By Miya Lee “I was trying to think of some talking points for this, but usually the things I say are so vulgar I would never want them in print!” Iqraz Nanji, CC ’18, jokes shortly after we meet at the Hungarian Pastry Shop one almost-warm afternoon. Between bites of bright yellow lemon cake, Nanji explains that his most outlandish comments are usually reserved for the “safe space” of The Federalist, a non-partisan, satirical newspaper on campus for which Nanji was managing e

Think Columbia elections are boring? Varun Devatha, Cornell ’19, recently survived being disqualified over a supporter’s meme containing the Cornell logo to win the presidency by 48 votes after a last minute turnover of the student government’s ruling. Now you can thank the Columbia Elections Commission for such a boring election. *** A widely denounced post cost US Senator Toqa Badran a couple of votes in the last election. Only, she liked the post before the original author

A conversation with Erik Gray By Caroline Hurley Editor-in-Chief Caroline Hurley sat down with Professor of English Erik Gray for this month’s Conversation, where they discussed everything from rap music to love to mid-20s emotional indifference. Professor Gray, known for his expressive lectures on poetry, holds an esteemed gold nugget rating on CULPA and his Romantic Poetry course is a must-take before graduating. Gray’s most recent book, The Art of Love Poetry, was recently

Columbia continues age-old tradition of awarding fake degrees By Zoe Dansdill 1. Alexander Hamilton The first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury still stands in front of his namesake Hamilton Hall as one of Columbia’s most famous alumni. After entering what was then King’s College in 1774, Alexander Hamilton later worked to revive King’s College as Columbia College, and was awarded an Honorary Degree of Master of Arts in 1788, and served as a trustee of the College until his deat

Graduate students hit the picket line, demand that Prezbo bargain By Mary Dawson When the Graduate Workers of Columbia (GWC) gave a deadline for Columbia to start bargaining or else, they already created the hashtag CUonStrike. Months have passed since the union’s certification by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), punctuated by increasingly drastic actions taken by the union in the attempt to gain recognition by the University. Now, hundreds of recitations and Core c

From the Travel Desk: A freshman experiences New York’s underground poker scene On a particularly boring Wednesday afternoon I received a text from a contactless number: “Use the door halfway down the alley, take the elevator down to the basement, and tell them that Kevin sent you.” A few hours later I step up to a nondescript gray metal door and a large man dressed in all black stepped out as if he knew I was coming. With eyes mostly focused on his phone and a casually skept

Through the scratched glass of the sky painted window, In the center of the kitchen that we all wished was a couple feet wider, There is a family and a table, a square table. Dancing blonde hair tickles eyeballs and their pupils While ketchuped lasagna is scooped into smiles and maybe even giggles. Stories are told and responded to with stories. Trying to plan Christmas, our Christmas. Trying to repay our parents With a painting of their children enjoying the world In

In which our hero solidifies summer plans ‘There is something distasteful in the informality of email,’ thought Verily as he opened up his Gmail inbox for the day. Lesser men might have trays full of unread emails, but Verily kept a great deal of pride in his uncluttered inbox. But, lo! Today he had a new message from the Sales and Trading department at Morgan Stanley, the email for which he had been waiting! Verily had been a successful trader in the early ’70’s, but had tur

Affirmative Stumbling bleary-eyed out of Butler as the sun begins to peer bashfully over the horizon, one often struggles to free oneself from a clenching of the mind, perhaps manifest on such an occasion as infrared flashes of panic or as languorous treacle clouds of despondence rolling across the field of consciousness. It’s easy for these moments to figure most prominently in an erratic lattice of memory that is intricate and consequential enough to prompt judgements of ‘w

By Ryan Mohen The first thing you find when you search Google for Toni Airaksinen’s name is an extremely active Twitter account with countless tweets linking to news articles; a whole host of different publications fill her bio. Airaksinen, BC ’18, is an extraordinarily prolific writer who focuses on hot-button campus issues at Columbia and around the country. When I asked about who she writes for and how frequently, Airaksinen told me, “Right now I write about eight or nine

During her inauguration this February, President Sian Beilock of Barnard noted, “In computer science, … there are important areas like artificial intelligence, open data, ethics and privacy where we can be out front.” All Barnard needs is a Computer Science Department. It’s not as if Barnard students don’t major in computer science at all. The number of Barnard students interested in Computer Science has grown exponentially since 2006. However, as Barnard does not have its ow

I’ll admit it–when Professor Erik Gray brought up Lionel Trilling in this month’s Conversation interview (pg. 20), I had absolutely no idea who he was talking about. A couple of Google searches later and I find out he was one of the most prominent literary critics and professors that Columbia and New York City has ever seen. And I, an English major in Trilling’s former department, had zero clue who he was. Am I embarrassed by this admission? Maybe a little, but on further ref