Columbia Daily Spectator

Cubmail to transition to Gmail by end of 2012

Ben Gittelson

Say goodbye to Cubmail.

After a year of negotiations, Columbia’s email interface will be making the move to a Google-based client, Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Shollenberger told Spectator on Friday.

The move to a more student-friendly email client reflects a large percentage of students who already forward their columbia.edu email to a personal account. Of the approximately 30 percent who do so, about 90 percent of the forwarded accounts are on Gmail, according to Melissa Metz, director of unix, e-mail and databases at Columbia University Information Technology.

CUIT will roll out the Gmail-like interface in phases. First, 50 to 80 students—some of whom already forward their Columbia email to their personal accounts and others who don’t—will be selected for the trial run by Shollenberger, Columbia College Student Council President Aki Terasaki, CC ’12, and Engineering Student Council President Nate Levick, SEAS ’12.

Later in the year, 1000 students chosen by lottery will make the transition, and by the end of 2012, every undergraduate in Columbia College, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and the School of General Studies will be on the new system. All incoming first-years will have their email set up on the Google system.

The phased rollout is intended to help CUIT recognize and troubleshoot any problems associated with the new system before transitioning it to the student body.

Terasaki said it was “fantastic” that the university was able to make the switch in spite of the logistical concerns.

“I’m glad that it’s finally here,” Terasaki said. “I’m really excited that our senators were able to lead the way on this and take this charge up for the students.”

Terasaki said Gmail is a “better system” that offers more possibilities for integrating features like Google Calendar with academics.

While the new interface’s inbox will still remain separate from a personal Gmail account, University Senator Kenny Durell, CC ’12 and a member of the Information and Communications Technology Committee, said that integration with Google calendars and the school directory would be streamlined.

University Senator Alex Frouman, CC ’12, stressed that the ultimate goal of the initiative is to make this change effective throughout the university, including graduate schools. “We want everybody to have it as soon as they can,” he said.

Metz said CUIT was still working with faculty members to determine “whether the new system was right for them.”

Frouman acknowledged potential legal concerns—for instance, if a columbia.edu email were subpoenaed, the possibility that only Google, and not Columbia, would be informed—but Metz said that, “Ultimately, privacy will not be an issue.” The new system will be under the terms of a Columbia-approved contract, not Google’s new privacy contract.

Eleanor Templeton, director of communications for Student and Administrative Services, said that, in the long-term, “the cost is pretty minimal.” The main expense will come from consulting with an information technology firm about the transition.

Barnard has already made a similar transition from Barnard College Webmail to a web-based Google system. A survey conducted by Barnard College Information Technology in October 2011 showed positive feedback from students.

Concerns about Google Docs’ noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act held up the negotiations because the application is not fully ADA-compliant. The Google Docs functionality will not be part of the new system because of issues with readers for the visually impaired.

Columbia began contract negotiations with Google last January to address privacy and ADA compliance in a consortium called the Common Solutions Group along with 28 other universities including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

Students have voiced their complaints about the outdated look of the Cubmail interface for years. Frouman said that when he first raised the issue in the Senate in fall 2009, he was surprised that nobody in CUIT knew it was a widespread student criticism.

Levick said he was looking forward to seeing how Gmail and Google Calendar would integrate with classes.

“I think it’s an almost universally good move,” Levick said. “I think everyone’s excited.”

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Two-game sweep of Big Red in sight for Columbia

Zach Glubiak

One week after knocking off Cornell 61-56 last Saturday in Levien Gymnasium, Columbia will make the return trip to Ithaca in an attempt to sweep the Big Red for the second year in a row.

In a league where the schedule most often features back-to-back Friday and Saturday games, the format of these two games—the only contests for both teams in a two-week stretch—is a little bit of an oddity.

What does the extended rest mean for this Saturday? According to head coach Kyle Smith, a lot of defense and not a lot of points.

“It’s tough because both teams will be scouted so well,” Smith said. “A lot of thought goes into every possession.”

When the Light Blue does score, expect that production to come in large part from junior point guard Brian Barbour and his classmate, center Mark Cisco. Barbour has averaged 21.3 points per game, and Cisco is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Week after contributing 18 points and 20 rebounds in Saturday’s win. Cisco’s 20 rebounds set a single-game record for Levien.

On the other end of the court, Columbia has reason to feel confident. Defense will likely be the story this weekend, as it has been all year for Columbia. The Lions are ranked 18th nationally in scoring defense this season (out of 345 Division I schools), allowing 59 points per game on 39.3 percent shooting from the field. Last Saturday they held the Big Red to just 33.9 percent shooting.

For Cornell, its threats from beyond the arc will likely lead the charge. Seniors Drew Ferry and Chris Wroblewski lead the Big Red with 12.6 and 9.4 points per game, respectively, while four-time Ivy Rookie of the Week honoree Shonn Miller averages 9.1 points and a team-high 6.3 rebounds. How Columbia matches up with the speed of players like Ferry and Wroblewski, though, may be the key to Saturday’s game.

“I think they’re going to try to spread the ball and go after us a little bit,” Smith said.

Cornell will try to use the speed of its backcourt on defense, too.

“They’re so small and quick and want to press,” Smith said. Breaking that press late in the first matchup when Columbia was fighting to keep the lead proved to be a tall order for the Lions. The Light Blue had 18 turnovers on the night.

“It’s been an Achilles heel for us,” Smith said. “It’s a good thing to have a lead, but we get a little tentative. We have to be more aggressive. I expect them to be more aggressive. At home they’re good, so we’re expecting to see a lot of that. They get you playing a little faster than you want.”

Saturday, Cornell primarily employed the press in the second half, but Smith doesn’t expect the Big Red to wait that long at home, where it’s 6-2 this year, compared to 0-9 on the road.

“I was a little surprised they didn’t come in here and press us at home,” Smith said. “But they played us pretty straight. At home they’re usually a team that gets pretty aggressive on defense. They like to get the pace of the game in their favor and control the tempo by making it chaotic.”

That means that the Lions will have to rely on a fleet of ball handlers to break that press and maintain a slower tempo more suited to Columbia’s low-scoring style. Cornell will likely make it difficult for Barbour to get the ball, meaning guards like sophomore Meiko Lyles, freshman Noah Springwater, senior Steve Egee, and junior Dean Kowalski will all be called upon to bring the ball up the court.

Freshman Alex Rosenberg, a 6-feet-9-inch forward who can put the ball on the floor, may also need to help break Cornell’s press.

If this cadre of ball handlers succeeds in getting the ball upcourt, Columbia’s size may prove decisive. Cisco’s 20 boards last Saturday highlighted a dominant team effort in which the Lions outrebounded Cornell 45-29.

Tipoff against the Big Red is scheduled for 7 p.m. in Ithaca.

Correction: A previous version of this article stated that Meiko Lyles was a junior, rather than a sophomore. Spectator regrets the error.

Embrace Big Red

Editorial Board

Updated:

January 27, 2012 - 6:00am

This Saturday, the Columbia men’s basketball team will travel to Ithaca to face Cornell. Yet the basketball game is hardly the first competition that comes to mind when Columbia and Cornell are mentioned in the same sentence. If the city of New York could have had its way, the most important competition between Columbia and Cornell in the past months would have been the one over the city’s backing for a new engineering campus.

Mayor Bloomberg’s ambition to allocate city resources toward the creation of a new Silicon Valley in New York is admirable. The city’s willingness to grant a sizable plot of land and $100 million shows dedication to this ambition. It is worrisome, however, that the city is framing academia in terms of a competition. Academic institutions tend to view their relationships as one of cooperation rather than competition, and Columbia is no exception.

As it stands, numerous Columbia schools and departments have established cross-registration programs with other institutions in the city—including New York University, The Juilliard School, and the Manhattan School of Music. In fact, Columbia already has experience collaborating with Cornell: Their medical schools share New York-Presbyterian as a teaching hospital.

While we recognize that Cornell Engineering’s presence in New York may threaten the School of Engineering and Applied Science in the short term—especially its ability to attract faculty, researchers, and graduate students—the eventual outcome is hardly certain. Cornell’s presence will increase demand for engineering minds, yet if Bloomberg’s vision of a New York-based Silicon Valley comes true, it will also add to the pool of candidates that the city and Columbia can draw from.

In this scenario, New York would become a more attractive place for engineers. Both Columbia and Cornell would benefit from this agglomeration of talent. The idea of having two elite academic institutions in close proximity is hardly new or threatening—the Berkeley-Stanford, Harvard-MIT, and Chicago-Northwestern relationships would suggest otherwise. Cornell’s or any other school’s success in New York would stand to benefit Columbia at least as much as it stands to diminish it.

It is also important to consider that Cornell does not plan on building a full-scale engineering campus that houses undergraduates. Its proposal focuses on a research center that caters to a small niche of academics. Here it is fairly certain that SEAS’ hegemony as New York’s primary engineering school will remain unchallenged. The content of the SEAS proposal to the city appears to reflect a similar attitude.

The city had clearly laid out its intentions to foster an outside institution’s growth on Roosevelt or Governor’s Island, but Columbia seemed uninterested. Columbia’s proposal focused on expanding its Manhattanville campus, with full knowledge that Manhattanville was not what the city wanted.

Thus we reject the notion that SEAS and Cornell Engineering are in competition. Instead we look forward to the opportunity for cooperation and mutual benefit.

Getting back to basketball, though … go Lions!

Big BAM Theory

Abby Mitchell and Olivia Aylmer

This year, Brooklyn Academy of Music celebrates a milestone birthday, and all of New York City is invited to its yearlong party. Its ideal guest list might include Gertrude Stein, Isadora Duncan, and Sufjan Stevens—just a few of the acclaimed performers to grace its stage over the past 150 years.

BAM, which proudly holds the title of America’s oldest performing arts center, has served as a haven for avant-garde performances that draw diverse crowds since opening its doors in the 1861-62 season. Today, it continues to lead the way in artistic innovation, and extends its reach both internationally and within the neighborhood.

In its own literature, BAM defines its role as a “home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas.” Adventurous today, indeed, but in the 1860s this fearlessness was far from BAM’s reality.

In the late 1800s, when BAM was born, the theater world in New York at large was becoming more controversial, with members of different social classes clashing in riots in downtown Manhattan.

According to Lehner, BAM was the “conservative backlash” to those events, and steered away from topical pieces.

This is “just after a time when we’re having prostitution in the balcony of theaters, so there a lot of associations that theaters are low brow,” Lehner said. “For the first year at BAM, the trustees said, ‘We are having no theater whatsoever, this is just going to be for music.’”

At the same time, BAM has always played into “Brooklyn pride,” demonstrating the borough’s independent identity. One of the founders said in archival documents, “We want to keep Brooklyn dollars in Brooklyn.”

Fast-forward to the 1960s, when BAM had started engaging in more experimental programming in an effort to attract people to Brooklyn, while staying true to its community-based roots.

As Lehner said, “This institution grew organically out of a consciousness about what it means to be Brooklyn, what it means to not be in Manhattan, and what it is to attract people to here.”

Having worked at BAM for over a decade, Lehner has watched the institution blossom and sees the upcoming season as an opportunity to prove BAM’s relevance, along with celebrating 21st century Brooklyn’s unique culture beyond the shadow of Manhattan.

In the upcoming months, BAM is reaching inside its vault of abundant archival materials, welcoming art mavens and newcomers alike to interact with its rich past. “From Caruso to Cunningham,” the first installment of a two-part exhibition, will run through August 2012 in the Peter Jay Sharp Building Lobby. It will take visitors on a journey from its early days on Montague Street to its current state as a 21st century home for legendary art, music, dance, film, theatre, and opera offerings.

But it was Lehner who dug deep to find and chronicle BAM’s long and storied history—no easy feat, considering that the original BAM opera house on Montague burned to the ground, taking all its treasures with it in November 1930.

Later on, in 1977, BAM was hit with another natural disaster: A 30-inch city water main burst nearby, which caused severe flooding in its two main stages on Lafayette.

Finding these lost archival materials has been akin to putting a gigantic puzzle back together again, with employees going so far as to dig through old newspaper clippings and toiling through the Library of Congress archives. The silver lining lies in how much of its fascinating history they have rediscovered as a result.

Despite the curatorial struggles, a wealth of materials—lectures from nineteenth-century intellectuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and thousands of photographs, among others—is now available to everyone from students to scholars to historians to the artists themselves.

But throughout its history, BAM has worked to move beyond the limitations of the creative and artistic world, opening its doors to intellectual and political discourse.

Before BAM became a city-owned not-for-profit organization, it invited everyone from local politicians to the president to speak on its stage.

In 1940, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt came to speak at BAM on the campaign trail, there were over 2,000 people seated in the opera house, more than 6,000 on the street outside, and still more packed on the stage.

Reflecting back on BAM’s origins, this is hardly surprising.

In the early 1820s, according to Lehner, there were different trade unions popping up all over the city and in Brooklyn that demanded more of a public place in art and culture.

“Something that really doesn’t exist anymore is the idea of the free university,” she said. “It’s a new idea in 1820 that people should have access to culture. This is not something that people thought working people needed to have.”

Come February 15, BAM will revive this tradition with its Iconic Artist Talk program, featuring influential artists who will explore the evolution of their work at the Academy. Attendees can expect to glimpse exclusive original performance footage and images straight from the BAM Hamm Archives. Guests will include Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, Bill T. Jones, and Chuck Davis.

BAM’s outreach efforts have proven one of the most enduring aspects of its legacy. Its education program interacts annually with up to 24,000 students and 200 NYC schools. “It’s not a ‘center,’ it’s a home, so it should be comfortable and accessible, and warm, and where people can feel like they belong and have a stake in it,” Lehner said.

It’s this willingness to welcome all that has accounted for a large part of BAM’s success.

“One absolutely stellar aspect of BAM is its ticket pricing—so many levels create honest to goodness possibilities for someone to have live performance art in their lives in a way that won’t send them to the poorhouse,” said Barnard’s dance department’s assistant chair Katie Glasner,

While BAM is taking every opportunity to look back into its inspiring past, it has spent equal time looking ahead to the future. In September 2012, the Richard B. Fisher Building is scheduled to open.

Designed by Hugh Hardy, it will marry sustainable features with community interaction: use of day-lighting and sun shades, storm water collection, and a green roof will facilitate a whole new host of performances and programs for the decades to come.

Additionally, BAM is extending its international reach, recently collaborating with the U.S. State Department on DanceMotion USA, a program that promotes cultural exchange through dance, according to Paul Scolieri, assistant professor of dance at Barnard, and former manager of education and humanities at BAM. Said Glasner, “BAM became a mini United Nations of art.”

A borough away, BAM still remains relevant to Columbia students. Last fall, Glasner started off the semester by having students from her Dance in NYC class venture to BAM to see Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Baroque opera “Atys.”

Meanwhile, Scolieri, who is currently teaching a seminar called Performing the Political, is “delighted” that artists working with this year’s tour will come to discuss their preparations with his class later this semester.

Over its lifetime, BAM has stayed true to itself as a rare New York cultural gem, and more importantly, a gathering place. As Lehner said, “For 150 years we’ve been a place that thought about itself as more than a performance venue for art with a capital ‘A.’”