Fall 2020 SERVING JUSTICE ATTORNEY CATHLEEN PRICE ’92 FIGHTS RACISM IN THE DEEP SOUTH THE JAZZ AGE REMEMBERING A HISTORIC ERA AT WKCR Columbia College Today A lifelong journey begins when each Columbian first steps onto College Walk. Through the Core Competencies of My Columbia College Journey, students balance classwork with communication skills and grades with leadership experiences, cultivating the confidence and habits of mind needed to thrive. Civic and Individual Responsibility • Community Engagement and Inclusion Critical Thinking • Creativity and Innovation • Global Awareness Information and Technological Literacy • Knowledge • Oral Communication Quantitative Literacy • Research • Teamwork and Collaboration Wellness and Resilience • Written Communication Share a lesson learned from your own Journey to help pave the way for our newest Columbians. COLLEGE.COLUMBIA.EDU/JOURNEY/YOURS Contents Columbia College CCT Today VOLUME 48 NUMBER 1 FALL 2020 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alexis Boncy SOA’11 EXECUTIVE EDITOR Lisa Palladino 12 24 30 DEPUTY EDITOR Jill C. Shomer ASSOCIATE EDITOR Anne-Ryan Sirju JRN’09 FORUM EDITOR features Rose Kernochan BC’82 CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Alex Sachare ’71 12 Thomas Vinciguerra ’85 ART DIRECTOR Your Core Stories Eson Chan Generations of alumni celebrate the works, Published three times a year by Columbia College instructors and experiences that shaped them. for alumni, students, faculty, parents and friends. By the Editors of CCT CHIEF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING OFFICER Bernice Tsai ’96 24 ADDRESS Columbia College Today The Legacy of Injustice Columbia Alumni Center 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530, 4th Fl. For Cathleen Price ’92 and the New York, NY 10025 Equal Justice Initiative, confronting the past PHONE 212-851-7852 is essential to righting its wrongs today. EMAIL By Jamie Katz ’72, BUS’80 [email protected] WEB college.columbia.edu/cct 30 ISSN 0572-7820 Opinions expressed are Radio Days those of the authors and do not reflect ofcial positions The dawn of WKCR’s Jazz Age, described by of Columbia College or Columbia University. the mavericks who made it happen. © 2020 Columbia College Today By Alexis Boncy SOA’11 All rights reserved. Cover: Illustrations by James Gulliver Hancock Contents departments alumninews 3 Message from Dean James J. Valentini 41 A Postcard from the Past The pandemic has rewritten the rules of college life. 42 Message from CCAA President Ted Schweitzer ’91, LAW’94 4 Learning to See Plus a conversation with Columbia College Women president Khadijah Sharif-Drinkard ’93. 6 Around the Quads Fall semester update, an addition to Lit Hum, 44 Lions a major gift to Columbia Chemistry and more. Brad Hutton ’92; Anthony “Ace” Patterson ’11; Nicole LaPointe Jameson ’16 10 Roar, Lion, Roar Ten great moments in Lions football. 48 Bookshelf Bricks & Brownstone: The New York Row House 38 Columbia Forum: Horse Crazy: by Patrick W. Ciccone ’03, GSAPP’08 The Story of a Woman and a World in Love with an Animal 50 Class Notes Journalist Sarah Maslin Nir ’08, JRN’10 Just Married! investigates the lives of “horse people.” 84 Obituaries William F. Haddad ’54, JRN’54; Robert L. Gnaizda ’57 CCT 88 Caption This! Now on CCT Online The cartoon caption contests continue. PRINT EXTRAS • Thank you to our FY20 CCT donors • New music video from Anthony “Ace” Patterson ’11 • Photo excerpt from Bricks & Brownstone Like Columbia College Alumni facebook.com/alumnicc View Columbia College alumni photos 03 instagram.com/alumniofcolumbiacollege Follow @Columbia_CCAA ARIEL SCHRAG ’ ARIEL SCHRAG Join the Columbia College alumni network “I think Roar-ee’s just trying to find college.columbia.edu/alumni/linkedin his Ni(etzs)che at Columbia!” The winner of our fourth and final Core Centennial cartoon caption college.columbia.edu/cct contest is Charles J. Huang ’24! Thank you for all your submissions. MATTHEW SEPTIMUS MATTHEW Message from the Dean The Path to Lives of Significance write this message from the den of my home in New Jersey, weeks before the start of the academic year, with many uncer- tainties facing all of us at the College. I have been spending a Ilot of time in this room, which I never thought would serve as my dean’s ofce, but here I am, and yes, it does. I am fortunate to be healthy, to be together with at least part of my family and to have this place to work from. Many others are not so fortunate. Te efects of this pandemic have been devastating. My sympathy goes out to those for whom the cost has been high. Our campus appears to me most often now as the virtual back- ground during a Zoom call. My morning and evening transits along College Walk — to and from Hamilton Hall, with frequent stops to chat with students or faculty — have been replaced by 12 steps on a staircase and nine paces through the living room, stopping to pet our aging, adorable dog. Tese are strange and sobering times. Te scale of today’s crises, Our Eric H. Holder Jr. Initiative for Civil and Political Rights the way they have permeated every aspect of our lives, the continuing will expand its programming to increase opportunities for our uncertainties and the unresolved problems weigh on everyone. entire community to learn, listen and participate in the repair of Te pandemic has rewritten the rules of college life, not just at fawed systems, the reassertion of individual responsibilities and Columbia College but also at almost every school in the country. It the recognition of opportunities to take action. Te new Global has certainly been difcult to plan for a year in which the majority Columbia Collaboratory will move forward from its summer pilot of our students cannot be on campus, and a year during which the phase to engage even more students in the projects of societal traditional activities that join us as a community must yield to the renewal made imperative by the pandemic, creating opportunities imperatives of public health. What we once took for granted now for our undergraduates to connect with global experts — virtually feels precious — seeing students lounging on Low Steps or throw- but no less efectively — while tackling issues of worldwide reso- ing frisbees on South Lawn; sharing the beauty of tree-lined College nance and importance. I feel encouraged that the Columbia Col- Walk with students, faculty and visitors; taking in the elegance of the lege experience will continue to ofer our students a path to lives of windows of Butler Library illuminated at night. signifcance, despite the constraints within which we must operate. But as daunting as this year may be, we can embrace it as an Tere will be few chances to bring alumni together for a while, opportunity to display our ability to respond to any challenge while but our commitment to staying in touch with you remains undi- remaining focused on our objectives. We are always looking for new minished. Your engagement, support and afection for the College ways of doing things, ways that we never would have thought to look will be crucial to bolstering our eforts to navigate this historic for were it not for the disruption of the normal. It is most certainly year. Current students, managing through an academic experience a time when the discipline of Beginner’s Mind will show its value. marked by engagement at a distance, can be uplifted by a strong As some of you know, the centennial celebration of the Core Cur- alumni presence in their lives. New graduates, still gaining their riculum was cut short due to the sudden dissolution of our campus footing, will beneft from the mentorship and guidance of those lives in March. I’m pleased to share that we’ll continue our focus on who have passed through that transition already. And of course, your the Centennial into its 101st year, as Literature Humanities and Con- classmates and friends will be comforted to hear from and connect temporary Civilization, in particular, employ the works of the Core with you through Class Notes, emails or programs you can all join. to investigate social justice and individual rights and responsibilities. A conscious efort to engage one another and maintain our College Te incoming class has just fnished reading the frst six books of community matters more now that we will see each other less. Homer’s Iliad, in tandem with Claudia Rankine’s 2014 lyrical poem Stay safe, and be well. Citizen: An American Lyric, a newer text that focuses on race, visibility and violence in modern America. Tese frst-years and all others tak- ing a Core class this year will continue the project of critically con- sidering how society functions and refects the values of its citizens, James J. Valentini a deliberate and refective experience needed now as much as ever. Dean Fall 2020 CCT 3 4 CCT Fall 2020 Fall 2020 CCT 5 Around Quadsthe Columbia Goes Remote 14 for Fall 2020 DAVID DINI SIPA’ All undergraduate courses will be taught virtually for the fall 2020 semester, according to updates from President Lee C. Bollinger and Dean James J. Valentini on August 14. Approximately 40 percent of Valentini underscored the point in his message: “Te isolation all graduate courses will be taught partially online or in person. of the 14-day quarantine and severe restrictions on campus life Te advancement of the COVID-19 virus in more than 33 create conditions that we feel would be difcult for most students states and territories resulted in the decision to drastically scale to thrive in.” back the number of students living on campus; residential-style While Bollinger said he is optimistic, he acknowledged that the accommodations are now limited to only Columbia College and Columbia community will be living with uncertainty for some time.