On Monday evening, a group of undergraduates traveled one block east of campus, hung up their coats, and climbed a twisting marble staircase. They had given up an evening of midterm studying to spend time with University President Lee Bollinger at his 116th Street and Morningside Ave. home for a Fireside Chat.
This one didn’t pack the mansion, perhaps because the date was postponed due to a death in Bollinger’s family.
Bollinger entered and perched on a wooden stool, taking swigs of sparkling water between answering—and asking—questions. He opened by saying he was thinking about this weekend’s retreat with the Board of Trustees and his upcoming spring break trip to open Columbia Global Centers in Paris and Mumbai. Over the evening, the free speech scholar hit on his perennial favorites: globalization and Columbia’s place in it, and Manhattanville and the University’s need for space.
The first student to ask a question addressed the status of financial aid at the School of General Studies. The GS student said he’d learned lessons from the “school of hard knocks,” yet despite working hard to get here, he discovered that “GS is really underfunded.”
In response, Bollinger outlined university finances—GS’s endowment is much smaller than the College’s—and the difficulties of diverting funds toward specific schools.
The question kicked off a stream of queries that touched on the Core Curriculum, generational travel habits, and the public component to the Manhattanville expansion.
When a student asked about the “shopping aspect” in Manhattanville plans, Bollinger quickly corrected him, saying he would call it a “public layer,” one that arose after years of negotiations in pursuit of a Community Benefits Agreement.
Bollinger emphasized his devotion to Harlem, and reminded the audience that he was not requesting the use of eminent domain against residents.
He pointed out that while he at one point had an opportunity to open up Columbia buildings in midtown, he passed because “that’s turning back on our home.” The University’s Manhattanville Environmental Impact Statement gives more detail, saying the land they were considering encompassed nine acres located “at the southern end of the Riverside South development area, a large-scale mixed-use project being built between West 59th Street and West 72nd Street west of West End Avenue.” Columbia sought space elsewhere, the EIS notes, because the midtown area had less space than desired and was far from campus.
Bollinger polled students to see who had traveled abroad (many), spent time in China (few) and Africa (fewer). People seem to travel more frequently now than in previous years, he said, stressing the continued importance of the Global Centers. He added that Columbia is discussing a potential World Leaders Forum engagement with French President Nicholas Sarkozy.
Rachel Boehr, GS, asked Bollinger how to “maximize one’s time here,” since the “plethora of opportunities” can be overwhelming. Bollinger responded that in his own life, he goes through cycles: “I have had these periods where you just want to be out doing lots of things,” he said, “and these periods where you say, I just have to read these 30 books. I cannot think of myself as an educated person unless I know these 30 books. Then there are 30 more after that.”
In some of these intense reading periods, Bollinger said that he’s consumed the entire works of George Orwell and Virginia Woolf. And he reads “Shakespeare a little bit every single day.”
Bollinger took his last question from Laura Taylor, CC ’10, about his career, shook a few hands, and dashed away for a phone call. Students mingled and hoarded takeout cartons of the Chinese food spread.
Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti, CC ’12, said she was glad she got to see a side of Bollinger that “was pretty candid.”
“I wish we had spent more time on straight talk as opposed to the rhetoric that is always dished out,” Kipp-Giusti added, though she said she recognized that he’s a “public figure” with “an agenda.”
Todd Nelson, CC ’12, enjoyed his glimpse of life at 60 Morningside Drive. “It’s a great forum to talk to someone who we never get to see,” he said, three takeout cartons in hand.
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