After Office Hours

About After Office Hours

Each Friday, a professor will share scholastic wisdom that students won't find in lectures.

Articles

What will Obama say?

Obama's upcoming commencement speech at Barnard has the potential to be historical.

On the usefulness of maxims

Approaching the maxim in a particular context can create its use.

Beyond multicultural, beyond non-western: toward a true global core

A change not only in our Global Core but in our global thinking is essential.

Against postfeminism

What needs to happen before gender equality can happen.

A contemporary (view of) civilization

In defense of CC discussions that wander a bit off-topic.

A crisis of values

Whether pursuing a degree for prestige or education, we should value our graduate instructors.

Whither coeducation?

Professor Julie Crawford discusses faculty diversity through the lens of coeducation.

Teaching and research at Columbia

See past a dichotomy of undergraduate vs. graduate divisions.

How Ron Paul rocked our family

Professor Jo Ann Cavallo discusses how Ron Paul impacted her life.

The dilemma of grades

Columbia students should focus on opportunities for knowledge, not just grades.

Dispatch from the in-between

University Writing instructor Ilana Manaster on being both a professor and a student.

Reflections of self and labor

Professor Gary Okihiro on how learning African history was his tool to fight oppression.

Reflections on Frontiers of Science

Frontiers of Science allows all of us to critically evaluate science, allowing us to question the experts.

Democratizing classical music

Music should not just be about the conductor but about the entire orchestra.

A call for civil discourse

There is a distinct line with discussions about Israel between engaging in civil discourse and ethnic hatred.

Reflect on the death penalty

We need to reshape the way our culture looks at death penalty.

Professor anarchist

Columbia's history has deep roots in the revolutionary.

Let the recreational athletes play

Intercollegiate athletics should not monopolize our gym facilities.

Celebrate the earth

Environmental issues were less complicated back in the day.

An open letter to President Bollinger

Columbia should be free from military affiliation.

Cheating and Dante's hell

We need to have open conversations about academic dishonesty.

Reharmonizing Japan

What Beethoven can teach us about starting anew.

Learning from Sisqo

What can pop culture teach us about political science?

Fewer is more

A degree is not the same thing as an education.

Don't suffer in private

Literature Humanities can help us understand personal suffering.

C.U. ink

What are your professors hiding?

Earning our equality

Revoking the Fourteenth Amendment would be a step backwards in the fight for civil rights.

Breaking teacher's block

Teaching can be just as challenging as learning.

Social superficiality

The Social Experiment brought out the worst in our internet communications.

Shame leads to knowledge

Shame, though painful, offers the key to self-understanding.

The world of virtual warcraft

Let violence keep its rightful place—in videogames.

Learn one from the Gipper: What the Reagan presidency can teach Barack Obama

There's still time for the president to redeem his work in the White House if he takes a page from Reagan's book.

True globalization, true diversity

Emphasizing diversity at the expense of the Global Core.

Looking at violence in Mexico with clear eyes

Ignoring the violence in Mexico violates human rights.

The new Jewish mission

Feeling the shock-waves from Israel.

Good and bad ways to globalize Columbia

Why and how Columbia should globalize.

Picking a major? Just say no.

Professor David Helfand argues for the elimination of majors.

I am, therefore I think

Professor Robert Pollack shows how without moral boundaries, knowledge won't get you far.

Lit Hum and the examined life

The new Lit Hum chair describes what Plato and a website have to say on a life worth living.

My journey to the University Senate in ’68

The '68 occupation of Low Library convinced me that only a Senate representative of all students as well as faculty could speak for the Columbia community as a whole in defending the essential rights and functions of the university.

Comprehensive immigration reform

We should instead distribute visas to countries in proportion to the relative size of their population and other standards that consider fairness from a substantive, not merely formal, perspective.

Comprehensive immigration reform

Nicolas Sarkozy addresses Columbia

President Sarkozy emphasized repeatedly the need for the United States to listen, to hear, and to debate with others, in a speech intended for an audience broader than the 400 Columbia students and faculty who were lucky enough to get a seat in Low Library.

An unsettling silence

Given how consequential the bill signed Tuesday by President Obama may be, it’s striking to me how muted the campus response is.

Read all about it! (But how?)

And as our culture changes, so too will the news organizations that live within it.

Community Impact: Equal Access to Education

If we believe in education as one of the most powerful forces of a democracy, and if we unite as students and as teachers in that belief, we must then be committed to its dissemination to all levels of society.

Don’t wait, don’t stall

I am not here calling for a clearing out of Earl Hall, still less institutional suicide, only for some recognition that current university policies with respect to gay rights are inconsistent.

Sehgal, school, surprises

For the rest of your life, you will remember how going to college in New York City meant, among so many other things, becoming a work of art.

An education in inequality

They may claim otherwise, but colleges are “need blind” in the worst possible way. They are ambivalent to the disadvantages of poverty.