"I've been interested in the interface between chemistry, biology and engineering: how can we use our understanding of chemical matter to change or alter or understand biological systems? I think there's a lot of power in that."
The Office of the Provost is pleased to share Columbia’s newly-released Guide to Best Practices in Departmental Climate, an invaluable resource to help create a supportive, inclusive environment.
"Since I came here to Columbia, I’ve been following that work on the parental behavior from both a genetics and a neurobiology perspective. We have also expanded to studying aggression, first in chickens, in which we are going to try to identify a genetic basis of their aggression in chickens bred for fighting for hundreds to thousands of years."
We are pleased to renew calls for proposals from the President’s Global Innovation Fund and the Global Scholars Program, each closely aligned with the Columbia Global Centers. The programs support projects within and across these sites, in order to increase global opportunities for research, teaching, and service.
I am delighted to announce that Julie Kornfeld will begin service as Vice Provost for Academic Programs on January 1, 2020. In this role, she will oversee the University’s broad range of academic programs with a focus on compliance, policy, and regulatory requirements.
"One of the things that I’m interested in is the disjunction between what medieval theorists and philosophers say about animals’ capacity for language, and then how poets depict animal languages."
I write to share information about both the School and Child Care Search Service and The School at Columbia. As the father of four (and grandfather to ten)…I encourage families who wish to utilize these supports to reach out as early as possible.
"...I study the political causes and consequences of the disenfranchisement of migrants, who typically embody a cultural “other” in ethnically diverse societies. In many developing countries, rural-to-urban migrants face a great degree of discrimination in destination cities, for example, by being excluded from public housing or public education. They typically live in shanty towns or slum colonies where they are invisible to the government. This systematic exclusion has a materially adverse impact on their welfare."
Some four weeks into my stint as interim provost, I should like to share my sense of priorities for the academic season and report on some current developments.
A brief update on the status of the continued union negotiations with the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW and the Columbia Postdoctoral Workers-UAW.
I am very pleased to announce that Jeri Henry has been appointed as Vice Provost for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action. In this role, she will be responsible for the management of the University's employee policies and procedures on discrimination, harassment, and sexual assault; and will serve as the University’s compliance officer for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and affirmative action laws.
"...I intervene in a really active area of social science research that has advanced the claim that diversity has negative consequences for things like trust and cooperation. Basically, research doesn’t often meet the burden of proof to make that kind of claim. And this has gone unnoticed because there is a lot of confusion around the term “diversity.” Often, we will say “diversity,” when actually what we mean and what we measure is something else, something that is not really diversity at all; it’s just the presence of non-whites."
To maintain and enhance the academic excellence of our schools, I have relied on the engagement of faculty colleagues and committees across a range of programs and policies within the Office of the Provost. These include the awarding of tenure to outstanding faculty; conducting rigorous reviews of schools and other academic units; facilitating the effective use of space and resources; fostering innovative teaching; and building on our commitment to faculty diversity and inclusion.
The fund awards grants for faculty members to leverage and engage the nine Columbia Global Centers. The program supports projects within and across these sites, in order to increase global opportunities for research, teaching, and service.
Guidance for Columbia community members planning international travel.