More than just a catered dinner and an opportunity to dust off old suits and ties, the first fireside chat of the year gave about 50 undergraduates the opportunity to hear University President Lee Bollinger’s personal views on familiar topics like the Manhattanville expansion, the lasting importance of the Core Curriculum, and building a global free press—at his personal residence Tuesday night.
Beginning with a ten minute introduction on recent developments in Manhattanville, Bollinger did not waste time addressing his administration’s top priority.
“When I started here eight years ago, my line was that if you ranked universities by creativity per square foot Columbia would be first in the world, because we have to achieve this greatness with a fraction of the space that comparable universities have,” he said, adding that the University has long been “starved” for space.
He emphasized Columbia’s right to be in the area just north of campus with “very few residents” and a “declining economy.”
While Bollinger addressed the very familiar topic of Manhattanville, he also took questions from students with more specific interests.
One senior in SEAS explained in fine detail the difficulties he and fellow engineers had encountered finding jobs since, he claimed, the Fu Foundation does not have an engineering co-op, or for-credit internship, program.
After taking a sip of Pellegrino, Bollinger looked to the back of the room where several other administrators were seated.
“I’m sorry. I know nothing about that. We’ll find you an answer though,” he said.
Alexander Spangher, CC ’14, said he felt frustrated by the number of questions related to specific programs and special interests.
“I thought a lot of the questions only served the interests of the questioners…there’s so much bureaucracy involved in running a university, most of the time he probably doesn’t even have control over many of those things,” he said.
Bollinger also fielded questions on his personal views on the potential return of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps to campus.
Bollinger said he and many others in the University Senate are troubled by the discriminatory practices of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
“Of course I value the military enormously, but I do not think that as part of our academic program we should have a program that discriminates against any of our students,” he said, adding that the ROTC’s return will have to be re-evaluated if “don’t ask, don’t tell” is eliminated.
William Prasifka, CC ’12 and an international student from Ireland, said afterward that he was not satisfied with Bollinger’s response to his question about the ROTC.
“He’s a very nice guy of course, but I felt he avoided giving his personal views on the question,” he said, adding that in several of his responses, Bollinger stated someone else’s views, or the popular view on an issue but not his own.
“I’m not sure that it was all that informative, but it’s good to see that they’re making an effort [to connect administrators with students],” he added.
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