What Columbia Stands For and How We Lead

Dear members of the Columbia community:

I want to wish each of you a very Happy New Year and a warm welcome to our upcoming Spring semester.

Throughout the course of this academic year, I have been emphasizing Columbia’s mission, the ways we are enriching community engagement, and the steps being taken to safeguard freedom of expression, reject discrimination, and appropriately manage protests and other disruptive activity. Today, as we enter a new year and reflect on this time of global uncertainty, I want to focus on the vital importance of institutions and the unique educational experience that we create together at Columbia University. Institutions, most especially universities, play a crucial role in preserving knowledge, in fostering critical thinking, and in guiding society through complex problems. They serve as centers for research, innovation, and dialogue, helping to address pressing issues by providing space for various perspectives. Universities prepare future leaders by embracing collaboration, resilience, and adaptability and by ensuring that decision-making is well-informed and thoughtful. Indeed, it is in turbulent times that universities are most needed, often serving as anchors of stability and progress even amid adversity.

At Columbia, it is our teaching and scholarship, research and experimentation, and creativity and boldness that bring students and faculty here from across the world to continue their learning and their pursuit of new knowledge in fields of extraordinary intellectual possibility. Unifying this panoply of academic pursuits is our embrace of a set of ideals that have long been revered by American society and societies around the globe: intellectual curiosity and humility, a belief in the power of science, value in artistic expression, fidelity to the truth and facts, and trust in successive generations of budding scholars to build upon the accomplishments of their esteemed predecessors. This special Columbia environment, 270 years in the making, allows academic disciplines to fuse together in ways both intentional and serendipitous to achieve stunning advances in knowledge and understanding.

I am always mindful that each of you held other options for your education or had other choices for establishing a career in the academy. You chose this University because you saw in Columbia an institution with history and guiding principles that resonated with you personally. An element of Columbia’s greatness is our shared level of ambition for humanity, a vision grounded in idealism, optimism, and hope. By choosing to make Columbia your home, you have likely found inspiration in this vision. I know that many of us, upon visiting Columbia for the very first time or returning here after summer vacation or winter break, feel a thrilling sense of wonder and excitement born of the vast potential that our University possesses. The privilege I have had these past four months, serving as your Interim President and observing our remarkable people and their work up close has only heightened my own belief in Columbia’s power to be a global leader in education and research and, through these essential endeavors, accomplish great good for society.

I want to thank all of you for helping to ensure that Columbia fulfills its potential and its responsibilities as an institution in our world today. We must continue to abide by our foundational principles while meeting this consequential moment in our history. I believe that every generation of Columbians has a shared responsibility both to enliven the best of our University and to meet its own challenges as stewards of this extraordinary institution. This is our time, and we will rise to do what is necessary to fulfill the potential of Columbia’s promise and leave it stronger for future generations.

I hope you have a good winter break, and I look forward to all we will accomplish in the semester ahead.

All my best,
Katrina Armstrong
Interim President, Columbia University in the City of New York