News

Bollinger and McRobbie underscore the importance of using paper ballots and of auditing election results in the wake of the voting issues in the Iowa and Nevada caucuses.

President Bollinger announces new steps in the formation of a climate change school and the appointment of a Climate Change Officer. The University will also seek divestment recommendations and is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050. And as the University seeks to become more sustainable, Commencement 2020 will be plastic water-bottle free.

For more than seven decades Mike was an adored and respected Columbia fixture—first as a student, then teacher, Dean, Provost, and President who served for thirteen remarkable years. 

It is with deep sadness that I write regarding the tragic death of Barnard student Tessa Majors. As many of you may be learning this morning, Tessa was attacked while walking through Morningside Park yesterday evening. Despite the efforts of the doctors and nurses at St. Luke’s Hospital, Tessa succumbed to the injuries she sustained in the attack.

President Bollinger in Conversation with Renzo Piano

The experience of working at Columbia, Barnard, and Teachers College differs from other jobs by offering us an opportunity to be part of a distinctive community, one brought together by a laudable mission and enduring values. Columbia Community Service (CCS) combines our institutions’ resources to strengthen organizations that are serving the needs of families and individuals living in our community. Support for CCS is support for public service, and therefore central to our mission. If, in the past, you have joined other members of our community in this endeavor, thank you. If you have not yet contributed, we urge you to consider making this the year that you begin participating.

I write to share that G. Michael Purdy will be retiring from his position as the University’s Executive Vice President for Research on December 31, 2019.

President Lee C. Bollinger releases a statement on the Harvard affirmative action case.

The first initiative begins with the creation of a task force to consider what more the University should be doing with respect to climate change. A related and very significant second initiative also involves a task force and will focus on how to extend Columbia’s abilities to bring the extraordinary knowledge and capacities of the University in tandem with the wider academic community and actors beyond the campus to more effectively address pressing human problems. 

Bollinger and McRobbie, co-chairs of the committee convened in 2016 by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to address voting security, argue that the country should take three steps to strengthen the safeguards for election systems against the mounting cyberthreats. First, increase the cybersecurity of systems used in elections, such as voter registration databases and voting machines. Second and third, use paper ballots and audit election results. 

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

I do not usually circulate within the Columbia community things that I have written, but I am doing so in this instance because I know many around campus—faculty, students, and the administration—are alarmed by recent reports relating to the subject of this particular piece, now published in The Washington Post.  

As I note, the FBI has been encouraging university faculty and administrators to develop protocols to monitor foreign-born students and visiting scholars, with a focus on those who are ethnically Chinese. To be sure, their concerns about unlawful technology transfers, especially in sensitive disciplines relating to national security, are to be taken very seriously. 

But universities cannot start monitoring their own people. That is not who we are. 

At Columbia, we are fortunate that scholars, researchers, and students from more than 150 countries choose to come here to work and study. The atmosphere of dynamism and openness to which they contribute has made American institutions of higher learning the envy of the world. We should be doing more, not less, to attract and retain them.

I am confident that Columbia can thrive as both a law-abiding institution and also a beacon of intellectual freedom and free expression.

Sincerely,

Lee C. Bollinger