News

"Not since the McCarthy era has our country experienced such an effort to neuter the press and evade the government accountability that comes only through meaningful reporting. Consider what could lie ahead."

President Bollinger joins the Columbia community in mourning the loss of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (LAW'59). 

In an email to the Columbia community at the start of the 2020 fall semester, President Bollinger reflects on the unusual circumstances in which the University finds itself starting the academic year.

Kim Lew, Vice has been named President and Chief Executive Officer of the Columbia Investment Management Company, responsible for managing the University’s endowment.

Bard Hall, the CUIMC residence hall named after slaveowner and founder of Columbia's medical school, will be renamed.

While Columbia’s graduate and professional schools will proceed as planned, only limited numbers of undergrads will be living in dorms, and undergraduate courses will be online.

"We are all rightly being called upon to do more and to begin again, with a great sense of honesty and new purpose." 

It is my honor to announce that Columbia is establishing the Columbia Climate School, the first new school in 25 years at the University and an institution that I have every expectation will be the most important climate school in the United States. 
 

It is now the moment to focus our attention on how the University will operate in the coming academic year. As you might imagine, no decisions in our history have been taken with more seriousness, care, or rigor than the ones we set forth here and in following correspondence. 

I’ve just announced Columbia’s approach to reopening in the fall. I also want to address a specific group of students, our international students, whose lives have been particularly disrupted by COVID-19—and who are now the subject of a deeply misguided new decision by the U.S. government.

Today, I write in response to the Trump administration’s recently issued proclamation expanding the existing restrictions on immigration to also cover non-immigrants who seek entry into the United States under certain visas—H-1B and J-1, specifically. Unfortunately, even tragically, the new restrictions will make it harder for faculty, physicians, and research scholars to enter the United States.

I write to announce that Juneteenth, June 19, 2020, will be a University holiday for all students, faculty, and staff.

But the horrifying ending of the life of George Floyd, a citizen in the very system of justice intended to protect him, and us, which then, along with other recent tragic deaths, drew back the curtains on centuries of invidious discrimination against African Americans, and others, did that. My hopes for a renewed sense of national purpose to continue the heroic efforts of so many, over so many generations, to change once and for all that terrible course of history have been raised, and then deflated.

I am writing to announce that I have appointed Troy Eggers Interim Dean of the School of Professional Studies, as of July 1, 2020. Troy is currently Executive Vice Provost of the University, a position he will maintain during his tenure as Interim Dean.