<p>I’ve always felt that to be the case at any liberal school. The best thing to do is not pay any mind. You must be from out of state. New York is always full of protests and stupid liberals advocating causes nobody cares about.</p>
<p>This does not happen only at Columbia, take the short walk to City College, A low ranking public college. The same protests go on, except those students feel that they were not given the same opportunity as wealthy students so they complain even more.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, my best friend’s big brother went to Columbia. Due to protest/riots they actually canceled classes one year he was there, for at least one semester. The school was completely shut down. His brother came home & just hung out. Sometime in the late 60s.</p>
<p>Of course that was Vietnam era, but Columbia was out there, then.</p>
<p>Now, it seems a bit odd to me, since I read all these CC posts to the effect of “which school gives me a better chance at I-banking jobs?”, etc., rather more than “describe the campus political/activist community?”</p>
<p>As for “HYC”, just several years after that, when I was applying, Columbia was renting space in the Ivy cellar with Penn and my own alma mater.So from where I sit it’s actually come a long, long way. But I don’t know if its stature was a whole lot different immediately before the riots.</p>
<p>" But I don’t know if its stature was a whole lot different immediately before the riots."</p>
<p>from what i’ve heard it was, after the riots good profs left, rep was tarnished, fewer applicants and new york city went to hell and that severly compounded the problem. so it a few factors but the riots were definitely one of them. in the early and mid 20th century, it was harvard and columbia as the richest, most successful schools in the country. yale and princeton(a little) were up there too.</p>
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<p>If nobody cared, there wouldn’t be protests though, would there? ;)</p>
<p>Let me guess..naboutboul is a republican/conservative..
grrr…
you could at LEAST show some respect to other political convictions, and not be so contentious..</p>
<p>WiseOWL’s post is an excellent summary of the situation. Said it better than I could.</p>
<p>The university’s fall from being considered on par with HYP started in the 1950s but had much more to do with the 1980s than the student protests in the late 60s. In the 1980s, financial mismanagement of columbia’s endowment and budget nearly caused the institution’s ruin. They used to own much, much more land in manhattan than they do now, including the land under rockefeller center (for which they were getting hundreds of millions per year), and were forced to sell it to make up short-term financial shortfalls. They still own plenty of land, but the hiccup in financing (and it was a rather public ordeal) was followed by a hiccup in prestige.</p>
<p>nothing lasts forever (even cold november rain), and columbia may yet reassert itself in the ranks of HYP, probably due to factors stemming from its location. But to blame its status on student protests ignores much more real, business-world events. The 1968 protests were a watershed event for the university, but in light of the times (ex: Kent State shootings), they actually were not all that far off the deep end.</p>
<p>In my own mind, at the time, Columbia’s, and Penn’s, situation when I applied had a great deal to do with the condition of their respective cities, and neighborhoods. And, mostly in Penn’s case, the rather bad rap big-business and Wall Street had at that particular time.</p>
<p>Another big issue was, most of its competition had gone co-ed in the immediately preceding years; while Columbia remained single-sex. I bet this had a lot more impact than prior years’ protests.</p>
<p>Having been the hotbed of student protests would have been considered a positive by many applicants actually, at that time. But not to the extent of violence, riots and terminated semesters though.</p>
<p>There was a lot going on back then, at a lot of schools, which I’d think would have reduced any particular “protest stigma” attached to Columbia. For one, Cornell was a school that was really hurt by student protests of the era. There was a photo of students taking over the student union, with a guns and bullet belts in hand, that was circulated in newspapers and magazines across the country. A number of prominent faculty members left there in protest over the administration’s handling of the demonstrations.</p>
<p>I wasn’t paying attention to the college scene a few years before, though. </p>
<p>As for the 50s, or the turn of the century- I daresay nobody on CC, and few people who are not retired, has any memory of Columbia’s status in those times, whatever it may have been. I imagine at one time William & Mary and Union College were hot stuff, too. Beyond a certain point it probably doesn’t have so much bearing on the present circumstance, as much as other more recent factors.</p>
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<p>Listen, I am actually democratic, and am all for empowering the youth, and giving the people a say, etc. etc. etc.. I just feel that in NYC the second someone disagrees with something, it’s time to protest. I see the PETA advocates everywhere. I understand the reason behind their protests, and condone their right to protest. It is just overwhelming at many times, not being able to walk around without someone sticking a flier in your face, or following you around asking you to support their causes. But really some people take their right to protest too far and will protest anything such as Columbus Day just to practice that right. What is protesting Christopher Columbus’ methodology going to change? There are more important issues that society should be addressing, and that is part of what upsets some people. Sure when people are advocating putting an end to child labor in Mexico it is great. However, it has become more of a trend to protest whatever you feel like. I find myself pondering are these people accomplishing anything by protesting Columbus Day, or protesting red meat? I personally don’t think so. After a while you grow alarmingly upset, being a student and when a real issue comes up, people are too busy attending to their stupidity to support a cause. Protesting Bush’s regime is fine, but Columbus Day is pointless and just a waste of everyone’s time. </p>
<p>I personally do not attend Columbia, I will be attending CUNY on a full scholarship, but at my HS, when people would bring up a rally for a good cause, the school would shut it down. Why? Cause they were too busy trying to control the students protesting the school’s lunch menu. It just upsets me how a lot of these protesters are simply protesting for the heck of it, when other issues are evidently more important, as they directly effect more lives.</p>
<p>Embroidered onto a velvet blue background were the words, “For God, For Country, for Yale” and I remember thinking, “whereever I go, I hope I find that sense of community”. And for some reason, I don’t think Columbians quite have achieved the “For God, for Country, for Columbia” affection yet.</p>
<p>A bit of questioning (or protesting in our case) is actually quite healthy as long as it is kept within reasonable bounds. You are SEAS, so you probably aren’t in LitHum, but take one of Socrates’ major anologies from the Apology (a key work of the core) for example. Before he is sentenced to death, he compares himself to a gnat, buzzing with his philosophy at the sleeping beast of Athens. With this buzzing and philosophical questioning, he hopes to awaken the horse, to cause him to re-evaluate and re-think, to improve. The student protestors here, in my opinion, are the gnat-like component of our society that is constantly buzzing at the administration to RE-THINK and RE-EVALUATE current values. Then, perhaps, what you might classify as a flippant dismissal of Columbian pride is, quite on the contrary, a gesture of support that is congruent with our true core values.</p>
<p>Hopefully my buzzing on this thread may cause you to re-evaluate your admiration for the contradicting nature of an intellectual institution, such as Yale, propogating such a dogmatic kind of loyalty.</p>
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<p>I would agree with this but I think the current hunger strikers are not a good example of this. The ESC wrote a really good response to them which I know everyone in SEAS got.</p>
<p>I’m in CC guys…</p>
<p>[The</a> Bwog: BREAKING: 1968 all up in here](<a href=“http://www.bwog.net/articles/1968_all_up_in_here#comments]The”>http://www.bwog.net/articles/1968_all_up_in_here#comments)</p>
<p>well here it is then:</p>
<p><em>ESC Statement on the Hunger Strike</em></p>
<p>/November 13, 2007/</p>
<p>A hunger strike is a drastic measure usually reserved for the most extreme causes; it is currently being used on our campus in a manner that is inappropriate and self-defeating. Regardless of the merit of the demands made by the strikers, the tactics being employed have completely overshadowed the issues that they have sought to resolve. Not only have these actions undermined any progress that could have been made towards these goals, they have endangered the health and well-being of several members of our community. Although we have nothing but the best wishes for the individual members of our community and their prompt return to normal collegiate life, we cannot support institutional change based upon intimidation.</p>
<p>Had the strikers approached the administration in a spirit of cooperation, they would have discovered that many of their demands were already being addressed. Furthermore, the current protest has thus far failed to produce any results beyond meetings. The faculty hiring actions that have been announced within the past week were part of a cluster hire that had already been planned. Many resources are available to promote and facilitate student interaction with the administration, including the undergraduate Student Councils and the University Senate Student Affairs Committee, none of which were approached for support, administrative contacts, or guidance before the hunger strike began.</p>
<p>Institutional change takes time. The most recent hunger strike that took place on our campus in 1996 resulted in the creation of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race. Significant reforms to both of these organizations are among the strikers list of demands. Sensational activism results in band-aid solutions that eventually prove inadequate and ill-formed, and in many cases the four-year span of an undergraduate’s time at this University is not enough to see change happen. The recent reforms made to Columbias advising system have been many years in the making and were made with the full support of the student body. The students who began the conversation that resulted in these reforms as well as the students who continued those conversations had long been graduates when the changes began, and yet the full change is still not complete. Meaningful change in the university requires purposeful, direct, and continued actions toward well-defined goals, not overly broad and general demands rushed to completion.</p>
<p>The hunger strikers have taken our community hostage in a show of sensationalism. They have chosen self-harm to promote their agenda instead of working with their fellow students, the faculty, and the administration towards mutually beneficial and agreed upon change. These fallacious arguments have not allowed for dissent in an open forum that facilitates a fair, equal, and respectful discussion. The ESC calls for an immediate end to the hunger strike and requests that interested parties proceed through legitimate and proven University channels to motivate institutional change. At that time, the ESC will gladly support the dialogue surrounding any and all issues on our campus.</p>