March 2026 Letter from the Editor

Hello down there,

On the seven-and-a-halfth floor of the Philosophy building, tucked away on a dead-end stair landing, sits a lone desk. If this does not immediately invoke an image for you, go visit it. There you will find a Platonic ideal of the scholar, books spread before them, facing the wall, isolated from the bustle of the staircase. But whether you opt for the laggard elevator or the five flights of stairs, it is difficult to reach this desk, to leave your friends, your campus, your city, to recede into your mind and—as the kids say—‘lock-in.’

Whether knowledge is best acquired in seclusion or in public is a question faced by both the student and their institution. Among the most cutting–and by far the briefest—insult that can be lobbed at a university is to say it is an ‘ivory tower.’ Columbia is called an ‘ivory tower’, amply and often. Our campus, guarded by iron gates and built of noble marble, provides an apt image of our modern understanding of academia as aloof and distant from the world it studies. The phrase traces its origins to the Bible, where ‘ivory tower’ was used to describe a neck (Song of Solomon 7:4, “Your neck is like an ivory tower”). And Columbia University has, at times, grown an extremely long neck. In fact, our brains seem to be flopping around in the exosphere. 

The phrase is effective in calling attention to people or topics that have been left out, but rarely an accurate summation of the intellectual situation. It is a tool, for better or worse, of lobbyists, activists, and critics. In 1938, Columbia professor and philosopher Irwin Edman argued that a university located in New York City, with a politically engaged philosophy department, and “that has contributed brain trusts to help the government and edify the humorists, that maintains a school of journalism,” could never be considered an ‘ivory tower.’ 

And just as we can do the painful tracing of money and ideas from our campus to the broken world, the scholar’s desk cannot remain completely peaceful. We were harshly reminded of this last month, when federal agents, pretending to be police officers, entered University housing and detained a student. Anti-ICE advocates from all over the city joined students in protesting outside the University gates, and ultimately, intervention from the mayor and the president resulted in her release. Though there may be benefits to an ascetic seclusion, you won’t find them at Columbia, nor in the pages of The Blue and White. 

In this issue, our writers leave the ivory orbs that house their brains to bring us dispatches from the all-knowing elsewhere. Aliyaah Hamid works her way through the newly reopened Studio Museum in Harlem and learns lessons from her fellow patrons. David Kramer brings a snack to an pensive tortoise named George, who lives in the basement of a Broadway pet store. Julian Rodriguez connects with his classmates in Acting I, and thinks you should too. 

Other articles explore that ruckus at the foot of our imagined ‘ivory tower’, and the practical trials of political engagement. Nnema Épée-Bounya makes contact with talented writer-poets of yesteryear through archived editions of Phat Mama, Barnard’s Black Literary Magazine. Jeremiah Barron investigates living in the tower itself in his feature detailing the history and fraught present of the Columbia Tenants’ Union. Eli Baum’s Campus Character of Maryam Alwan, GS ’25, tells the story of the 2024 encampments from her perspective, and dissects how subsequent changes in campus activism and university policy linger today. 

In our humor section, Rocky Rūb and Iris Eisenman discuss, at length, The Federalist’s recent article riffing on The Blue and White’s lack of financial resources and readers. Despite any evidence to the contrary, our magazine is also not the warped creation of solitude. Each piece within is the product of an exchange of ideas between the writer, an editor, an illustrator, and the campus itself. And so, this copy need not be cloistered away either. Read us publicly, read us out-loud, read us critically. From our bony steeple to yours, please enjoy. 

Natalie K. Buttner

Editor-in-Chief