Columbia through a period of growth that included the Manhattanville Remembering expansion, a record-breaking capital campaign, the creation of the Colum- Bill Campbell bia Alumni Association (CAA) and Global Centers, and the opening of the Campbell Sports Center. Campbell became chair emeritus of the Trustees in 2014, and received an honorary degree last year. e was forged in the steel “Bill was a beloved alumnus, foot- When news of Campbell’s death town of Homestead, ball coach, trustee, former Chair of reached Columbia, the fl ags on the Pennsylvania, and his fi rst the Trustees, and, above all, a friend playing fi elds at Baker were lowered coach was his father, a and source of boundless joy and to half-mast and the number 67 was Hphys-ed teacher who also counsel to everyone who knew him,” painted on turf on either side of home worked nights at the mill. He was President Lee C. Bollinger wrote in a plate at Robertson Field. No member crazy for football and made it to the letter to the Columbia community on of any Columbia varsity sports team Ivy League, to Columbia, where he April 18. will ever wear the number again. wore the number 67 on his wiry At Columbia, Campbell was captain On April 25, in Atherton, Califor- 165-pound frame. He was small even of the 1961 football team, which won nia, some two thousand mourners for a linebacker, but more than once, the only Ivy League title in Columbia’s gathered on the high-school football his coach, Aldo Donelli, put him on gridiron history. He got a master’s in fi eld where Campbell had contin- the off ensive line, among the giants. education from Teachers College, then ued to coach middle-schoolers. The Bill Campbell ’62CC, ’64TC, worked as an assistant football coach funeral service included a eulogy ’15HON, who died on April 18 at age at Boston College before returning to by Campbell’s teammate Lee Black seventy-fi ve, would become a giant serve as head coach of the Lions from ’62CC and a gospel song sung by Ted himself. In 1983 he joined a young 1974 to 1979. After leaving Columbia, Gregory ’74CC. Afterward, hundreds company, Apple Computer, Inc., as vice Campbell got a job with an advertising of Campbell’s family and friends, president of marketing, and eventually agency, which led to a gig with Kodak including President Bollinger, Colum- became the CEO of Intuit, the maker in Europe — his last stop before head- bia Trustees chair Jonathan Schiller of the software applications Quicken ing to Northern California. ’69CC, ’73LAW, and former CAA chair and TurboTax. Along the way, Camp- The Coach of Silicon Valley had a George Van Amson ’74CC, repaired to bell made a name for himself as a pre- few points aggressively underlined in the Old Pro in downtown Palo Alto to ternaturally savvy management guru his corporate playbook. He empha- raise a glass to the Coach. to tech titans like Steve Jobs of Apple, sized product innovation as the key “Bill was a one-of-a-kind, truly Larry Page of Google, and Jeff Bezos to a company’s survival; warned that unique human being,” Bollinger of Amazon. Campbell was “the Coach internal confl ict can bring a company told the crowd. “He was brilliant of Silicon Valley” — a shrewd, salty, to its knees; and viewed engineers — at friendship and had a genius at bighearted, exuberant, high-octane not product managers or salespeople making groups and institutions be mentor, of whom former Google CEO — as the most important players in their best. The Campbell name will Eric Schmidt once said, “Our basic a company’s success. Then there was deservedly grace countless build- strategy is to invite him to everything.” his personal playbook, which was all ings, programs, scholarships, and It was a strategy that Columbia was about giving back, in ways big and awards. But Bill’s friendships are the

EILEEN BARROSO privileged to share. small, without fanfare. most enduring of all.”

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 53

2.16_Bulletin_FINAL.indd 53 5/11/16 2:23 PM NETWORK

YOUR ALUMNI CONNECTION

Miami Voice

Laurinda Spear n 1977, when Laurinda wanted to be an architect, For the Pérez Art Museum, ’75GSAPP and the Spear ’75GSAPP started and after grad school, she which opened in 2013 on grounds of Miami’s the Miami-based architec- wasted little time making a the shoreline of Biscayne Pérez Art Museum, which she designed. ture fi rm Arquitectonica, splash. Her fi rst project, the Bay, she created a lush ITime magazine described red, ziggurat-shaped Bab- oasis of 64,000 subtropical the area as “a seedy back- ylon Apartments, fi nished and tropical plants. “It’s a water of debt-ridden hotels, in 1982, “set a new bar for resilient design because it gaudy condominiums and urban architectural pizzazz anticipates extra water on decaying apartments.” in Miami,” according to the the site in the future,” Spear Not for long. Money began Miami Herald. says. In recognition of this to blow in, and the land of For two decades, Spear feat, the American Society of pink fl amingos was met with used steel, brick, and glass Landscape Architects gave white marble and TV’s Miami to build instant Miami ArquitectonicaGEO a 2015 Vice, whose opening credits landmarks. Then, in 2005, Honor Award for design. showed a pink spiral staircase she formed Arquitectonica- Whether with delicate fl ora in a cube of space that, as the GEO, shifting to landscapes or impressive facades, Spear camera pulled back, proved and a more fragile palette of continues to make her mark LEFT: JEFFREY SALTER; RIGHT: ROBIN HILL to be a hole in the middle of a plants, soil, and water. As a on Miami according to one massive edifi ce of glass. That landscape architect, Spear consistent philosophy: “We building, the Atlantis, was to must consider the ecological should know about the sun, become Arquitectonica’s most implications of her designs, the air, the light, the natural famous structure. and make them adaptable conditions. We have to be Spear, who was born in to environmental changes, thoughtful about the way we Miami in 1950, had always such as rising seawater. put a building on the earth.”

54 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Network_FINAL.indd 54 5/11/16 10:25 AM STARTUP SPOTLIGHT Pulitzer Stay Local, Eat Local Pride or Manal Kahi ’15SIPA, it “At fi rst it was just going to be a When the 2016 Pulitzer Prize all began with hummus. Or, hummus company,” Manal Kahi says. winners were announced rather, the lack thereof. “But this was 2013, the beginning of in April, four alumni were Kahi, a Lebanese environ- the Syrian refugee crisis in Lebanon. among the honorees. This F mental consultant and the We wanted to fi gure out a way to help year marks the centennial of cofounder of Eat Off beat, a catering from New York. ” the awards, which Columbia company that employs refugees as Then it dawned on the Kahi siblings Journalism School founder cooks, says that three years ago, when that they could have Syrian refugees Joseph Pulitzer ’52HON she moved to New York to start a make the hummus. “The idea got established to honor excel- master’s program at Columbia, she bigger from there,” Manal Kahi says. lence in journalism and couldn’t fi nd good hummus — at least “Syrians aren’t the only refugees the arts. none as authentic as the stuff her resettling in the United States. And Syrian grandmother used to make. they all have native dishes that are so much better when they’re Cara Fitzpatrick ’06JRN, a staff homemade rather than writer at the Tampa Bay Times, mass-produced.” won the Pulitzer for local report- With the help of the ing. She and two other journalists International Rescue were honored for exposing how Committee, the Kahis a local school board turned fi ve began to identify and average schools in Black neigh- recruit refugees who are borhoods into some of the worst also excellent home cooks. in Florida. TOP: Eat Offbeat The chefs — from Nepal, sibling cofounders Sanghamitra Kalita ’00JRN, Manal Kahi (center) Iraq, Eritrea, and Syria the managing editor of the Los and Wissam Kahi — work with Eat Off beat Angeles Times, won the Pulitzer (right), with tech chief culinary offi cer Juan adviser Christian for breaking-news reporting. She Chemaly. Suarez de Lezo to adapt was part of a team of staffers BOTTOM: The their recipes for a profes- that covered the San Bernardino Eat Offbeat team. sional kitchen. mass shooting and the terror Based in Long Island investigation that followed. City, Queens, Eat Off beat caters a wide variety of Alissa J. Rubin ’85GSAS, the events, from private dinner Paris bureau chief of the New parties and small offi ce York Times, won the Pulitzer for lunches to much larger international reporting for her functions, such as corpo- thoroughly reported and movingly rate retreats . written accounts of cruelties “It’s really a win-win- endured by Afghan women. win,” Manal Kahi says. T. J. Stiles ’ 91GSAS won “These are people who the Pulitzer for history for his desperately need jobs, and book Custer’s Trials: A Life on the So Kahi borrowed the family recipe that’s at the forefront of our mission. Frontier of a New America. The and started to make big batches, But we’re also able to introduce citation describes the book as a sharing it with family and friends. people to new, exciting dishes. And rich and surprising new telling of It was such a hit that her entrepre- we’re helping to change the narrative the journey of the iconic American neurial brother Wissam Kahi ’04BUS around refugees. They shouldn’t be soldier, whose death turns out quickly decided that it was good seen as a potential burden but as a not to have been the main point enough to sell. rich cultural asset.”

MANAL KAHI of his life.

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 55

CU_2.16_Network_FINAL.indd 55 5/11/16 10:25 AM NETWORK Th e Producer

amilton, the hip-hop musical phenomenon — co-produced by Jill H Furman ’97BUS — made Broadway history in May when it was nominated for a record-breaking sixteen Tony Awards. Furman has been a sup- porter of Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda since 2003, when she saw him perform an early work in the basement of a Midtown bookstore. She went on to co-produce Miranda’s fi rst Allison Janae Hamilton ’10CC, a visual artist and School of the Arts musical, In the Heights, MFA candidate who is known for her haunting images of the American which debuted on Broadway in 2008 and won the Tony South, was a fi nalist in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, for best musical that year. a juried contest run by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Even before the nomina- tions, Hamilton was already in Washington, DC. Her work Haints at Swamp II (above) will be on a producer’s dream — tickets display there through January 8, 2017. are sold out through 2017.

ASK AN ALUM ROAD TO RIO Fencer Nzingha Prescod ’15CC is twenty-three years old and already an Olympic veteran. We caught up with the number-one-ranked US fencer as she prepared for her second Summer Games.

COLUMBIA MAGAZINE: How did CM: What does your training CM: What are the most important you get interested in fencing? schedule look like now? qualities in an Olympic fencer? NZINGHA PRESCOD: When I was NP: I’ve been training full-time NP: Confi dence, discipline, and strong nine, I started taking lessons at the since I graduated last May and legs. Fencing is not an intuitive sport: Peter Westbrook Foundation, a New am still with the same coach I had you can’t just attack someone; there York nonprofi t that seeks to expose as a kid. Every day is diff erent — is a complicated set of rules. So you more minorities to the sport of fencing. a mix of physical therapy, gym have to be disciplined about the rules I didn’t like it at fi rst, but I’m competi- workouts, drills, and sparring with and confi dent in executing them. And tive by nature and I wanted to beat my partners at diff erent fencing clubs you squat a lot: that’s where the strong sister, who also did the program. across the city. legs come in.

56 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Network_FINAL.indd 56 5/11/16 10:25 AM NEWSMAKERS ● Jack Starcher ’14LAW was selected to serve Campaign Cognoscenti as a Bristow Fellow in the Offi ce of the Solicitor General, where he will assist attorneys rep- With hotly contested primaries in both major resenting the federal government before the parties, the 2016 presidential election season Supreme Court. Starcher, who graduated fi rst in has been particularly feverish. Meet a few of his class at Columbia, plans to pursue a career in the Columbians behind some of this year’s public-interest law. Before attending law school, top-offi ce seekers. he taught remedial math in Phoenix as a part of the Teach for America program. ● Séverine Autesserre ’00SIPA, an associate ROBBY MOOK ’02CC professor of political science at Barnard College, Campaign manager, Hillary Clinton campaign was awarded a $200,000 Andrew Carnegie Robby Mook has been working with Clinton Fellowship. The award will support her analysis since her fi rst presidential campaign, in 2008, of the eff ects of international peace-building where he earned respect as the state director eff orts in the eastern Congo. for Nevada, Indiana, and Ohio (Clinton won in ● Two Columbians appeared on all three). After managing several congressional Crain’s New ’s “40 Under 40” list. Julian J. campaigns, Mook rejoined the Clinton team in York Business Moore ’01LAW was honored for his work inves- January 2015. A Vermont native, Mook is known for his tigating and prosecuting white-collar crimes. He obsessive organizational skills and calm management style. was the lead prosecutor in the Bernie Madoff He studied classics at Columbia and is the fi rst openly gay manager of case and served as deputy chief investigator on a presidential campaign. the Moreland Commission, which reported on public corruption in the New York state govern- NICOLE WILLIS ’08LAW ment. Joseph L. Mayer ’11PS, a psychiatrist, was National tribal-outreach director, recognized for developing Cureatr, an app that Bernie Sanders campaign helps doctors and other clinicians keep in touch Willis began her political career in 2008 as with all their patient’s caregivers. an adviser to Barack Obama’s presidential ● The Asian Columbia Alumni Association, campaign. After serving in his administration which celebrated its twentieth anniversary in as special assistant for Indian affairs in the April with a black-tie gala at Low Library, has Department of Labor, Willis joined the Sanders awarded Victor Cha ’83CC, ’93SIPA, ’94GSAS campaign as the national tribal-outreach direc- the Alumni Achievement Award. Cha, a Colum- tor. The Sanders campaign subsequently made several bian from birth (his parents met at a mixer for pledges to Native American voters: it offered to create a position overseas students in Earl Hall), is a professor of in the Offi ce of Management and Budget serving tribal affairs, international aff airs at Georgetown University and to mandate that all federal grants open to state and local and an expert on security issues in Japan, South governments also be open to tribes. Willis, who was president of Korea, and the United States. the National Native American Law Students Organization while ● Two Columbia playwrights have been awarded studying at Columbia, is a member of the Confederated Tribes of major theater residencies in New York. Paola the Umatilla Indian Reservation, based in Oregon. Lazaro-Muñoz ’13SOA will be a Tow Foundation playwright in residence at the Atlantic Theater CHAD SWEET ’91CC Company, and Rehana Lew Mirza ’07SOA will Campaign chairman, Ted Cruz campaign be a Mellon Foundation playwright in residence Sweet is a Texas-based former CIA operative and at the Ma-Yi Theater Company. an expert in fi nance and national security. He ● Joshua Jih Pan ’67GSAPP has won Taiwan’s earned a degree in East Asian studies at Colum- National Award for the Arts, the highest artistic bia and, after a short stint in covert intelligence honor in that country. Pan is the founding prin- operations, worked as an analyst at Morgan Stan- cipal at J. J. Pan and Partners, a 250-member ley and Goldman Sachs. In 2007, he returned to architecture fi rm in Taipei known for sustain- the public sector to serve as then Homeland Security able design. secretary Michael Chertoff’s chief of staff. Sweet and Chertoff Find and connect with are the cofounders of the Chertoff Group, an international security and all your classmates at risk-management consulting company. alumni.columbia.edu

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 57

CCU_2.16_Network_FINAL.inddU_2.16_Network_FINAL.indd 5577 55/12/16/12/16 110:520:52 AAMM BOOKS Th e Girls By Emma Cline (Random House, 368 pages, $27)

ew criminals have up in a thinly fi ctionalized and promising thoughts, captured the public version of the Manson cult. should anyone happen to imagination like Suspense isn’t a key element glance over.” deranged killer — we fi rst meet Evie Boyd Evie’s nascent sexuality FCharles Manson. nearly fi fty years after the is important to the girls, But when Manson and his crimes that made the cult disciples of a self-described cult of followers went on famous, and we know that guru named Russell, who trial in June 1970 for the she has escaped essentially defl owers Evie the fi rst gruesome murders of seven unscathed. But following night he meets her. But she people, the most haunting her, in fl ashbacks, from sub- has something else integral image in the media was urban banality to the brink to the group’s survival: not of Manson himself but of unspeakable violence, is money. Thanks to a small of his three gripping. fortune left by her grand- codefendants: For fourteen-year-old mother, a once-famous Leslie Van Evie, the summer of 1969 actress, Evie has grown up Houten, Patricia — an “endless, formless sheltered, on the right side Krenwinkel, summer” — is her last at of town, not wanting for and Susan home in a sleepy San Fran- anything. The cult has set Atkins. Lithe, cisco suburb before being up a makeshift commune on fresh-faced, and shipped off to boarding a llama ranch in the hills of shiny-haired, school. Her parents have Sonoma County, and apart the girls — all recently divorced, and both from periodic gifts from in their early are more interested in their a rich musician (perhaps twenties — new romantic relationships a proxy for Beach Boy giggled and held than in their daughter. Dennis Wilson, a one-time hands as they Then Evie makes a social benefactor of the Manson were led into the gaff e when out with a group family), they are destitute. courtroom, like of older boys that ends up Evie starts staying with the they were off to costing her a crush and her cult most nights, and earns a slumber party best friend. her keep buying basics like instead of death So Evie is lonely, and food and toilet paper; weeks It’s easy to row. America watched in when she sees a trio of later, the stakes get higher, horror: these women could disheveled girls dump- and Evie is forced to prove empathize have been their daughters, ster-diving for discarded her loyalty to her new world with the their sisters, their neigh- food in a nearby park, she is by more fully betraying her teenage Evie. bors. How could they have intrigued. As she rides her old one. been led so far astray? bike idly around town, she Cline borrows heavily But this is That question is central starts seeing them every- from the Manson story, not just to The Girls, the deeply where. And unlike most of which undercuts the novel’s disquieting debut novel the other people in her life, ability to be truly original, a story from Emma Cline ’13SOA. they seem to see her too: despite fresh, commanding about the The book — which gar- “Back then, I was so attuned prose. But Cline does make nered a media frenzy of its to attention. I dressed to one crucial departure. By all recklessness own when Random House provoke love, tugging my accounts, Manson was the of youth. off ered Cline a $2 million neckline lower, settling a driving psychological force advance after a heated bid- wistful stare on my face behind his cult; as Vincent ding war — follows a lonely whenever I went out in pub- Bugliosi, who prosecuted teenager as she gets caught lic that implied many deep the Manson family, once

58 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Books_FINAL.indd 58 5/9/16 2:48 PM said, Charles Manson “had a quality about him that EXCERPT one thousandth of one percent of people have.” THE GENE For Evie, it’s not Russell — An Intimate History

the Manson fi gure — that By Siddhartha Mukherjee, an assistant professor of medicine at intrigues her, but Suzanne, Columbia. Mukherjee won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his fi rst book, one of Russell’s girls. It’s The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. Suzanne’s embrace that Evie craves; and when Evie’s Gender. Sexual preference. Temperament. Personality. Impulsivity. family eventually makes her Anxiety. Choice. One by one, the most mystical realms of human

return home, it is Suzanne who lures her back. As Evie experience have become progressively encircled by genes. Aspects of says, “I couldn’t explain it behavior relegated largely or even exclusively to cultures, choices, and to myself, the wrench I got from looking at her.” environments, or to the unique constructions of self and identity, have Evie’s isolation and des- turned out to be surprisingly infl uenced by genes. But the real surprise, ‘‘ perate need to belong are extreme, but Cline excels in perhaps, is that we should be surprised at all. If we accept that variations making these traits relat- in genes can infl uence diffuse aspects of human pathology, then we can able. The anguish of being a teenager is universal, ‘‘hardly be astonished that variations in genes can also infl uence equally and Cline captures that in diffuse aspects of normalcy. There is a fundamental symmetry to the perfect descriptions of Evie’s near-constant humiliation idea that the mechanism by which genes cause disease is precisely (at things she does, at things analogous to the mechanism by which genes cause normal behavior and her parents do, at things her friends do). She knows the development. “How nice it would be if we could only get through into cult is dangerous, and yet Looking-glass House!” says Alice. Human genetics has traveled through she is so obviously relieved to be accepted somewhere its looking-glass house — and the rules on one side have turned out to be that she can’t stop herself exactly the same as the rules on the other. from going back. It’s easy to empathize with the teenage Evie. But this is not just a story about the recklessness of youth. When Alice & Oliver we encounter Evie again as By Charles Bock (Random House, 416 pages, $28) an older adult, her emo- tions about the cult are still unsettlingly complex. Mixed t is late autumn in New York, receives a devastating cancer diag- in with guilt and sorrow, 1993. A young couple is on their nosis. Instantly, we are swept into a there is, unexpectedly, a way to Vermont for Thanksgiving world of hospital stays and cancer twisted nostalgia: “Some with their infant daughter. Alice, treatments, medical professionals nights, unable to sleep, I Ia successful fashion designer, is and insurance representatives. In the peeled an apple slowly at vibrant and ambitious, thrilled to be midst of debilitating chemotherapy, the sink, letting the curl a new mother. Her husband Oliver, in the space of cramped hospital lengthen under the glint of a computer programmer, is working rooms, the couple is confronted with the knife. The house dark hard to get his tech startup off the issues of trust and partnership and around me. Sometimes it ground. forced to redefi ne what it means to didn’t feel like regret. It felt Yet within the span of a few pages love and be loved. As Oliver says: like missing.” of Charles Bock’s novel Alice & Oliver, “It’s a necessary pain: understand- — Rebecca Shapiro Alice — coughing, weak, feverish — ing there are fi ssures that cannot

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 59

CU_2.16_Books_FINAL.indd 59 5/9/16 2:48 PM BOOKS

be healed, our time here is messy.” Kill ’Em and Leave: It is, sadly, familiar terri- tory for Bock, who teaches Searching for James Brown writing at Columbia’s School of the Arts. In 2009, when and the American Soul Bock’s daughter was six months old, his wife was By James McBride (Spiegel & Grau, 232 pages, $28) diagnosed with leukemia. She ultimately died of it, uring his career, which National Book Award, he painted and Bock faced fi nancial spanned nearly fi ve an often unpleasant portrait of the ruin from the medical decades, James Brown legendary and much revered aboli- expenses. Armed with his was known as the hardest- tionist John Brown. Here, too, his memories, Bock expertly Dworking man in show feelings about his subject turn out to juxtaposes the many frus- business: he toured constantly, wrote be mixed. Most of the people he meets trations of the health-care 832 songs, sold more than two hun- are respectful of James Brown’s work system (arguments with dred million albums worldwide, and but deeply bitter about the way they insurers, painful medical made forty-fi ve were treated by him. Brown was, in his procedures) with the small gold records. It’s later years, a generous philanthropist, joys of life (an infant’s hand no surprise, then, but McBride learns that he was also reaching toward her father’s, that Brown’s life a hard-driving bandleader who fi ned secret jokes shared between has been well and berated his musicians for the a couple). documented — smallest infractions. The story is perhaps most gallons of ink McBride has toured extensively as deeply aff ecting when it and mountains a saxophonist, and his background focuses on Alice. Oliver of celluloid have as a professional musician informs often fades in relation to the been spent chron- his account of his subject’s less-than- agony and complexities of icling his dirt- savory behavior on the road. It also her plight. With her body poor childhood in makes him a reliable authority on the and mind pushed to their Georgia, rowdy music. For example, he gives us a limits, Alice is vulnerable tours through the pages-long lesson on the virtues of and exposed, and desper- chitlin’ circuit, funk music, often belittled by jazz ately grasps at the familiar and his rise from gospel singer to the musicians as too simple. “You must moments, the glimmers Godfather of Soul. know when to enter the groove, and of normalcy that break But these milestones are of little what to play,” he writes. “Funk — any through even the darkest concern to James McBride ’80JRN, an good music, really — requires space.” times. Alice admitted lifelong fan who claims that All of this is entertaining and & Oliver is a Brown is “nearly as important and as insightful material, catnip for window into infl uential in American social history Brown, funk, and R&B afi cionados, the heartbreak as, say, Harriet Tubman or Frederick but McBride has higher ambitions, of helpless- Douglass.” In Kill ’Em and Leave: examining the many angles from ness and the Searching for James Brown and the which we have viewed Brown’s legacy struggle to American Soul, McBride eschews the in the decade since his death. At the maintain a conventional cradle-to-grave biogra- beginning of the book, he states his sense of self phy and sets off in search of the people purpose: “to walk through the carcass and dignity who knew the musician best: friends, of a ruined, destroyed life . . . to when nearly family, collaborators, former band navigate the maze of savage lawyers all else is members, and musical colleagues. who lined up to feed at the carcass; stripped away. Their testimony to the man’s complex to listen to the stories of the broke With clarity and care, Bock genius makes for a far more compel- musicians who traveled the world in has created a beautiful, ling story. glory only to come home with a pocket challenging story. In McBride’s last book, The Good full of nothing; to make sense of the — Becky Nordensten Lord Bird, a novel that won the 2013 so-called music experts who helped

60 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CU_2.16_Books_FINAL.indd 60 5/9/16 2:49 PM READING LIST themselves to a guy’s guts New and and history trying to make a noteworthy dollar change pockets.” Black life, Black cul- releases ture, and the overall Black experience in America form THE FIRST CONGRESS the backbone of this consis- by Fergus M. Bordewich tently fascinating character ’77JRN In many ways, portrait. As McBride makes the fi rst Congress was abundantly clear, race was mired in the same of paramount signifi cance in issues that face the the life and legacy of Brown, legislative branch today: and his experiences of racial competing factions, injustice motivated much of fi nancial concerns, and his bizarre behavior, espe- a Constitution that pro- cially concerning money, vided a set of principles which he would stash by the but few instructions for thousands of dollars in bags interpreting them. Yet it and boxes — anywhere but was also the most produc- the bank. That fear, writes tive Congress in history. McBride — “the knowledge Independent historian Fer- HYSTOPIA by David Means SAILOR AND FIDDLER that a single false step while gus Bordewich’s latest book ’87SOA In the alternate by Herman Wouk ’34CC wandering inside the maze of captures its dramatic term. universe of David Means’s Herman Wouk, the the white man’s reality could fi rst novel (he has previously legendary author of The blast you back home with the 100 YEARS edited by published four short-story Caine Mutiny, turned speed of a circus artist being Joshua Prager ’94CC collections), John F. one hundred last May. In shot out of a cannon — is In a true journey through Kennedy has survived this chatty memoir, the the kryptonite that has lain the human experience, the assassination attempt self-described “cheerful under the bed of every great Joshua Prager compiles in Dallas and is leading centenarian” looks back black artist from 1920s radio quotes from literary a project that will erase on his life and career star Bert Williams to Miles giants — everyone from the memories of veterans — including his time at Davis to Jay Z.” Shakespeare to Maya returning from Vietnam. Columbia, which turned the McBride succeeds in Angelou — about each year And that’s only one of Bronx-bred son of Russian- laying out some of the most of life from birth to age the dark and dangerous Jewish immigrants into unseemly moments in one hundred. The book is things happening in this a bona fi de “Manhattan Brown’s life, challenging our designed by Milton Glaser, tumultuous, dystopian look smoothie.” assumptions about them, who created the iconic at 1960s–70s America. and showing how those I NY logo. SUPERBOSSES by Sydney assumptions have been REPUBLIC OF SPIN Finkelstein ’88BUS What do informed and fed by deeper TENDER by Belinda by David Greenberg ’01GSAS Alice Waters, Ralph Lauren, currents of racism. Fans of McKeon ’10SOA The heart It’s election season, and and George Lucas have in Brown and his music will wants what it wants, no more than ever it seems common? According to be thankful that McBride matter how inconvenient impossible to tell if we’re Sydney Finkelstein, they are brings them along on his or improbable its object electing the candidates all legendary not only for turbulent journey through an may be. But Catherine, themselves or the spin their own accomplishments, endlessly complex tale. Kill the heroine of Irish writer machines that created but for spawning ’Em and Leave is a passion- Belinda McKeon’s second them. According to David spectacular protégés. ate drama that properly fi ts novel, wants James, a Greenberg, who carefully Finkelstein, a professor at the contours — as best they free-spirited artist, and chronicles the rise of Dartmouth’s Tuck School can be established — of its James, unfortunately for speechwriting and political of Business, spent ten years subject’s monumental life Catherine, wants men. The branding from Woodrow studying these kinds of and afterlife. result is a lyrical ode to Wilson to the present, that infl uencers and explores

JEFFREY SAKS — Eric Liebetrau youthful obsession. cynicism is warranted. their key characteristics.

COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 61

CCU_2.16_Books_FINAL.inddU_2.16_Books_FINAL.indd 6611 55/9/16/9/16 22:58:58 PPMM BOOKTALK Rules of Engagement Former US Army captain Matt Gallagher ’13SOA discusses his new novel, Youngblood — which follows an American lieutenant in Iraq as he investigates a sergeant’s misconduct and another soldier’s disappear- ance — with former US Marine captain Michael Christman ’00SEAS

accurately depict these kinds of interac- MC: There is an emerging group of tions — Elliot Ackerman’s Green on Blue authors who are veterans of the wars is told from an Afghan’s perspective, and in Iraq and Afghanistan. How has that in Mike Pitre’s Fives and Twenty-Fives, community impacted you as a writer? ILLUSTRATION TK one of the narrators is an Iraqi inter- MG: I became part of a veterans’ writer preter. Otherwise, you’d have to go back group based in New York, with members to World War I literature for the enemy like Phil Klay, who won the National to really appear at all. Book Award in 2014 for his book Redeployment. We worried that people MC: You include both military jargon wouldn’t care or take us seriously, but at and Arabic in Youngblood. Were you the same time we felt like we had some- ever nervous that a civilian reader would thing unique to say that wasn’t being fi nd that distancing? represented in the literary community. MG: Writing drafts of the book at With that common goal, we made each Columbia helped with that, because I other better writers. Michael Christman: I found it interest- had a whole classroom full of civilian ing that your novel spends so much time readers who helped me fi nd balance. MC: Why did you decide to join the exploring confl ict within the American I wanted to keep the lingo in there for military? unit, and rumors surrounding the ser- texture, but still make sure it would be MG: For me, it was a combination geant, as opposed to confl icts between accessible for readers of all backgrounds. of factors. I came from a military the Americans and the Iraqis. I’m sure there are some readers out there family, so that mattered. History Matt Gallagher: As you know, there are who think I failed in that regard but was being made, and, like a lot of a lot of social and cultural dynamics at inshallah — all you can do is your best. young people, I wanted to participate play in a military unit. My experience in it, even if I had some personal was positive: I had incredible sergeants MC: Your memoir Kaboom started as a misgivings about Iraq. who viewed my development as a blog while you were stationed in Iraq. lieutenant as part of their job. But I saw What inspired you to return to the same MC: Do you miss the Army or Iraq — from other units that it isn’t always like subject in fi ction? and are those two diff erent things? that. In Youngblood, I wanted to explore MG: I thought I was done with the sub- MG: It’s the old truth: you miss the a much darker side of the military. ject. I started my MFA at Columbia in people, but you don’t necessarily miss the fall of 2011, and I was writing about the institutional madness. Yeah, I MC: We both fought a counterinsur- pretty much anything other than Iraq miss Iraq. There was a daily sense gency in which a typical day might or the military. But then the American of purpose, a clarity of being. Every include a fi refi ght in the morning and military began withdrawing from Iraq. patrol is important because the stakes tea with village elders in the afternoon. I’d write during the day and stay up are so high. I’m no adrenaline junkie, This dichotomy is evident in your at night watching news clips. It seems by any means. I don’t like jumping writing, particularly since you include a almost quaint now, but when our unit out of planes, and I barely speed when lot of strong Iraqi characters. Why was came home in early 2009, we thought I drive, but I did really appreciate showing that important to you? we’d won the war. Two years later, it felt having the sense of purpose. But that’s MG: Being a part of a counterinsurgency very tenuous, so all these questions were so easy to say. I have all of my limbs. means dealing with people face-to- swirling in my mind. I just let myself I came back and went to grad school.

face, but most war literature tends to do one short story at fi rst. It was a slow With one wrong turn or one misstep, MEL

dehumanize the enemy. We’re starting process of bargaining with myself until I this would have been a completely MARCELO to see some examples of books that more fi nally gave up and started the novel. diff erent conversation.

62 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016

CCU_2.16_Books_FINAL.inddU_2.16_Books_FINAL.indd 6622 55/9/16/9/16 22:49:49 PPMM CLASSIFIEDS

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COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 63

CU_2.16_P63_FINAL.indd 63 5/5/16 2:16 PM For Bard Brains Only FINALS Up for a little toil and trouble (or, for College alums, a fl ashback to the Core Curriculum)? To mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death, we asked Columbia English professor James Shapiro ’77CC, author of The Year of Lear, to help us create a quiz to test your knowledge of the Bard’s life and works. Can you ace it? By Marley Marius

What outbreak In what year did 3 caused English 8 Columbia’s copy of theaters to close Shakespeare’s First Folio, — and granted donated by Stephen Shakespeare more Whitney Phoenix 1859CC, time to write poetry 1863LAW, enter its — in early 1593? rare-books collection? A) smallpox A) 1869 B) typhoid B) 1871 C) the bubonic C) 1881 plague Which is Shakespeare’s Which of the 9 shortest play? 4 following A) As You Like It fi rst names did B) The Winter’s Tale Shakespeare C) The Comedy of Errors popularize? A) Paige Which is the missing B) Lorelei 10word from the C) Bianca following line from Othello? D) all of the above “To mourn a ____ that is past and gone / Is the next way Who composed to draw new ____ on.” 5 the “fantasy A) mischief overture” Romeo and B) romance Juliet, inspired by the C) vigor Shakespeare play of the same name? Who of the following A) Tchaikovsky 11once referred to B) Brahms Shakespeare as “the nearest C) Dvořák thing in incarnation to the eye of God”? Where did William Which of the following A) Winston Churchill 1Shakespeare die? 6 movies borrows B) Laurence Olivier A) London important plot points from C) Joseph Conrad B) High Wycombe Hamlet? C) Stratford-upon-Avon A) Throne of Blood (1957) What are the fi nal B) The Lion King (1994) 12 words of Shakespeare’s In what meter are C) Ran (1985) epitaph? 2 the majority of A) “. . . the owner of no one Shakespeare’s plays and What was the name of good quality.” sonnets written? Shakespeare’s wife? B) “. . . cursed be he that 7 © TARKER / CORBIS A) iambic pentameter A) Emily Blunt moves my bones.” B) trochaic tetrameter B) Judith Light C) “. . . all losses are restor’d,

C) dactylic hexameter C) Anne Hathaway and sorrows end.” ANSWERS ANSWERS

64 COLUMBIA SUMMER 2016 12B 11B, 10A, 9C, 8C, 7C, 6B, 5A, 4C, 3C, 2A, 1C,

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