Looking Ahead to the New Academic Year

Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:

As the start of the new academic year approaches, I want to express how much I am looking forward to welcoming new and returning students, faculty, and staff to our campuses. I also wanted to take the opportunity to provide further insight into how I am approaching the role of interim president and to share some important updates that involve all of us.

Over the past several days, I have had the opportunity to meet so many of the wonderful members of our campus community–including members of the A&S Policy and Planning Committee, University Senators, leaders of the New Student Orientation Program (NSOP), resident advisors, incoming students, and dedicated facilities and operations team members (including the beloved Chef Mike). While many of my conversations have focused on our opportunity to move forward in new ways, I have also heard people’s thoughts about the impact of the prior year and the need to recognize that impact.

In addressing that need and shifting our focus to the new year, communication and consultation must be central to all that we do. Thus, building upon a two-day retreat with the school deans, I am writing now to share priorities for the next academic year. These will inform our ongoing dialogue and discussion and help to anchor our actions. These priorities must be situated within the critical work of understanding our recent history and its implications and ensuring our academic preeminence far into the future. I am deeply committed to learning more from our community about the best approaches to that work and will be sharing more about what I learn in the weeks to come.

Our first priority must be to affirm our values and principles so that they can guide our decision-making. This is complicated, of course, and there are many ways to understand what we do and why we do. But in all cases, the central mission of this University is to teach, create, and advance knowledge. Our mission is grounded in a fundamental commitment to free expression, open inquiry, and generous debate; it requires an environment of inclusive pluralism where all our community members can thrive. Violence, intimidation, discrimination, bullying, and any behaviors that prevent teaching, learning, or research are antithetical to our values and our mission.

To create an environment driven by our values and principles, leadership must engage across our community, listening to and learning from students, faculty, staff, alumni, and neighbors. This work will take the form of regular communications; meetings with faculty, students, staff, and alumni; alongside public events, including town halls and panel discussions. Please reach out if I can join you at an event or participate in a discussion. I know that the deans and administrative leadership teams join me in this commitment.

Our university has extraordinary faculty whose scholarship, research and academic excellence provide a critical resource for advancing knowledge and understanding at this pivotal time. I am eager to work with our faculty to leverage our greatest strengths today towards the educational mission. Many thanks to several of the deans who are working together with our faculty to propose innovative approaches in this area. At the same time, we will expand the Campus Climate Working Group, initiated by our Provost, Angela Olinto, that brings together voices from across our more than two dozen schools and units. This group focuses on ways to advance our shared understanding through academic programming, workshops, training, community-building and skills-based programming. I am confident that bringing together experience, resources, and expertise across Columbia will make our efforts more impactful.

There is no doubt that redoubling our commitment to addressing discrimination and harassment and the toll they take will be essential going forward. Under the leadership of Provost Olinto, we are bringing several functions together in a new Office of Institutional Equity led by Vice Provost Laura Kirschstein. The Office will serve as a centralized resource for addressing all reports of discrimination and discriminatory harassment, including reports that involve alleged violations of Title VI and Title VII, reports that involve alleged violations of Title IX and the University’s Gender Based Misconduct Policy, as well as reports that relate to violations of the Protection of Minors Policy. It will serve as a streamlined center with the express goal of ensuring that reports are handled in a fair and timely manner for all parties involved. I am personally committed to making this process more effective for every member of our community who reports such discrimination. Our Provost will be providing further details on this important development.

Effectively managing protests and demonstrations allows us to advance our educational and research missions while enabling free speech and debate. My discussions have made it clear that effective management requires a commitment to a fair application of the rules and thoughtful responses in the moment. I want to add my thanks to the Senate’s Rules of University Conduct Committee for their hard work over the spring and summer in updating the guidelines to our rules. In anticipation of this update, we are focusing on ensuring that our disciplinary processes—including the critical role of the Rules Administrator—will function effectively, efficiently, and equitably to ensure that we are able to achieve our mission and uphold our values and principles. At the same time, I am grateful that the Inclusive Public Safety Advisory Committee will be reenergized to fulfill its charge of providing guidance on how Public Safety practices and policies can best support a safe and an inclusive campus. As an immediate step, I have asked the Committee to conduct listening sessions with our community. Please stay tuned for more on how to participate in those sessions and for more information on this important priority.

Columbia University is a living, breathing organism. It is never static but driven forward by the individuals, groups, and ideas that sustain it. We must understand this institution’s past and the lived experiences of three centuries of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and neighbors. We owe it to them, to ourselves, and to the society we serve to work together to fulfill the mission and unlock the vast potential of this great institution for the centuries ahead. It is important—and sometimes hard—work, and it requires each of us to do our part. I am confident we can do what is needed.

I am eager to welcome our new students and to greet all of you returning to campus as we begin the new semester.

All my best,

Katrina A. Armstrong
Interim President
Columbia University in the City of New York