Getting Ready for the Start of a New Academic Year

Dear members of the Columbia community,

This week at Columbia, despite the lingering summer warmth, autumn beckons. On every campus, in each of our 17 schools, we’re gearing up for the start of the new academic year, the arrival of our newest Columbians, and the return of our community to the crisp, vibrant bustle of the fall term—that yearly, energetic promise of new beginnings.

Our residential advisors, New Student Orientation Program leaders, and many of our student athletes are already back. It was a thrill to drop by to see our football players, who had assembled for their inaugural team meeting in Havemeyer Hall. They were buoyed by a surprise guest—Robert Kraft, who played freshman football here 66 years ago—and watched as he slid on his new Ivy League Championship ring with pride.

The rest of campus has been humming with other welcome and familiar sights: suitcases bumping across New York sidewalks, boxes hauled out of double-parked cars, parents given tours and hugs, as our graduate and professional school students move into their University apartments and go through their orientations. This weekend, our first-year students, including our international students, will move into their residence halls, attend Convocation, and start our New Student Orientation Program.

For some of our incoming students, it will be their first time meeting people from across the country and the globe, experiencing new cultures and different points of view. For many of them, it will be their introduction to living in New York, our institution’s hometown and the most compelling, challenging, and transformative city in the world. This exuberant blend is the essence of Columbia. At a deans’ retreat earlier this week, we focused on the fall and how to best support that diversity of thought, experience, and background, in keeping with our commitment to academic excellence and freedom, and to a campus climate where students, faculty, and staff can thrive.

We also discussed what defines Columbia’s culture and community. Excellence, of course, across the board—scholars and students driven to explore and push boundaries. Yet also, as Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dean Carlos Alonso noted, being at Columbia is being part of the fabric of something bigger. Our culture is an ever-changing ecosystem, amplified by New York and our connection to the world. We can disappear into the city streets and return to campus with more knowledge to offer, or spend a few hours in a class challenged by novel ideas or opinions and come away with new ways of thinking to share.

We can’t wait to add the energy and insights of our newest students to the unique and vibrant mix that is Columbia.

Sincerely,

Claire Shipman
Acting President, Columbia University in the City of New York