Dear Reader,
As one of the few college students who can call themselves a morning person, I’ve always held onto a certain quote by the famed science fiction writer Glen Cook: “Morning is wonderful. Its only drawback is that it comes at such an inconvenient time of day.”
I, for one, have come to cherish the process of waking up early, venturing to a coffee shop, and wandering a pedestrian-less cityscape as a sacred routine. Yet, beneath the clichéd treatment of the morning hour as some near-mythical window of new beginnings and opportunities that arise with the sun, Cook’s words hold merit even for those of us who aren’t sleepyheads. New opportunities don’t always come at the most opportune times.
In this issue, I cover the Columbia administration’s diminishing credibility with valuing student free speech, senior editor Uma Rajan points out how the Core Curriculum often contradicts the University’s stated educational goals, and staff editor Mathilda Simons investigates the worsening financial condition of both Columbia and Barnard. In other words, it’s not the most opportune moment for President Jennifer Mnookin to take the reins at Columbia.
The former University of Wisconsin Chancellor herself has faced mixed reactions over her time in Madison. While Mnookin was credited with expanding tuition assistance and scholarships to working-class Wisconsinites and growing the University’s research footprint, she also faced criticism for her inaccessibility to many students, as well as her absent relationship with the school’s faculty union and even their football program’s declining performance.
Mnookin may not have to worry about our football team getting any worse, but she has to grapple with leading what is, by some metrics, the nation’s most polarized campus. It seemingly follows that the incoming president herself pledged to uphold Columbia’s “deep commitment to open inquiry,” while the Columbia Board of Trustees, in explaining their choice of leadership, cited her as “a keen listener who builds consensus.”
Although many Madison students will dispute that, at the very least, Columbia’s new leader seems dedicated to what I deem in my article as ‘dialogue-ism.’ In her Wisconsin years she introduced her own array of programming geared to promoting open dialogue, from “Deliberation Dinners” to “The Wisconsin Exchange.”
Of course, I’m not sure how many more ‘open dialogue’ initiatives Columbia needs for an atmosphere of actual relationship-building and thoughtful engagement with each other to actually develop. What waits to be seen is if anyone—no less our new president—has the courage to introduce something new.
One great aspect of the morning is that it provides a ‘reset’: a fresh set of lenses with which to approach the challenges of the day. Whether it be staff writer Jayna Rohslau’s stories of how the Luddite movement taught her to be more tuned-in to her surroundings or staff editor Jessica Weinfeld’s analysis challenging the claims of elected officials on which groups voted them in, this issue, in keeping with Sundial’s intellectual tradition, features commentaries that scrutinize, challenge, and mold existing assumptions into new understandings.
The moment to form new ideas and restore open inquiry to campus isn’t the most opportune, but it’s now, and it’s up to our President Mnookin to seize it. At an institution as storied and devoted to truth-seeking as Columbia, it may just be the only way forward.
For the staff,
Nick Baum
Editor-in-Chief
Mr. Baum is a senior in the joint degree program between the Jewish Theological Seminary and School of General Studies. He is the editor-in-chief of Sundial.