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FA LL 2019
COLUMBIA MAGAZINE
M AGA Z I N E .CO LU M B I A . E D U
SPEAK
memories
,
FALL 2019
Behind the scenes at the Obama Presidency
Oral History Project at Columbia
FALL 2019
PAGE
18
CONTENTS
FEATURES
18
LIFT EVERY VOICE
Columbia’s oral history of the
Obama presidency sets out to
capture the legacy of Barack
Obama ’83CC — and the spirit
of the country he led
By Paul Hond
26
HELL-RAISER
Rachel Chavkin ’08SOA, the
Tony Award–winning director of
Hadestown, may be Broadway’s
most forward-thinking artist
By Stuart Miller ’90JRN
32
THE MIND READERS
At Columbia’s Magnetic
Resonance Research Center,
scientists are unveiling the
neural basis of human thoughts,
memories, and emotions
By Bill Retherford ’14JRN
38
LIFE ON THE BRINK
A Q&A with Shahid Naeem,
a Columbia biodiversity
expert, on the world’s soaring
extinction rates
By David J. Craig
RICHIE POPE
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY RICHIE POPE
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 1
CONTENTS COLUMBIA MAGAZ I N E
DEPARTMENTS
Executive Vice President,
5 University Development & Alumni Relations
Amelia Alverson
FEEDBACK
Deputy Vice President for Strategic Communications
12 Jerry Kisslinger ’79CC, ’82GSAS
COLLEGE WALK
Eat, Drink, Invest \ The Short List \ Try
Burnt Oysters \ Wild Cards \ Core Principles \ Editor in Chief
Sally Lee
Melville at 200 \ A Vine Grows in Brooklyn
Art Director
Len Small
42
EXPLORATIONS Managing Editor
How ISIS really recruits its members \ Rebecca Shapiro
PAGE
Astrophysicists strike gold \ Dangerous 26 Senior Editors
radiation lingers for decades \ The David J. Craig, Paul Hond
mysterious case of the alien rock \ Making
Copy Chief
precision medicine work for every body \ Joshua J. Friedman ’08JRN
Do cell phones reduce violent crime? \ Now
Digital Editor
scientists can alert immune system to cancer
Julia Joy
cells in hiding \ Cash poor \ Deep-water
surprise \ Study Hall
48
NETWORK
Senior Director for Strategic Communications
Capturing the Life of Toni Morrison \ Tracy Quinn ’14SPS
He Loves Italian Soccer So Much He
Director for Marketing Research
Bought a Team \ Poster Pundit \ Ask an Linda Ury Greenberg
Alum: How to Walk the Walk \ Outward PAGE
Bound \ Newsmakers 32 Communications Officer
Ra Hearne
FROM TOP: ZACK DEZON / GETTY IMAGES; DANIA ELDER; © TIMOTHY GREENFIELD-SANDERS / COURTESY OF MAGNOLIA PICTURES
54
BULLETIN
Subscriptions:
University news and views Address and subscription assistance
assistmag@columbia.edu
58
To update your address online, visit
BOOKS alumni.columbia.edu/directory,
The Widow Washington, by Martha Saxton \ or call 1-877-854-ALUM (2586).
Range, by David Epstein \ The Sweetest Advertising:
Fruits, by Monique Truong \ Plus, Sharon magazine@columbia.edu
Marcus discusses The Drama of Celebrity
Letters to the editor:
feedback@columbia.edu
64
PAGE Columbia Magazine is published for
RARE FINDS 48 alumni and friends of Columbia by the
Gone Mad Office of Alumni and Development.
© 2019 by the Trustees of Columbia University
in the City of New York
Visit our website for the latest:
MAGAZINE.COLUMBIA.EDU
@ColumbiaMag @columbiamag
@columbiamagazine
2 COLUMBIA FALL 2019
ON OCTOBER 23
Your gifts
change lives
so students,
faculty, and
researchers
can change
the world. Make a gift
givingday.columbia.edu
This Columbia Giving Day, Wednesday, October 23, give through Columbia
to make an impact on the issues that matter most to you. Your gifts will
earn challenge funds for your favorite schools, programs, and causes, too!
#ColumbiaGivingDay | #StandColumbia
Photo courtesy of Agustina Besada ’15SPS, who works for cleaner oceans.
FEEDBACK
FROM THE
ARCHIVES
DROWNING IN tic and are taking steps to do an estimated 35 percent of
PLASTIC our small part to help address the microplastics in the ocean
Your article on plastic waste the issue. Thank you for coming from fashion, to truly
(“Plastic, Plastic Everywhere,” bringing additional coverage heed his call they must use
Summer 2019) presented a to the subject. his team’s findings to improve
complex issue in a concise, Marvin Wilmoth ’09GSAPP their manufacturing practices.
engaging manner. While North Bay Village, FL Jennifer L. Costley ’83GSAS
highlighting how ubiquitous Olivebridge, NY
and terrible plastic usage I appreciate the way your
has become across the globe, article engaged with Agustina Our addiction to single-use
the article also showed Besada’s transatlantic adven- plastics is disgusting and Our first cover story
how important it is to our ture while also addressing frightening, particularly on Barack Obama
economy and daily lives — an some of the most urgent given the size of our pop- ’83CC, from Winter
importance that can easily get issues to our modern lifestyle. ulation. That said, most of 2008-09, looked at
lost in social-media posts that My hometown of Shanghai the solutions proposed in the new president’s
rely on shocking headlines has just started a compulsory your article wouldn’t do
attempts to strike
to grab readers. The article’s recycling program, which I much to address the plastic
description of plastic as “the think is much needed for this catastrophe now plaguing a note of national
most useful material ever big city where the younger our oceans. The famous conciliation in a
invented” challenged me to generation heavily depends Great Pacific Garbage Patch hostile political
think about the full scope of on convenient food delivery isn’t really caused by coffee climate. You can find
the plastic problem and how and consumes an unneces- pods, shopping bags, bottles, that article, “Politics
vital it is to start reducing sarily large amount of plastic. utensils, or other plastic con-
for Grown-Ups,”
usage across industries ASAP. Jessica Jiang ’16SEAS sumer goods. Almost all of it
Emily Dreibelbis ’14CC Shanghai, China seems to come from indus- in our archives at
Seattle, WA trial seafood production. magazine.columbia.edu.
As the organizer and moder- In a 2018 paper published
After reading your article on ator of the panel on micro- in Scientific Reports, scientists
plastic waste in our oceans, plastics in clothing mentioned estimated that 46 percent of
I am taking up legislation in your article, I recall well the plastic in the Pacific came
as vice mayor of North Bay Joaquim Goes’s call for action from fishing nets and the rest
Village to ban all single-use and was pleased to learn that of it mostly from miscella-
plastics in our city. As a the fashion industry has aided neous discarded fishing gear.
coastal city we are acutely his research by providing Commercial fishing is really
aware of the dangers of plas- fabric samples. However, with the place we need to focus our
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 5
FEEDBACK
for the geologist Paul Gast,
preparing the clean rooms
for the first moon-rock
samples that would be
brought back by the Apollo 11
astronauts. It was my job to
help determine the contam-
ination levels in the room by
examining the dust particles
and affixing them to a fila-
ment. Then Gast would use
his atomic-absorption mass
spectrophotometer (we called
it the Wayback Machine) to
determine how contaminated
the dust in the room was.
As an impressionable
high-school kid and already
a space nut, I was walking on
air that whole summer. Gast
was a brilliant and fasci-
nating person, a wonderful
man, and a good friend and
neighbor. He was pretty
much the absent-minded
professor — when it rained
Astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin stands beside the Passive Seismic Experiment Package, a system of four solar-powered I’d have to walk all over the
seismometers developed by Columbia geophysicist Gary Latham ’65GSAS. Lamont campus and gather
his raincoat, hat, galoshes,
energy if we’re going to make 85 percent of our issues MOON MEMORIES and umbrella that he’d left
a difference here. are sent domestically and Your article “Blue Moon” behind at various buildings.
Daniel Luzer ’08JRN do not come in packaging. (Summer 2019), about the His passing in 1973 at age
Brooklyn, NY We’re looking into more eco- Columbia scientists who forty-three was truly tragic.
friendly alternatives for the developed lunar experiments When I was last up at
The subtitle of your arti- future. In the meantime, we for Project Apollo, brought Lamont, several years ago, it
cle said, “So what are we encourage readers to recycle back memories. was to help the oceanogra-
going to do about it?” Well, the plastic wrap, which is In the summer of 1967, as a pher Pierre Biscaye, another
for one thing you could made from low-density poly- high-school sophomore, friend who had worked in
stop sending copies of the ethylene (LDPE) film. — Ed. I worked at Lamont-Doherty the geochemistry building in
magazine encased in con-
IMAGE SCIENCE AND ANALYSIS LABORATORY, NASA’S JOHNSON SPACE CENTER
ventional plastic wrappers.
Some publications in the UK KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
CODE SCHOOL CODE SCHOOL
have got the message and
BC Barnard College NRS School of Nursing
are now mailing out issues in BUS Graduate School of Business OPT School of Optometry
compostable envelopes. CC Columbia College PH Mailman School of Public Health
DM College of Dental Medicine PHRM School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Charles Raab ’59CC GS School of General Studies PS Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons
Edinburgh, Scotland GSAPP Graduate School of Architecture, SEAS Fu Foundation School of Engineering and
Planning, and Preservation Applied Science
GSAS Graduate School of Arts and Sciences SIPA School of International and Public Affairs
We hear you. Unfortunately, HON (Honorary degree) SOA School of the Arts
postal regulations require JRN Graduate School of Journalism SPS School of Professional Studies
JTS Jewish Theological Seminary SW School of Social Work
that we send international KC King’s College TC Teachers College
mailings in protective LAW School of Law UTS Union Theological Seminary
wrapping. Rest assured, LS School of Library Service
6 COLUMBIA FALL 2019
those years, to clean out his to NASA. We were doing Columbian, Donald Beattie, my work, I investigated two
office in advance of his retire- research on metabolism, and with whom I worked closely research problems that are
ment. Pierre took me aside the program needed a means in the 1970s at the newly mentioned in your article:
and said, “Greg, Dr. Gast was of collecting body-waste created US Energy Research (1) understanding the seismic
the one who picked the early samples to measure calcium and Development Admin- noise generated by the abrupt
lunar-landing sites.” The idea loss in zero gravity on Skylab. istration. There Beattie thermal shock of sunrise and
was to find the places that had The actual hardware was directed research that led to sunset — a lunar-surface
the oldest rocks, and Gast had designed by Republic’s early energy-conservation temperature swing of over
been estimating where they aerospace engineers. My job efforts and prefigured today’s five hundred degrees Fahren-
might be. There are books was to ensure that the system renewable-energy technolo- heit — and (2) interpreting
that mention other people would give the data that was gies. Beattie’s contributions near-surface structure from
along with Gast who were in needed. It worked perfectly to the field have never been seismic signals.
on that decision, but Pierre and ultimately evolved into fully appreciated. Research into the first
said to me, “Trust me: Paul the toilet now in use on the David M. Richman problem began with generat-
made that determination.” space station (which no lon- ’53CC, ’56SEAS ing thermal effects in differ-
Greg Miller ger collects samples). North Bethesda, MD ent materials in the lab. The
Ringwood, NJ Hugo Freudenthal first step was demonstrating
’55PHRM I was fortunate to be a the audible cracking of an ice
My claim to fame is being Dunedin, FL doctoral student and later cube dropped into a glass of
part of the team that a postdoc under Lamont’s water or gin.
invented the space toilet. We Your article was of very Orson Anderson, whose Also at this time, and lit-
worked at Fairchild Republic special interest to me. In it I area of research included erally just down the hallway,
Aviation as subcontractors learned more about a fellow lunar geophysics. As part of the theory and testing of
CREDITS GO HERE
FEEDBACK
what is now known as plate tectonics response. Ewing graciously showed me
was going on. In our graduate-level around the house and grounds. Great
seminars, we could be assigned to good cheer prevailed.
read engineering papers on bending I was happy, and MIT would have
beams and apply our understanding to been happy knowing that their repu-
proposed tectonic plates. This research tation had been given a needed boost.
was great fun and has stayed with me Prost, prost, and hip, hip, hooray to
even as life has gone in different direc- LDEO, NASA, and the USA for this
tions. I am most grateful to have been global gift of a lifetime.
part of those heady times. William Taylor ’70GSAPP
Nik Warren ’71GSAS Christiansted, US Virgin Islands
Berkeley, CA
GIVING TREE
On July 20, 1969, after another day What a happy surprise to see your article
spent documenting German industrial about the magnificent tree looming over
architecture in Stuttgart as a GSAPP the walkway in front of the Mathematics
Kinne Fellow, I naturally headed to Building — the oldest tree on the Morn-
a beer hall. I was evidently the only ingside campus (“Made in the Shade,”
American among the jubilant crowd College Walk, Summer 2019).
witnessing the US’s hard-to-believe This tree would not be standing today
landing on the moon. The faint but sure if not for the insistent intervention of
Columbia students, television images only heightened the unsung hero Edgar R. (“Ray”) Lorch
faculty, and alumni
drama and import of the event. “Prost! ’28CC, ’33GSAS, the onetime chair of
Prost! Prost!” I tried to keep up with the mathematics department. When
are building the many toasts to our country — and
to me as its sole local ambassador. I was
the tree was diseased and dying and
the University was getting ready to cut
a more equitable never more proud, never more drunk.
Some months later I heard of the
it down, Ray donated his own funds to
doctor and heal it. And so each spring,
and inclusive world. first presentation of Apollo swag when I’d look out the window and
at Lamont — precious lunar rocks wait to see if the tree would have the
and soil. Assuming that everything strength to bring forth its luxurious foli-
Sign up for Columbian was rightfully mine, I took age one more year, I’d think of Ray.
Just Societies Highlights a bus to Palisades, New York. The Francine Brown ’65LS
driver knew the Lamont gate. Happily, New York, NY
giving.columbia.edu/engage there was a car waiting for me — well,
actually for a geoscientist from MIT The writer was administrator of the
who was very late and assumed to be math department from 1975 to 2001.
me. My chauffeur and I lamented the
erratic Amtrak schedules.
At the mansion’s door, Lamont’s
director, Maurice Ewing, greeted me.
A microscope was presented for my
inspection. “Looks like basaltic mate-
rial to me,” I ad-libbed. “Yes, yes, yes!”
a small chorus responded. Beautiful
luminous, glassine spherules were
easily identified on the drab gray-
brown particulate background. Next I
was handed a petri dish containing a
LAUREN SIMKIN BERKE
sample of rock cut into a small, exact
cube for mechanical testing. “What
a surprising morphology this rock
displays!” I said, to more amusedhis “ten thousand sons,” as Jason Healey responds:
he proudly referred to us, An attack from inside the
and I am forever grateful to United States, such as by a
Columbia that he was there government contractor with
for us for so long. a security clearance, could
Bob Ratner ’59CC cause significant disruption.
Vancouver, British Columbia But when it comes to cyberat-
tacks, outsiders can, without
THE HACKER straining themselves too
NEXT DOOR much, gain the same access
Your interview with SIPA and knowledge as insiders.
senior research scholar And since the outsiders —
Jason Healey couldn’t be think Russian military
more timely and spot-on intelligence or the Chinese
(“The Age of Cyberwar- cyber command — have sig-
fare,” Summer 2019). At nificant resources, they can
a moment when the rift pose at least as big a threat as
between America and Iran all but the worst imaginable
continues to widen, the domestic actors.
US government has more
options than ever in its PRAISING MOSES
arsenal for attacking another Your review of Robert A.
nation. This was evident in Caro’s new book Working
President Trump’s decision (Summer 2019) revives
to call off a physical offen- and rehashes Caro’s very
sive in June and replace it negative opinion of Robert
with a cyber one against Moses, best known from
William Cornell Casey
Iran’s missile systems. his 1974 book The Power
However, the article would Broker. Tell the thousands
ALMA PATER use of language can lead have been more interesting of sweating families living in
After reading the eulogy for us astray in our attempts if it had explored cyberat- the New York metropolitan
University Professor Donald to identify real solutions to tacks coming from domestic area on a hot summer day
Keene in your Summer 2019 social problems. threats rather than just from that it was a man named
issue (“Found in Translation,” For those who wanted abroad. I can’t imagine the Robert Moses who built
College Walk), I would like to more of his astounding type of collateral damage we Jones Beach, a score of
pay tribute to another truly erudition and lucidity, he would sustain if a domes- other beaches on Long
great Columbia professor was always available for tic bad actor could use a Island, Orchard Beach in
who was entirely devoted to lengthy discussions in his cyberattack to take down the Bronx, and the highways
his students. inviting book-lined office major infrastructure or even and parkways that bring
William Cornell Casey in Fayerweather Hall, and launch weapons systems. them there, and they will
(1891–1978), who taught after graduation some of This sort of domestic attack only sing his praises.
sociology at Columbia from us spent among the best would be far more difficult Robert Moses was moti-
1931 to 1959, was an incom- evenings of our lives dining to detect and intercept than vated by this same commit-
parable and revered teacher with him at Butler Hall and a foreign one. Congress ment to providing for the
whose courses were regularly then conversing about every would have to allow more public need when, in the
viewed as the best at Colum- subject under the sun in his mass surveillance of US citi- late 1960s, he enthusiasti-
bia by nearly three decades comfortable apartment. For zens if it wanted to build up cally endorsed the proposal
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
of graduates. His classes me, Casey was a beloved our defenses domestically, by then New York governor
were always a thrilling intel- mentor who set me on my which would be a major Nelson A. Rockefeller to
lectual adventure, drawing career path in sociology blow to our privacy rights. replace abandoned, rotting
together events, persons, and, above all, taught me to Cho-Nan Michael Tsai piers in the Hudson River
and theories in order to think clearly and act justly. ’01SEAS off Lower Manhattan with
demonstrate how the false I was fortunate to be one of Alhambra, CA a mixed residential housing
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 9FEEDBACK
and towering commercial Are you a native English “Twenty dollars seems a CARRY ON
community. All the high- speaker? From California? ridiculous amount to pay to Departing home for a trip
rise structures that would Are you intent on sabotaging go to the movies. Five miles to Hawaii with my wife,
compose this new commu- Columbia or unqualified and is rather more than I want to I checked the mailbox as
nity would be built on a irresponsible? The headline walk this afternoon. Three we pulled out of the drive-
ninety-two-acre, mile-long of your cover story is illiter- eggs is plenty.” way. The summer issue of
site that would be created ate and embarrassing for all And from the great Columbia Magazine was
by barging thousands of at Columbia. Theodore Bernstein ’24CC, waiting to be picked up, so
tons of sand from lower Judith Fried Ducray ’69GS ’25JRN, in his Miss Thistle- I put it in my carry-on and
New York Harbor. Saint-Cyr-sous-Dourdan, bottom’s Hobgoblins: The we hit the road. I started
Executing such a phys- France Careful Writer’s Guide to out interested in the Project
ically and financially the Taboos, Bugbears, and Apollo and cybersecurity
daunting undertaking in I am sure that you have Outmoded Rules of English articles, but I ended up
the politically charged, heard from a good number Usage (1971): “Some people reading the magazine cover
money-starved municipality of Columbians about the are very literal-minded about to cover. I was impressed by
that was New York City in amazing error in grammar the question of grammatical the quality of the work and
the 1970s and 1980s would that (dis)graced your cover. number; they tend to concen- also the breadth of topics
not be easy, but throughout As a Columbia graduate and trate on the exact word that and schools included. I look
the planning and develop- former teacher in the English they take to be the subject of forward to the fall issue!
ment, the Battery Park City department, I thought I the sentence, when sometimes David Walsh ’06SEAS
Authority’s efforts were pub- must have misread that sen- they should be looking at Bloomington, IN
licly supported and encour- tence. I wish I had. the thought that the word or
aged by Robert Moses. As a Robert Hollander ’62GSAS words represent … LAST NOTE
result of that perseverance, Hopewell, NJ Mention should be made Your “Rare Finds” article
Battery Park City contains here of the question of num- about Béla Bartók on the
7.2 million square feet While it is certainly true bers that are to be consid- back page of the summer
of housing, with another that “end up” is the standard ered not as expressions of issue reminded me of my first
adjacent ten million square plural form, a singular verb individual units but rather days at Columbia Journalism
feet of commercial space is often used instead when as expressions of an integral School in September 1946,
and four public schools to the subject of a sentence is a quantity. You would not when my first news assign-
accommodate the children phrase that can be viewed write, ‘Three inches of snow ment was to cover Bartók’s
of its 13,500 residents. as a single unit. This is have fallen,’ because you are funeral. I have always felt
Avrum Hyman ’54JRN particularly common when not thinking of individual closer to Bartók after being a
Bronx, NY the subject is an expression inches; you are thinking part of his finale.
of quantity or measure, as in of a quantity of snow that Eileen Martinson Lavine
The writer was New York “eight million tons.” accumulates to that depth. ’46JRN
State deputy commissioner From George O. Curme’s Likewise you would not Bethesda, MD
of housing and community Syntax (1931): “If a single write, ‘About $10,000 were
renewal and director of plural subject or several added to the cost of the proj-
public information during singular or plural subjects ect,’ because again you are
the formation and first ten
years of the Battery Park
are felt as forming the idea of
a firm mass or fixed amount,
thinking of a sum of money,
not of individual dollars.” QUESTIONS?
City Authority. the verb is in the singular:
‘ Nearly thirty shillings was
A casual search shows that
we’re in good company. From
COMMENTS?
VERBAL DISPUTE paid for a pound of tea in the New York Times: “Of the WE WELCOME THEM ALL!
I was amazed by the glaring 1710.’ ‘Oh, there’s bushels plastic that is simply trashed,
E-MAIL US AT:
insult to intelligence on the of fun in that!’ (Eugene an estimated seven million feedback@columbia.edu
cover of the Summer 2019 Field, Poems of Childhood, tons ends up in the sea each
OR WRITE TO US:
issue: “About 8 million tons ‘The Drum’).” year.” From the Washington Columbia Magazine
of plastic ends up in the From Rodney Huddleston Post: “Every year, 1.4 billion Columbia Alumni Center
ocean every year.” “Tons” is a and Geoffrey K. Pullum’s tons of food — a third of 622 W. 113th Street, MC 4521
New York, NY 10025
plural subject that takes the The Cambridge Grammar of global production — ends up
plural verb “end up.” the English Language (2002): in landfills.” — Ed. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.
10 COLUMBIA FALL 2019“ Seeing what my gift means to
the students has been one of
the highlights of my life.”
—MARCELLA STAPOR ’59GS,
1754 SOCIETY MEMBER
Scholarships for veterans.
Reliable income for retirement.
The stock market was making Marcella nervous. So she shifted her savings
into a life income gift at Columbia. Now she receives fixed payments for life
at an attractive 7.5% annual rate — and the balance will fund scholarships
for veterans at the School of General Studies.
Are your assets providing the income you need while promoting the
causes you value? Call the Office of Gift Planning at 800-338-3294 or
email us at gift.planning@columbia.edu to discover ways to invest in
Columbia students while securing an income stream for yourself and/or
a loved one.
giving.columbia.edu/Stapor1754mag
800-338-3294 • gift.planning@columbia.eduCOLLEGE
WALK
NOTES
FROM 116TH
STREET AND
BEYOND
EAT, DRINK, INVEST
The Columbia Startup Lab knows how to party
T
he smell of success is in the air at munchies from Bokksu, a snack subscription
the five-year-anniversary bash for service from Danny Taing ’14SEAS.
the Columbia Startup Lab in SoHo. It’s clear that the Startup Lab knows
Success and ... sesame oil. how to have fun, but it also has a serious
It’s a warm Wednesday evening, and as lineup of speakers — Columbia President
another working day comes to an end, the lab Lee C. Bollinger; Merit Janow ’88LAW, dean
— an office space and business incubator for of the School of International and Public
alumni entrepreneurs — closes and a celebra- Affairs; and Richard Witten ’75CC, special
tion begins. Behind the lab’s oversize garage- adviser to the president and Columbia Entre-
style doors, venture capitalists in suits and preneurship founder. And as they take the
open shirt collars mingle with twentysome- mic, a bigger picture of what the lab has done
things in jeans and hip sneakers. All food and for both the Columbia community and the
drinks are provided by Columbia-connected city emerges.
businesses, many of which got their start at “We live in a time when modern research
the lab. In one corner, Bryan Cowan ’16BUS universities must throw off the constraints
and a team from his company Wisefish Poké of traditional academic silos to develop new
fill cardboard cones with brown rice, ahi and productive responses to society’s prob-
tuna, and sesame-laden shoyu dressing — lems,” Bollinger says. “The Columbia Startup
the source of the warm, nutty scent perfum- Lab is a quintessential example of the new
ing the air. academic ecosystem.”
At the next table are brisket sliders from In its first five years, the Columbia Startup
the Texas-style barbecue chain Hill Country, Lab has launched over 250 companies, in
owned by Marc Glosserman ’06BUS, and fields from financial tech to fashion to social
Beijing-style wraps from Mr. Bing, brainchild entrepreneurship to food. In total, these
of Brian Goldberg ’02GSAS. Upstairs in the early-stage ventures have raised more than
mezzanine, which overlooks the collaboration- $55 million in funding. And while most
friendly office space, partygoers crack open ice- startups take nearly a decade to mature from
JIANAN LIU
cold cans of rosé from the Drop, founded by founding to acquisition, the lab has already
Alexis Beechen ’15BUS, and sample Japanese seen four companies acquired in major deals
12 COLUMBIA FALL 2019— including two businesses from “Because of the Columbia
the lab’s first year: the design- Startup Lab, I was surrounded
software company Frustum and
the prenatal-nutrition company
Bundle Organics.
by people going through similar
challenges. Five years later, my
company has outgrown the office
THE SHORT LIST
Liz Wilkes ’13BUS, a member space. But when I’m trying to
of the inaugural group, says that
being a part of the lab was integral
work out a problem with the
business, people from my cohort
ROAR Cheer on the Columbia
Lions and celebrate 150
years of college football at Homecoming
to the success of her company, are always my first call.”
Weekend 2019. The family-friendly festivities
Exubrancy, which provides on-site As the night winds down, guests
include a carnival and a football game
wellness programming like mas- take their last bites of flaky baklava
against Ivy League rival Penn. October 18-19
sages and yoga classes to more from Eat Offbeat, a catering
at the Baker Athletics Complex.
than five hundred corporations company that employs
across the country. refugee chefs, cofounded
“I was constantly meeting with
people — investors, wellness profes-
by Manal Kahi ’15SIPA
and Wissam Kahi
LISTEN Catch
the world
premiere of Desire, a chamber
sionals, potential corporate clients,” ’04BUS, and down
opera from award-winning
she says. “Having a real space where “boozy pudding shots”
composer Hannah Lash, at
I could conduct those meetings from Spoonable Spirits,
Miller Theatre. The score of this
made it feel like a real company, a liquor-friendly dessert
deeply personal production,
even in the earliest days. It made a company from Kelli
which is about overcoming
difference when we were presenting Lipson ’19BUS.
self-doubt, will be performed by
ourselves to the world.” But in the actual office space, no
the JACK Quartet. October 16.
But, Wilkes says, the lab was far one is turning out the lights just
millertheatre.com/events/desire-oct-16
more than just a workspace and yet. Instead, people migrate back
a place to bring clients. For her, it to their desks, reopen their laptops,
was a community that gave her the
support she needed.
and jot down notes on the white-
boards hanging on nearly every wall.
SEE An upcoming exhibition at the
Wallach Gallery showcases
contemporary art from Algeria and its
“Starting a business can be very A new cohort has just started at the
diaspora. The show, titled Waiting
lonely, which is hard both person- lab. And they have work to do.
for Omar Gatlato, references the 1977
ally and professionally,” she says. Ñ Rebecca Shapiro
film Omar Gatlato and offers a critical look
at Algerian identity and society. Curated
by art-history PhD student Natasha Marie
Llorens. October 26-March 25.
wallach.columbia.edu/exhibitions
SIP Hooray for the red, white, and rosé!
TOP: KYLE DOROSZ, COMMISSIONED BY MILLER THEATRE; BOTTOM: DAAN ROOSEGAARDE
Support Columbia vintners by
visiting the Alumni Wine Industry Network’s
Virtual Wine Cellar, a global directory of wine-
makers and distributors. alumni.columbia.edu
/content/caa-wine-industry-network
LEARN Renzo Piano ’14HON,
the world-renowned
architect behind the Manhattanville campus,
returns to Columbia to give a talk at the
WATERLICHT, an immersive light installation at the Lenfest Center Forum (which he designed) about the role
for the Arts, runs October 22 to 24 and helps kick off the Year of of architecture in creating more open,
Water, a multidisciplinary initiative that highlights the environmental, inclusive neighborhoods. Hosted by
economic, and social issues surrounding Earth’s most precious Columbia World Projects. October 15.
resource. Find out more at yearofwater.columbia.edu. worldprojects.columbia.edu
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 13COLLEGE WALK
Rosenkranz named the
pigment sources available
to the ordinary sixteenth-
century artisan: plants (roots,
flowers, resins, berries, stalks,
bark, leaves) and animals
(shellfish, insects); iron-
Mixing pigments
at the Sato oxide minerals (ochre,
Sakura Gallery. umber, sienna) and earth
(clays, dirt). She spoke of
particles and molecules (her
background is in physics),
stability and instability
(grass is an unstable pigment,
since its stains fade), and
techniques for refining
substances so that they can
mix with binding agents like
egg-yolk tempera, rabbit-
Try Burnt Oysters skin glue, or linseed oil.
Audience members lined
A 500-year-old manuscript of artisanal “recipes” yields its secrets up at a table to see the
pigments. One pigment, a
S
fine pink-purple powder
ome time around initiative based in Colum- the Sato Sakura Gallery as vivid as crushed candy
1500, a French bia’s Center for Science and in Chelsea with a team of hearts, was made of dried,
artisan living near Society and led by history Columbia postdocs. The ground cochineal, a bug
Toulouse decided professor Pamela Smith, scholars would speak to the native to Mexico, from
to record his methods for will publish a translated, fifty people gathered there which the red dye carmine
making all sorts of useful annotated digital edition of about the unknown artisan’s is still made. Our anon-
things — pigments, cast- this highly informative text. practical wisdom and would ymous craftsman might
ings, varnishes, and the like. Known as Ms. Fr. 640, the reconstruct some of his more have been amused to watch
He’d learned his craft as document reveals its author colorful formulas. twenty-first-century novices
an apprentice and honed it as a tireless experimenter and Tianna Uchacz, a postdoc heeding his directives as they
through trial and error. And improviser (“try burnt oysters,” in art history, showed slides of hunched over glass palettes,
because he was literate in a he suggests, as an alternative the handwritten recipes and mixing powders and oils
society where literacy was mold for metal castings). reflected on the questions they together with a glass pestle,
just starting to spread — and He was part of that class of raised. What is the essence then dipping their paint-
perhaps anticipating pub- makers who, as Smith says, of artisanal knowledge? How brushes and applying them
lishing opportunities in the “knew the behavior of natural does the sensory relationship to white paper, leaving bold
nascent “how-to” genre — he materials and were, in fact, with materials influence an strokes of mulberry blush.
wrote down his hard-won the scientists of their day.” artist? What is the connection As they mixed and dabbed,
techniques with the aid of As clever as he was, between craft-making and participants were briefly
those other useful inven- though, he could hardly scientific knowing? Then, to transported from the mech-
tions, pen and paper. have supposed that five provide some tactile context anized world to the artisanal
The artisan’s name is lost, hundred years later, in a city — some making — Naomi workshops of the French
but fortunately, 171 folios across the sea, his recipes Rosenkranz ’15BC, assistant Renaissance. The exercise
of his instructions and would be resurrected. But director for the Making served as a reminder of
observations now reside in on a Saturday afternoon in and Knowing Project, led a the simple pleasures of
the Bibliothèque nationale 2019, Smith, a scholar of demonstration, suitable to the hands-on invention — and
CAROLINE SURMAN
de France, in Paris. Later early-modern Europe with gallery setting, of how to com- of the adage that there is no
this year, the Making and a keen interest in crafts bine pigments and binders learning like doing.
Knowing Project, a research and craftspeople, entered to make paint. — Paul Hond
14 COLUMBIA FALL 2019WILD CARDS
Albert Field ’38CC was Salvador Dalí’s personal “archivist,” hired to distinguish
real Dalís from thousands of fakes. He was also a playing-card collector. Field,
who died in 2003, left his collection of 6,400 decks to Columbia. An exhibit of
cards spanning four hundred years and four continents will be on display at the
Rare Book and Manuscript Library starting September 23.
TOP: ALBERT FIELD PLAYING CARD COLLECTION, COLUMBIA RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY; BOTTOM: NICE SHUTTERSTOCK
CORE PRINCIPLES
This fall, Columbia College kicks off a series of festivities to celebrate
the centennial of its Core Curriculum. President Lee C. Bollinger noted
the anniversary in his 2019 Commencement address.
Precisely one hundred years ago, in 1919, … a new yearlong required
course for Columbia freshmen was launched called Contemporary
Civilization. Though today we know CC as the genesis of the
famed Core Curriculum, then it was nothing more than a bold
experiment in higher education. The objective, reflected in the course
name, was to apply learning and reason derived from classic texts
to the problems facing society in the aftermath of a cataclysmic
war. The idea was to double down on the academic
mission, and it has made a difference, as generation
after generation has attested to its value in
creating an open mind and intellect.
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 15COLLEGE WALK
MELVILLE AT 200
How Columbia scholars rescued the author of Moby-Dick from the waters of oblivion
1
919 was a big year for a book, Moby-Dick, which long before Stein or Joyce; and also Melville, whose
literary centenaries. involved a crazed sea captain he acknowledged America’s seventy-year-old whaling
James Russell Lowell, hell-bent on destroying the predatory power as well as its masterpiece Van Doren and
poet, critic, and diplo- whale that tore off his leg. great promise; he defied con- Weaver were now raising
mat, was feted at Columbia The book sold poorly. After vention in writing about sex; like a lost ship. Van Doren
University and the Ritz- two more failed novels, and perhaps most shocking wrote of “the extraordinary
Carlton, and Walt Whitman Melville, a father of four, of all, he took seriously the mixture in Moby Dick of vivid
was toasted by two hundred ditched prose for poetry, possibility of a godless uni- adventures, minute details,
at the Hotel Brevoort, near grew ever more melancholic verse. In his time, there was cloudy symbolisms, thrilling
Washington Square. Both and insolvent, and became a a limited market for these pictures of the sea in every
insights and innovations.” mood, sly mirth and cosmic
But in 1919, one American ironies, real and incredible
critic knew of the buried characters, wit, speculation,
treasure. Carl Van Doren humor, color.”
1911GSAS, a professor of After this, Moby-Dick
English at Columbia and became a celebrated main-
literary editor of the Nation, stay of the American canon.
wanted to mark Melville’s Robert Wallace ’72GSAS,
centenary in the magazine. ’67SIPA, a professor at
He had a writer in mind: an Northern Kentucky Univer-
English instructor named sity who has taught Moby-
Raymond Weaver 1917GSAS, Dick for half a century, calls
whose mastery of Shake- it “an encyclopedia of world
speare was a good prerequi- knowledge at the time” and
site for tackling the Ameri- says students today draw
can writer who in language lessons that the previous
and spiritual turbulence generation didn’t. “They are
most closely approached the thrilled that Ishmael, in tell-
Bard. At Van Doren’s urging, ing this story of the brutality
Weaver dusted off Melville’s of whaling, finds ways to
works and was hooked. express the beauty of whales
“Essentially he was a mystic, and how they represent the
a treasure-seeker, a mystery- natural world that we’re in
monger, a delver after hidden the process of destroying.”
things spiritual and material,” Though Moby-Dick looms
Weaver wrote in the August over all American literature,
2, 1919, Nation. “It was Melville produced other
writers had been born in customs inspector on the New Melville’s abiding craving pearls, and Weaver uncov-
1819, and both had been York docks, a job he held for to achieve some total and ered one of them. While
dead for thirty years. nineteen years. His death in undivined possession of the researching his biography,
So had Herman Melville. 1891 went virtually unnoticed. very heart of reality.” Weaver visited Melville’s
The difference was, Melville “Melville was a nineteenth- Weaver embarked on a granddaughter Eleanor Mel-
had sunk from view. His first century author writing for a biography, Herman Melville: ville Metcalf at her home in
two books, Typee and Omoo, twentieth-century audience,” Mariner and Mystic, that New Jersey. Metcalf showed
based on his voyages to the explains Columbia professor would be published in 1921. Weaver a trunk of Melville’s
South Pacific, made a splash Andrew Delbanco, author of The same year, Van Doren papers, which included a
AUDREY HAWKINS
in the late 1840s. Then, in the 2005 biography Melville: published The American manuscript in Melville’s
1851, Melville calved an His World and Work. “He Novel — essays on Haw- inscrutable hand. The writer
enormous spouting beast of used stream of consciousness thorne, Twain, James, had been working on a short
16 COLUMBIA FALL 2019A VINE GROWS
novel before his death. It was
never published.
Weaver edited the man-
IN BROOKLYN
uscript and included it in a
sixteen-volume edition of
Melville’s works published in
1924. The novel, Billy Budd,
concerns a handsome, inno- Students get a fresh look at the issue of food justice
ÒW
cent sailor who is recruited
onto a British warship, where henever the subway government, twenty-three million Ameri-
the wicked master-at-arms passes, we yell, ‘Use your cans, including 6.5 million children, live in
Claggart mercilessly goads farm voice,’” Anita Chan so-called “food deserts,” where fresh produce
him until Billy finally erupts: shouts as an elevated is scarce. Washington prefers the term “food
he strikes Claggart, acciden- train rumbles over a half acre of greenery apartheid,” Wooddell says, “because a desert
tally killing him — and must in Brooklyn. is naturally occurring and apartheid is not.”
face, under maritime justice, Here at the end of the number 3 line, on New “We want students to get their hands dirty,”
the supreme penalty. Weaver Lots Avenue, sunflowers peek out through the Caudill says. “We want them to see the many
called the novel “unmatched wire fence that encloses the community garden ways to farm sustainably and talk to the people
among Melville’s works in of East New York Farms! (ENYF!). On this who are doing this work.”
lucidity and inward peace” plot, local residents grow dozens of varieties of Caudill believes agroecology — agriculture
and found in the tragedy produce — Swiss chard, bitter melon, cherry that works in harmony with the ecosystem to
an unsuspected grace: “The tomatoes, to name a few — and learn about improve both — has implications for everyone.
powers of evil and horror organic farming. “We all eat. We all make decisions about
must be granted their fullest When the train noise subsides, Chan, an food every day, and those decisions influence
scope; it is only thus we can ENYF! staff member, picks tomatoes off our food systems. And food systems influence
triumph over them.” a vine and hands them to the five college our decisions,” says Caudill.
Weaver, who worked at students clustered around her. These students At the garden, students measure the tem-
Columbia for thirty-two years, are in a six-week, six-credit Columbia course perature of the soil and the surrounding side-
was a passionate teacher called SEE-U NYC — Summer Ecosystem walk. Cities are often hotter than rural areas,
whose interests included Experiences for Undergraduates — led by because asphalt absorbs heat. But green spaces
mask-making and astrology. conservation ecologist Amanda Caudill can help cool cities down, an effect students
Lionel Trilling ’25CC, ’38GSAS ’03SEAS. The program, organized by the are tracking in their lab.
called Weaver’s death in 1948 Earth Institute Center for Environmental Alongside the lab work, each student
an “irreparable loss,” but today, Sustainability (EICES), brings the farm-to- develops an individual research project. Shaul
Weaver’s legacy is stronger table journey to life with lectures, labs, and Armony, a junior at the School of General
than ever. This year, Herman weekly field trips to urban and rural farms Studies, is focusing on access to nutritious food.
Melville’s bicentennial was around the tri-state area. He was a cook before coming to Columbia and
honored worldwide. None of Interns from local middle schools push blue now majors in sustainable development.
this could have been predicted wheelbarrows filled with soil as the college “If you’re at a grocery store, it’s hard to
in 1919, but in his Nation students ask Chan questions. understand where your food comes from,”
essay, Weaver, the amateur “How many kids help harvest vegetables?” says Armony. “That tomato we just ate was so
astrologist, took a stab at “What’s the soil composition?” great because it was right off the vine. So if a
divining Melville’s future. Last week, students explored a greenhouse kid goes home and asks his parents for more
“The versatility and power perched on the roof of a Whole Foods in tomatoes like that — fresh from a farm, in
of his genius was extraordi- Gowanus. Next week, they will head upstate season — then change can start to happen.”
nary,” Weaver wrote. “If he to a Buddhist monastery that grows its own For Wooddell, change can also start with
does not eventually rank as organic food. The week after, they’ll visit Rise programs like this one.
RICHARD GRIFFIN / SHUTTERSTOCK
a writer of overshadowing and Root Farm, a cooperative in Chester, “Maybe these undergraduates will be
accomplishment, it will be New York, run by urban-farming activist our future activists, researchers, or policy-
owing not to any lack of Karen Washington. Washington’s talk on makers helping with sustainability and food
genius, but to the perversity “food apartheid” has made three students inequality,” says Wooddell. “You can’t improve
of his rare and lofty gifts.” cry, says EICES assistant director Kelsey things without education. You just can’t.”
— Paul Hond Wooddell ’18SIPA. According to the US — Rebecca Kelliher ’13BC
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 17Lift
Every
Voice
Columbia’s oral history of the
Obama presidency sets out
to capture the legacy of
Barack Obama ’83CC — and
the spirit of the country he led
by paul hond
illustration by richie pope
18 COLUMBIA FALL 2019President Barack Obama ’83CC
stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama, and defined his vision for America.
He had sung the melody before, but on grassroots. “The single most powerful in poor neighborhoods of Chicago and
this day, March 7, 2015, fifty years after word in our democracy is the word ‘we.’ would sit for hours in people’s homes, ask-
police attacked a peaceful civil-rights We the people. We shall overcome. Yes we ing them about their lives; in his remarks
march at the site, Obama embellished on can. It is owned by no one. It belongs to in Athens in the last year of his presi-
the theme and made it opera. Quoting everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are dency venerating the idea of demokratia
Baldwin, Emerson, and Whitman, evok- given to continually try to improve this (“Kratos — the power, the right to rule —
ing Sojourner Truth and Martin Luther great nation of ours.” comes from demos — the people”); in his
King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and Franklin For David Simas, this speech holds postpresidential investment in the Obama
Delano Roosevelt, the president paid the key to understanding the Obama Foundation Scholars Program at Colum-
tribute to the “ordinary Americans” who presidency. Simas, the CEO of the Obama bia, which develops the problem-solving
were willing to face “the chastening rod” Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that skills of young leaders from around the
and “the trampling hoof ” to ensure that sponsors civic leadership programs and world, Obama has always encouraged
America lived up to its promise. is overseeing the creation of the Obama people to use their power as citizens to
“What could more profoundly vindi- Presidential Center, says the philosophy make government work for them. So
cate the idea of America,” Obama said, of the forty-fourth president — his belief when it came time for the foundation
“than plain and humble people … coming in the possibilities of democracy — can to produce an official oral history of the
together to shape their country’s course?” be detected in every stage of his political administration — something that has
Obama’s words touched the vault of career. In his post-Columbia years, when been done for every president starting
American ideals and dug deep down to he worked as a community organizer with Herbert Hoover — it seemed essen-
LAWRENCE JACKSON / WHITE HOUSE
The Obama family joins Georgia congressman John Lewis ’97HON (center) in a walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 2015.
20 COLUMBIA FALL 2019tial to go beyond the standard recollec- and also bring out the individual voices by the Depression-era Federal Writers’
tions of cabinet members and legislators. of the chorus. It will be a portrait not just Project, which hired unemployed writers
“It’s important to reach into the lives of of a president but also of a country. to collect the narratives of ex-slaves and
O
people who were touched in one way or others whose voices were underrepre-
another by the Obama presidency,” says ral historians are explorers of sented in the National Archives, they
Simas. “Only by getting the full expanse — the unmapped spaces in the wrote a grant proposal and sent it to the
from senior officials to midlevel and low- historical record. Collectors Obama Foundation, hoping for funding.
level staffers to ordinary people — can you of stories and interpreters of “We had a series of interesting conversa-
truly tell this story.” memory, they are both discoverers of the tions with them,” says Bearman. “Then
In May, the Obama Foundation past and messengers to the future. Clark the election happened.” The conversa-
announced that it had selected tions stopped, and that proj-
the Columbia Center for Oral ect was shelved. But in 2018,
History Research (CCOHR) as the foundation was think-
to tell that story. The match ing about a presidential oral
seems propitious: Obama is an history, the talks resumed.
alumnus with a keen interest “The foundation had been
in storytelling, and Columbia on its own journey, trying to
is the birthplace of the field figure out how to do a real
of oral history. But what most oral history that was different
attracted the Obama team from past ones,” Bearman
was the Columbia program’s says. “So we thought, ‘Oh,
breadth, covering corporate wow, somehow these roads
leaders and organizations as have intersected.’”
well as activist movements and Along with Bearman, Clark,
citizens. “We were impressed and Springer, the Columbia
by Columbia’s experience at team includes Michael Falco
capturing this diversity, which President Obama in the Oval Office in 2016. ’13SIPA, associate director of
we thought would be critical to INCITE, and Terrell Frazier, a
the project,” says Simas. and Bearman came to the discipline doctoral student in sociology and the proj-
The Obama Presidency Oral History through different paths. Clark studied ect’s lead interviewer. The team will con-
Project is led by sociology professor liberation theology at Union Theological sult with a sixteen-member advisory board
Peter Bearman, director of the Interdis- Seminary. In 1990 she joined Columbia’s of prominent historians, sociologists,
ciplinary Center for Innovative Theory Oral History Research Office (as it was literary scholars, and journalists chaired by
and Empirics (INCITE), which houses known then), and in June of 2001 she University President Lee C. Bollinger.
CCOHR. He will work with Mary became director. Bearman taught sociol- “It’s a very interesting and carefully
Marshall Clark, director of CCOHR, ogy and became known for his analysis of curated board, with a rich distribution of
and Kimberly Springer, curator of the adolescent behavior and social networks. life experiences and academic disciplines,”
oral-history collection at Columbia’s Rare The two first collaborated on the says Bearman. “Their job is to help us see
Book and Manuscript Library. Expected September 11, 2001, Oral History things that we don’t see. This is a really
to take five years to complete, the project Project. In the immediate aftermath big and complicated project. Nobody’s
will include hundreds of audio and video of the attacks in Lower Manhattan, ever tried to do anything on this scale.”
T
interviews as well as a profile of First Clark wanted to go out into the field but
Lady Michelle Obama and interviews needed help to quickly organize such a he practice of oral history —
collected by the University of Hawaii and big project. She called on Bearman, and interviewing people to preserve,
the University of Chicago on the early together they trained thirty interviewers, as Clark says, “memory, experi-
lives of the Obamas. Transcripts will be who then fanned out over the city, speak- ence, and shifting values” — was
posted online, and audio and visual files ing with eyewitnesses, first responders, established as an organized discipline in
and paper transcripts will be publicly Muslims, artists, survivors, and other 1948, when journalist and historian Allan
available in Columbia’s Rare Book and New Yorkers, getting their stories before Nevins ’60HON founded the Oral History
PETE SOUZA / WHITE HOUSE
Manuscript Library. official narratives took hold. Research Office at Columbia. Nevins, who
Of the four hundred people to be inter- In 2016, Clark and Bearman began subscribed to the great-man theory — the
viewed, about a quarter will be everyday thinking about a new, large-scale oral idea that exceptional leaders drive history
Americans. The project will feature the history, one that would embrace a broad — lamented that telephone conversations
principal actors around the president cross section of American life. Inspired were replacing personal letters, diaries, and
COLUMBIA FALL 2019 21memos. Without these contemporaneous decision-making (“Mrs. Johnson had a and won. He inherited two wars and the
records of leaders’ unvarnished opinions, great deal of influence with her hus- worst economic collapse since the Great
historians would no longer be able to tell the band”); and in Bill Clinton’s, Secretary Depression and presided over a litany of
inside story of events as they happened. And of State Madeleine Albright ’68SIPA, pivotal events: marriage equality (“justice
so he interviewed policymakers, business ’76GSAS, ’95HON reflects on the mys- that arrives like a thunderbolt,” Obama
leaders, publishing moguls, and philan- tique of the office (“There truly is such called it) and the auto-industry bailout;
thropists, eliciting information that he felt power in the office of the presidency that mass shootings at an African Methodist
might be of value to posterity. Though his in many ways you imbue the person who Episcopal church in Charleston, a gay
history-department colleagues nightclub in Orlando, and
cast a skeptical eye, seeing oral two first-grade classrooms in
history as factually unreliable, Newtown, Connecticut (what
Nevins’s archive grew, and so Obama later described as
did the field. the worst day of his pres-
In the 1960s and ’70s, idency); the Paris climate
Columbia’s oral-history office, accord and the Iran nuclear
in partnership with the Eisen- deal; police violence against
hower Presidential Library, African-Americans and the
conducted the oral history of administration’s response.
the Dwight D. Eisenhower There is, as Columbia jour-
administration. (Eisenhower, nalism professor Jelani Cobb
as president of Columbia from says, “so much that we would
1948 to 1953, had green- want to know more about.”
lighted Nevins’s oral-history Cobb, author of The Sub-
center.) The Eisenhower proj- stance of Hope, an incisive
ect was not the first of its kind. The Obama national-security team monitors the mission against Osama bin Laden. study of Obama’s 2008
The presidential oral-history campaign and the nuances
genre began in 1960, under the auspices of generational Black politics, is on the
of the Harry S. Truman Library. (Though “Someone may Obama project’s advisory board. When
Hoover and FDR preceded Truman as
president, their oral histories were done casually mention asked what topics he’d like the oral
history to explore, Cobb reels them off:
after Truman’s.)
The standard presidential oral history something in an “What were the strategic considerations
of the health-care fight? What were the
consists of hundreds of hours of audio
recordings and thousands of pages of
interview that internal discussions about the mission
that killed Osama bin Laden? What was
transcriptions. By documenting a pres-
idency through the recollections of cab-
totally changes our the evolution of America’s foreign policy
toward Russia? There’s a lot on Obama’s
inet secretaries and labor leaders, sena-
tors and speechwriters, attorneys general
understanding.” foreign policy that we haven’t discussed
in great detail. An interesting area would
and ambassadors, the presidential oral jelani cobb be his relationship with Africa and the
history provides elaborate details and policy priorities there. And his relation-
rich insider anecdote. The interviews can is the president with all kinds of things ship with the Congressional Black Cau-
corroborate, contradict, or contextualize that may or may not be true of that par- cus — people pushing him on matters
other records, illuminate a president’s ticular personality”). where they felt he was too moderate.”
character, and reveal how decisions are Of course, a two-term, history-making Cobb expects that the Obama presi-
made at the highest levels. presidency like Obama’s, which lasted dency, under the analysis of oral history,
In the John F. Kennedy oral history, from January 2009 to January 2017, will be clarified in ways we can’t predict.
George Ball, undersecretary of state, offers countless avenues of inquiry, “We’re looking at this extraordinary
comments on the late president’s grasp starting with its improbability. In 2004, event, this presidency, from a distance,”
of international economic policy (“He Obama became just the third Black he says. “We’re anchored just offshore,
PETE SOUZA / WHITE HOUSE
was very quick. But on a great number of senator since Reconstruction. In US and we see the coastline. But we have no
things, I must say, I didn’t think he was history there had been only four Black idea what happens once we get inland.
ever terribly profound”); in Lyndon B. governors, but Barack Hussein Obama, There’s a whole other landscape. We
Johnson’s, Secretary of the Interior a name that did not portend electoral don’t even know what we don’t know.
Stewart Udall sheds light on presidential success, ran for president of all fifty states Someone may casually mention some-
22 COLUMBIA FALL 2019You can also read
