Kara WalKerOn Exhibit at

The Whitney| 2

open WideColumbia Expands its Dental Plan | 5

siemens science day

for Budding Scientists | 6

NEWS aNd idEaS FOR THE COLUMBia COMMUNiTYvol. 33, no. 04 october 25, 2007

Athletic Goal:$100 MillionBy Bridget O’Brian

www.columbia.edu/news

Outside of academic circles, Jacques Barzun is best known for the quote inscribed at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.: “Whoever wants

to know the heart and soul of America had better learn baseball.”

Here at Columbia, where members of the Society of Columbia Graduates gathered on October 18th to present Barzun with their annual Great Teacher Award a month before his 100th birthday, it is equally appropriate to say that whoever wants to know the heart and soul of Columbia College had better learn about Jacques Barzun.

Barzun founded and championed the field of cultural history, and with Lionel Trilling designed the humanities portion of Columbia’s

famed core curriculum and held legendary seminars. He authored and edited more than 40 books, including Teacher in America (1945), The House of Intellect (1959) and Dawn to Decadence (2000), a best-seller for its then 92-year-old author. Time magazine put him on its cover in 1956 (above) as the epitome of the intellectual.

Barzun, University Professor and Provost Emeritus of Columbia University, accepted the Society of Columbia Graduates’ 59th an- nual Great Teacher Award in absentia at a gala dinner co-hosted by the Society and Alan Brinkley, the current provost, in the Low Library Rotunda. Barzun lives in San Antonio, Tx., and was not able to make the trip to New York.

continued on page 8

courtesy of time magazine

eile

en b

arro

so

By Anne Burt

Columbia launched its $100 mil-lion campaign to transform the University’s athletics program,

and in recognition of a $5 million gift, the playing field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium was named the Robert K. Kraft Field. Kraft is a 1963 graduate of Columbia College who now owns the New England Patriots. The field was renamed during homecoming weekend.

In addition to that gift, William C. Campbell, chairman of the Uni-versity’s board of trustees and him-self a former captain and head coach of Lions football, pledged more than $10 million to the athletics initia-tive. There were eight other gifts of $1 million or more.

The Columbia Campaign for Athletics: Achieving Excellence, part of the University’s $4 billion capital campaign, has raised $46 million so far. The money will be used to invest in people, places and in programs, said athletics director M. Dianne Murphy.

A major part of the plan is to re-cruit and retain administrative and coaching talent, as Columbia does for its academic departments. “We have set the financial goals for establishing endowments to be consistent with professorships and department chairs across the University,” Murphy said.

The campaign reflects the im-portance that Columbia places on athletics. “I don’t think of intercol-legiate athletics as something ex-tra-curricular,” said president Lee C. Bollinger. “I think of athletics as co-curricular. This means to me that mediocrity in athletics is simply not acceptable.”

The largest component of the campaign will be facilities, spe-cifically the construction of a new sports complex at the Baker Field Athletics Complex, making it a des-tination for student-athletes and pro-viding additional recreational space for faculty, staff and students. “From the boathouses to the tennis center to our playing fields, we will ensure that the entire complex is first-rate,” Murphy said. n continued on page 6

The International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), housed at

Columbia’s Lamont campus in Palisades, New York, is working with policy makers in the nation of Colombia to show how climate forecasts can help communities better prepare for climate-sensitive disease outbreaks.

IRI scientists work around the world to expand the knowl-edge of climate and its rela-tionship to health, agriculture, water, and other sectors, and help communities better adapt to changes that affect their lives and livelihoods.

Over the past three de-cades, Colombia has seen a jump in vector-borne diseases. The number of malaria cases averaged 142,297 between 2001 and 2005, and there were 43,257 reported cases of den-gue in 2005—a 90% percent jump over the previous year.

The World Health Organi-zation (WHO) estimated that, in 2000, approximately 2.4% of the world’s total diarrhea cases and 6% of malaria cases in some middle-income countries could be attributed to climate change. Poor countries are especially burdened, because they do not have the resources to effectively treat their grow-ing populations, particularly those who live in rural ar-eas. Nearly half of Colombia’s population lives in poverty.

In Colombia, Gilma Man-tilla, who until recently ran the infectious disease surveil- lance program at the Instituto Nacional de Salud in Bogotá, said that scientists have found that periods of intense rain-fall or drought increases the breeding habitats of vectors. “This results in a pattern of den-gue and malaria transmission that is highly associated with seasonal rainfall, especially in Colombia,” she said.

Mantilla, who started the 12-month Master of Arts in Climate and Society at Colum-bia this fall, is working with the IRI to improve an exist-ing early warning system that can help predict outbreaks in

Climate Scientists Work To Battle DiseaseBy Clare Oh

100 years of barzunHead Football Coach Norries Wilson flanked by donors Kraft and Campbell.

TheRecord

Step aside, Dancing with the Stars. Barnard College, along with Columbia and the World Music Institute, hosted some 900 tango lovers at a festival Oct. 4 - 9, to celebrate Latino/a Heritage Month. Participants came from as far as Los Angeles and Boston for an opportunity to see and learn from 30 leading tango dancers, musicians and scholars. Pictured above is Mariela Franganillo, primary organizer of the event, in a performance with tango partner Oscar Martinez Pey. Participants were also treated to instructional classes from beginner to advanced levels, lectures on the social history and development of the dance form, and evenings of milongas, or social dance parties with live music.

ON C AMPUS MILESTONES

IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO

Dental Students of Yore

USPS 090-710 ISSN 0747-4504Vol. 33, No. 04, Oct. 25, 2007

Published by the Offi ce of Communications and

Public Affairs

TheRecord Staff:

Editor: Bridget O’BrianGraphic Designer: Nicoletta Barolini

Senior Writer: Melanie A. FarmerUniversity Photographer: Eileen Barroso

Contact The Record:t: 212-854-2391f: 212-678-4817

e: curecord@columbia.edu

The Record is published twice a month dur-ing the academic year, except for holiday and vacation periods. Permission is given to use Record material in other media.

David M. StoneExecutive Vice President

for Communications

Correspondence/SubscriptionsAnyone may subscribe to The Record for $27 per year. The amount is payable in advance to Columbia University, at the address below. Allow 6 to 8 weeks for address changes.

Postmaster/Address ChangesPeriodicals postage paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offi ces. Postmaster: Send address changes to The Record, 535 W. 116th St., 402 Low Library, Mail Code 4321, New York, NY 10027.

ASK ALMA’S OWL

TheRecord welcomes your input for news items and staff profi les. You can submit

your suggestions to:

curecord@columbia.edu

OCTOBER 25, 20072

DAV

ID W

ENTW

OR

TH

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) ranked fi rst out of 201 participating U.S. universities in two categories in the 2007 annual RecycleMania Competition. In the Per Capita Classic competition, LDEO collected 101.12 pounds of materials per person, and also came in fi rst in the Targeted Materials category for most paper recycled during the 10-week contest. LDEO came in third overall in the contest. Above are LDEO’s assistant director of facilities and engineering PATRICK O’REILLY and the Borehole Lab’s deputy director of operations MARY REAGAN, with the winning trophy at the Oct. 12 unveiling.

LISA HOGARTY, executive vice president for student and administrative services for Columbia University, was named chief operating offi cer at Columbia University Medi-cal Center. Hogarty has worked at Columbia for fi ve years; before that, she was corpo-rate vice president for facility operations and hos-

pital support services for Continuum Health Part-ners and assistant hospital director at Mount Sinai Medical Center. At Columbia, Hogarty has played a large part in restructuring human resources andinformation technology for academic and administrative applications. She will start the new job Dec. 1.

The Columbia University Medical Center has appointed ANNE L. TAYLOR to the position of vice dean of academic affairs at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, effective Nov. 23. Taylor directs faculty recruitment searches and the appointments process, and works to enhance faculty career development and programming. Previously, at the University of Minnesota, she served as associate dean for faculty affairs at the medical school and co-directed the Deborah E. Powell National Center for Excellence in Women’s Health. Taylor has written more than 62 publications.

The Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology has given its 2007 Anthony Leeds Award for Urban Anthropology to STEVEN GREGORY for his new book, The Devil Be-hind the Mirror: Global-ization and Politics in the Dominican Republic, which

looks at how globalization affects the social structures and cultural practices in that country. Gregory is an asso-ciate professor of anthropology.

Three members of the Co-lumbia Universit y Medi-cal Center faculty were elected to the Inst itute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. They are KATHRYN CALAME,(photo left) professor of mi-crobiology and of biochemis-try and molecular biophysics at the College of Physicians

and Surgeons (P&S); TIMOTHY PEDLEY, the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Neurology and chair of the De-partment of Neurology at P&S; and CAROLYN WESTHOFF,professor of obstetrics and gynecology at P&S and profes-sor of epidemiology and of population and family health at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health. Members of the institute are recognized for their contributions to the advancement of the medical science, health care and pub-lic health fi elds, and volunteer on study committees that serve as national resources for various inquiries related to the scientifi c analysis of human health.

Dental Students Play

Dear Alma’s Owl,The College of Dental Medicine turns 90 this year. Was it the fi rst dental school?

No, the Baltimore College of Dental Medicine was fi rst, in 1840, and in 1865, Harvard founded the fi rst dental school affi liated with a university. Columbia is the fourth-oldest university-affi liated dental school.

Prominent dentists, physicians and scientists started advocating for a den-tal school at Columbia starting in 1892, but then-president Seth Low thought the proposition was too expensive, according to a history of the school written for its 75th anniversary.

The medical faculty made a formal proposal in 1915, put-ting forward the somewhat novel idea that dentists should be edu-cated as doctors were. The fol-lowing year, the Dental School of Columbia University admitted its fi rst two students for a joint six-year program. Joseph Schroff earned his M.D. in 1920 and received the fi rst Columbia D.D.S in 1922.

Funding for the school came from $100,000 donated by James N. Jarvie, a prominent New York banker whose brother, a well-known Brooklyn dentist, had helped push for the school’s estab-lishment. Jarvie’s gift was more than ade-quate given that the fi rst year of operation was expected to cost $24,000, according to a copy of the initial budget, which is on display in Low Library’s Rotunda along with other artifacts of the school. That

estimate included $3,000 a year for rent, and $3,000 in an-nual salary for the school’s dean and each of its fi ve full professors. (Dental chairs were a big line-item, costing a then-whopping $300 each.)

From 1919-20, Columbia became the fi rst univer-

sity to offer courses in oral hygiene. Its students also put on dental-themed plays, and the cast picture (above) is of the 1922 production of The War on Dental Caries.

In its early years, Columbia merged with two other dental schools and was called the School of Oral and Dental Surgery. In 2006, the name was changed to the College of Dental Medicine to bet-ter refl ect the school’s academic and scientifi c bent.

—By Bridget O’Brian

Send your questions for Alma’s Owl to curecord@columbia.edu.

3304.indd 23304.indd 2 10/24/07 1:49:19 PM10/24/07 1:49:19 PM

GLASS, REFLECTING ON ARCHITECTUREBy Fred A. Bernstein

Cuban-American writer Oscar Hijuelos is a child of Morningside Heights. He browsed the many bookstores along Broadway in the 1960s and worked in Columbia’s

libraries while he was an undergraduate at City University of New York.

Although he grew up on West 118th Street and his mother continued to live there for much of her life, he’d never set foot in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) building until Oct. 11, when Friends of Columbia Libraries hosted an evening with the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist that paid tribute to his life and work.

Interviewed by his friend Gay Talese, the acclaimed nonfi ction writer and former New York Times reporter, the conversation started with Hijuelos’ immigrant upbringing and his journey into the literary world. “What was it like to grow up next door to Columbia University?” Talese asked.

“We were aware there was a university, but we really didn’t have access to that world of learning or wonderfulness,” said Hijuelos. It was a different neighborhood in the 1960s, Hijuelos added, a lot “rougher.” Rows of tenement apartment housing dominated the stretch of Amsterdam Avenue between West 116th Street and West 118th Street, before SIPA and Columbia Law School were built.

But Hijuelos is now connected to the University in a way that will give others access to his life and work. In August 2006, Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library acquired a large collection of Hijuelos’ manuscripts, including thousands of pages and drafts from his novels and shorter works that document the author’s process of composition and revision. At the time of the acquisition, Hijuelos said

the fact that Columbia had acquired his papers “is the kind of thing that would have truly amazed my im-migrant parents.”

Raised by Cuban-born parents who came to New York in the 1940s, his father died when Hijuelos was a small child, and his mother (who died three years ago) spent most of her life as a hotel worker and homemaker.

He enjoyed books at a young age, but it wasn’t until college—fi rst at Manhattan Community Col-lege and later at CUNY—that Hijuelos fell in love with literature. “I never thought I’d be a writer as a kid,” he said.“I wanted to be a cartoonist. I read comic books.”

While at CUNY, Hijuelos began writing his fi rst novel, Our House in the Last World. A publisher bought the manuscript for $1,500 after attending a reading where Hijuelos fi lled in for a no-show. He continued to work in advertising after graduation, crediting his working-class roots for not allowing a published book to go to his head.

But then, in 1984, a letter arrived in the mail that changed his life—an offer by the American Institute of Arts and Letters for a writing residency in Rome. Hijuelos, then 33 years old, left for Europe for the

fi rst time and began The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, which would win the 1990 Pulitzer for fi ction. Being in a different country for the fi rst time was what it must have been like for his parents when they fi rst arrived in New York, he said. “I was energized to write this novel.”

Hijuelos’ life as a writer gained momentum. Talese wondered what pushed Hijuelos to leave the neighborhood in the fi rst place and graduate from college, particularly since it seemed he had few role models. He asked, “You didn’t have people advising you. … Something must’ve motivated you.”

“One thing my father told me was if you don’t want to be a bum, go to college,” Hijuelos responded. “I don’t know. You just try to fi nd your way in the world.”

TheRecord TheRecord OCTOBER 25, 2007 3

Oscar TalkBy Melanie A. Farmer

Oscar Hijuelos, left, talks about his life with fellow author Gay Talese.

DIA

NE

BON

DAR

EFF

The Wood Auditorium is three levels below Avery Hall (home of Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, or GSAPP), but for two days

recently the basement room was fi lled with talk of windows.

A conference sponsored by GSAPP, the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics and the Oldcastle Glass Co. brought together experts to discuss how technology is changing the role of glass in building design and construction. As Mark Wigley, GSAPP dean, put it: “We’ve poured more intelligence into glass than any other material. As a result, glass itself has become intelligent.”

Conference participants described new forms of glass that can adjust how much light and heat they transmit to a building, as uses and outdoor condi-

tions change. So-called switchable glass, as well as glass contain-ing invisible photovol-taic cells, technology that uses solar cells to convert light from the

sun into electricity, has the potential to improve our quality of life while diminishing the environmen-tal costs of buildings. Elizabeth Diller, a prominent architect who teaches at Princeton University, de-scribed a futuristic house in which the building is an “organism” that responds to the movement of the sun through the sky as well as to the movements of its owners. The glass, which “hibernates” when the owners are away, knows just what to do when—with the help of GPS and wireless technology—it receives word that they are on their way home.

That’s not the only quantum leap in glass technology. After centuries in which glass was inserted into openings in wood, stone or masonry structures, glass is becoming its own support system, according to James Carpenter, a lower Manhattan architect and glass artist. Carpenter showed examples of buildings in which he has pioneered the use of glass as structure.

Another devotee of structural glass is Steven Holl, the Columbia professor whose new addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City consists largely of glass “lenses” that rise from underground galleries without any additional support. Holl shared the stage with Werner Sobek, a German engineer

who is pioneering research into glass membranes so thin they produce buildings that resemble soap bubbles. Sobek recalled members of his parents’ generation who were unwilling to say what they did during World War II. When his children ask what he did during the global warming crisis, Sobek said, he would like to have a good answer.

If the engineers described how glass is changing, the architects described how glass is changing what they do. According to Dean Wigley, “The architect and the engineer stretch each other, one in

the name of art, the other in the name of science.”Other panelists looked at the social meaning of

glass. Columbia’s Beatriz Colomina spoke about the parallels between the advent of glass buildings and that of medical imaging technologies. “The fear of a glass box and the fear of an X-ray,” which developed roughly in tandem, “seem quaint today,” said Colomina. “The defi nition of private has changed in response to each of those invasions.”

Kazuo Sejima, a Japanese architect, spoke on the fi rst night of the conference about her minimalist buildings, including a new museum in Toledo, Ohio, designed (fi ttingly) for glass art. Sejima was present in Wood Auditorium even after she departed, thanks to the frequent, laudatory references to the growing infl uence of her Tokyo fi rm, SANAA. Professor Colo-mina compared Sejima’s ephemeral glass structures to the sharp-cornered glass boxes created by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe half a century ago. To enter a Sejima building “is to be caressed by a softness never found in Mies,” Colomina said.

Another building that received numerous accolades was Frank Gehry’s new IAC headquarters, a curving, white glass “iceberg” on the West Side of Manhattan. Roberto Bicchiarelli, vice president of Permasteelisa Cladding Technologies, the Connecticut company that manufactured the building’s glass “curtain walls,” described the diffi culty of creating more than 1,000 uniquely shaped, curving, multilayer panels. The designs for the panels consumed 146 gigabytes of data, Bicchiarelli said.

The conference also included a discussion of ways to make glass blast-resistant, moderated by Michael Bell, a professor of architecture, and Christian Meyer, chair of the department of civil engineering and Engineering Mechanics.

According to Professor Diller, in the early 20th century there was a great optimism about glass, a material, she said, that was “synonymous with democratization.” Recently, with the advent of terrorism, “There was paranoia about glass.” Now, she said, “We’re in a post-paranoid era.”

3304.indd 33304.indd 3 10/24/07 1:49:26 PM10/24/07 1:49:26 PM

The kids knew their mission: save the egg. Spread across the fl oor of Earl Hall, they surveyed their

materials and strategized. Would drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, a plastic baggie and masking tape cushion an egg against a fi ve-foot drop? The countdown began. The egg, heavily insulated, plummeted to the ground. “It’s good!” Lauren called, to cheers and applause.

Enthusiasm and inspiration were in large supply at Siemens Science Day at Columbia University on Oct 20th. More than 1,300 students, parents and instructors participated in 20-plus workshops and exhibits, taught by Columbia faculty and graduate students, Siemens professionals and specialists, such as criminalists from New York City’s own crime lab.

From classroom to classroom students practiced with robot snakes used for surgical procedures, listened to earthquakes and learned about endangered species. Local teachers had their own workshops, designed to provide them with curriculum ideas to make science fun, with titles like “School of Rock Workshops.”

The Siemens Foundation is one of the private sectors’ biggest proponents of math and science education. Since launching Siemens Science Day in 2005, the program has reached 30,000 children nationwide. This was Columbia’s fi rst time hosting the event.

U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, whose congressional district includes Harlem and Columbia, lauded the science day as an investment ensuring “our young people become part of the most educated workforce in the world.” City Councilman Robert Jackson also welcomed participants and presented a proclamation from the mayor.

In the “Bath Bubblers” workshop, Dr. Aberdeen Allen, a senior research scientist at Colgate-Palmolive, showed students how to make bath bombs-soaps that fi zzle and dissolve in bathwater. “I had fun,” said Jazmine, 8, after attending the workshop. “I also learned that scientists sometimes make mistakes. You shouldn’t get intimidated.”

Graduate student Andy Washkowitz’s exhibit, “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar,” showed students how to analyze DNA samples. He marveled at the wealth of interactive play at Siemens Science Day: “I would have found my way to science a lot easier if I’d seen something like this as a kid.”

During the opening ceremony, Nobel Laureate Horst Stormer described one of his most affecting childhood memories: hearing the “beep...beep...beep” of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite on his radio 50 years ago. This generation faces another wake-up call, he said. “Young people like you will address global warming,” adding that he hopes to see many of them at Columbia again—as students.

James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, thinks that’s possible. “We inspired some kids today,” he said. “As I was walking out of the egg-drop workshop, I heard a young girl say: ‘I’m going to be a scientist now.’”

TheRecord

A DAY FOR BUDDING SCIENTISTSBy Stacy Parker Aab

OCTOBER 25, 20074

RICHARD BUSSERTWHO HE IS:

Director of Landscaping and Grounds, Morningside Campus and Baker Field

START DATE AT COLUMBIA:

January 2006

WHAT HE DOES:

Every morning, Bussert tours campus by foot, checking the condition of the lawns, noting any irregularities in the landscaping and hardscapes (the concrete, granite and asphalt surfaces.) He routinely examines the irrigation systems and ensures the grounds are presentable, particularly if there was an outdoor event the night before. If something is out of place, the grounds supervisor is alerted, and it becomes a topic during the grounds crews’ daily 9:00 a.m. meeting. Bussert also works with the sports turf manager at Baker Field and the supervisor at the Morningside Campus who oversees the labor shop employees charged with event set-ups, tear-downs and furniture moves.

A GOOD DAY ON THE JOB:

“At the end of a difficult day, before I leave campus, I may ref lect on the beauty of the architecture and landscape for a moment, and amidst the activity of the lawns and plazas come to recognize a sense of pride in what I do and where I work.” Others recognize it, too. This month, the Professional Grounds Management Society will honor Columbia with the Grand Award for best in urban university grounds.

BEFORE COLUMBIA:

After graduating from Lafayette College in Easton, Penn., Bussert worked on a golf course landscaping crew. He had always been fascinated with golf as a player, but working in the outdoors had a special appeal, he said. Bussert later attended Pennsylvania State University to pursue a specialized certificate program in turfgrass management, taking courses on botany, irrigation, plant pathology, tree identification and other related subjects. Before joining Columbia, he worked at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., and, before that, in the construction and management of golf courses. Originally from the Midwest, Bussert has—until now—spent the majority of his life in upstate New York.

BEST PART OF THE JOB:

“As much as I like the grass, shrubs and trees, the best part of my job is the people I deal with on a daily basis: employees, co-workers, clients, contractors, event people I have never previously met. The diversity of the people and the fact that my workload changes both daily and seasonally make this work challenging, exciting and rewarding.”

IN HIS SPARE TIME:

Bussert still enjoys playing golf and loves spending time outdoors. At age 56, this is the first time in his life he is taking the subway to and from work. “I remind myself what Professor Kenneth Jackson said: ‘It only takes a week to become a New Yorker, really.”

— By Melanie A. Farmer

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

Award-Winning Campus

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

Columbia is getting a star—a Green Star Award, to be exact—from the Professional Grounds

Management Society, which gave the University its Grand Award for best in urban university grounds. In August, Columbia’s landscaping team submitted 26 photos for consideration, all taken by University photographer Eileen Barroso, that showed campus scenes during the four seasons and highlighted a few of the landscaping challenges and the staff at work. Pictured here is a sample of the winning photos. The award will be presented on Oct. 27 by the society at its annual expo in Louisville, Ky.

—By Record Staff

COLUMBIA PEOPLE

3304.indd 43304.indd 4 10/24/07 1:49:28 PM10/24/07 1:49:28 PM

TheRecord OCTOBER 25, 2007 5

Out With the Old Card, In With the NewBy Record Staff

Features of the University ID CardINSTITUTIONThe institution shown on the front of your card refl ects your primary affi liation.

EXPIRATION DATEEmployee cards expire every fi ve years. Student cards expire after your expected graduation.

AFFILIATIONVarious affi liations—employee,

student—are shown on the back of the card.

CONTACT NUMBERSBuilding access and emergency contact information is listed on the back of the card.

B etween now and Nov. 16, Columbia and its affiliates will issue and replace tens of thousands of ID cards, as the University moves to a new security system designed to address identity theft concerns and make the cards

generally easier to use. The new ID cards will go to all faculty, staff and students at

every Columbia campus, as well as those who work or study at Barnard College, Union Theological Seminary, Teacher’s College and Harlem Hospital. About a third of the new cards were distributed at the start of the academic year to incoming students and new faculty and staff hires.

A main purpose behind the switch is to issue new cards that do not have the user’s Social Security number embedded into the magnetic strip. With the new system, each individual will be assigned a randomly generated number (known as a unique identifier) in place of the Social Security number. As an additional layer of security, each card is also assigned a unique number; if a card is lost, only the card number—not the unique identifier—is exposed. The new card numbers will continue to

provide access to buildings, library borrowing and, for students, their debit accounts. In addition, the system’s old card swipers will be replaced by contact-less card readers.

There were a few early glitches with dining privileges associated with the card, as Columbia began switching from a system with 70,000 card users, 37 formats and 13 security systems. “The past problems have mostly been in getting the systems to talk to each other,” said Rosemary Keane, assistant vice president of student services at Columbia. “Since the summer, we’ve been operating two parallel systems.” The issuance of the new cards will put all the users into one system.

For students, Columbia also is looking into whether the cards can be used off-campus to charge items. “We’d like to do that for students, but there are a couple of steps involved,” said Keane. “The first step that we’re taking now is to talk with students about where they would want to see the card accepted off-campus.”

And no, despite the ubiquity of her name and picture on all the sample ID cards, there is no Rita Hollander at Columbia. The woman in the picture is a model.

Columbia is expanding and enhancing its dental coverage for faculty and staff, lowering the cost of coverage, increasing reimbursement and adding a nationwide network of dentists

beyond what the University currently offers.Under the new coverage, the University will offer a single plan

called the Aetna Columbia Dental Plan. It will include the current CU dental network as well as the national

network offered by Aetna’s dental plan. In addition, it will offer coverage for any dentist, even those not in either network. The new plan goes into effect Jan. 1.

Those who use Columbia network dentists will receive higher coverage than they do today.

For example, if you use a Columbia network dentist, your annual maximum benefi t will be $1,500. If you use

an Aetna dentist, the annual maximum benefi t will remain the same as it is now, at $1,250.

“Currently, we have a dental plan with access to Columbia alumni dentists,” said Linda Nilsen, assistant vice president for Human Resources Benefi ts at Columbia. “Through our arrangement with Aetna, we’ve been able to build on this network while lowering administrative costs.” The savings will be passed on to participants through lower premium costs, even as the network is expanded nationwide.

With the addition of Aetna, plus the out-of-network feature, “all our families can fi nd a dentist close to home—even children away at college can get coverage by their school,” Nilsen added.

Participants can get more information about the dental plan by going to the human resources Web site, www.hr.columbia.edu. This year, online Open Enrollment for Benefi ts is from Oct. 29 to Nov. 16. Sign up for the new dental benefi ts for 2008!

OPEN WIDE: NEW DENTAL BENEFITS By Record Staff

3304.indd 53304.indd 5 10/24/07 1:49:34 PM10/24/07 1:49:34 PM

TheRecord

Whether it’s a mugger or a friend who jumps out of the bushes, you’re still surprised. But your response—to fl ee or to hug—must be very different.

Now, researchers have begun to distinguish the circuitry in the brain’s emotion center that processes surprise from that which processes the aversive or reward “valence” of a stimulus.

C. Daniel Salzman, M.D., Ph.D. and colleagues at the Columbia University Medical Center published their fi ndings in the September 20, 2007 issue of the journal Neuron, published by Cell Press.

“Animals and humans learn to approach and acquire pleasant stimuli and to avoid or defend against aversive ones,” wrote the researchers. “However, both pleasant and aversive stimuli can elicit arousal and attention, and their salience or intensity increases when they occur by surprise. Thus, adaptive behavior may require that neural circuits compute both stimulus valence—or value—and intensity.”

The researchers concentrated their study on the amygdala, known to be the brain center that processes the emotional substance of sensory input and helps shape behavioral response to that input.

In their studies, which used monkeys, the researchers performed two types of experiments

as they recorded the activity of neurons in the animals’ amygdala. In one experiment, they taught the monkeys to associate a pattern on a TV monitor with either the rewarding experience of a sip of water or an unpleasant puff of air to the face. The researchers measured how well the monkeys learned the association by recording how frequently the animals anticipated the water sip or the air puff by, respectively, licking the water spout or blinking. This experiment was intended to establish whether there were specifi c amygdala neurons activated by rewarding or aversive stimuli.

In the other experiment, the researchers surprised the monkeys by randomly delivering either the water sip or the air puff—which aimed to establish whether the amygdala harbored specifi c surprise-processing circuitry.

The researchers’ analyses of the activity of the amygdala neurons did reveal different types of neurons. Some neurons responded to either the reward or the aversive stimulus, but not both. However, the activity of distinctly different sets of neurons was affected by expectation of either a reward or an aversive experience.

—Courtesy of Cell Press

BOO! HOW THE BRAIN HANDLES SURPRISE, GOOD AND BAD

TheRecord

RESEARCH

Clean Tech Mixer to Show Off InventionsBy Stacy Parker Aab

OCTOBER 25, 20076

can help predict outbreaks in malaria or dengue. In Botswana, IRI experts, working in collaboration with the WHO and other

partner organizations, helped develop such a system, based on population vulnerability, rainfall and health

surveillance, to predict malaria epidemics.By using a number of climate models the researchers were able to consider the uncer-

tainties in the predictions, which could then be expressed reliably as probabili-

ties. The researchers’ fi ndings, pub-lished last year in Nature, show that these probabilistic climate forecasts can be combined and used effective-ly in malaria forecasting.

In Botswana, forecasts provide health service managers with warnings of changes in epidemic risk fi ve months before the peak malaria season and four weeks earlier than predictions based on actual rainfall observations. Following Botswana’s lead, integrated malaria early warn-ing and response systems are being developed in conjunc-tion with epidemic prevention and response planning activi-ties in a number of Southern

African countries—and now in Latin America as well.

“What makes this work fresh and exciting is its approach,” says

Walter Baethgen, director of IRI’sLatin America and Caribbean Program.

“We have here a project on climate change adaptation, funded by a large

and respected global institution, that is looking at ways to reduce a society’s current

vulnerabilities to climate as a means of improv-ing its future ability to adapt.”

—Francesco Fiondella contributed to this story.

NIC

OLE

TTA

BARO

LIN

I

How do you connect leading Columbia experts who are developing cutting-edge scientifi c innovations in clean

technology with investors who can help bring such advances into our economy and society?

The answer is to create opportunities for both groups to meet in a forum that is “somewhere between a speed date and a candlelight dinner,” according to Dan Abraham, director of Columbia’s Science and Technology Ventures (STV).

On October 9, STV hosted just such an event, a half-day meeting where more than 20 representatives from 14 investment funds met Columbia University scientists and learned about their innovations in clean tech.Called Where Change Begins: An Introduction to Clean Technologies, the event included presentations about photovoltaic cells, zero-emission cement kilns, and other clean technologies, after which participants mixed and mingled over lunch—making contacts and connections that could lead to fruitful collaborations.

The STV clean tech forum, co-hosted with the Lenfest Center for Sustainable Energy at Columbia University, was the fourth in an ongoing series of what Abraham has called “matchmaking events.” Past forums show-cased innovations in medical device technology, computer sciences, and nano-technology. Upcoming forums will likely focus on wireless communications and biomedical engineering.

Columbia scientists from the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

who presented their technologies at the cleantech forum included Klaus Lackner on zero-emission cement kilns, sulfur management, and carbon electrochemistry; Vijay Modi on concentrated photovoltaics; Marco Castaldi on biomass as a sustainable energy source, and waste water to hydrogen; Tuncel Yegulalp on carbon capture during methane reform; Kartik Chandran on bioenergetics and nano-bio-info technologies; and Paul Van der Wilt, presenting on behalf of James Im, on high-effi ciency, thin-fi lm silicon solar cells via laser crystallization.

At the Oct. 9 forum, Arthur Kressner, director of research and development at Con Edison, discussed the fi rm’s current “Smart Grid” collaboration with Columbia,

and the innovations necessary for a system-wide modernization program for New York City’s electric grid. Charles Goulding, founder of Energy

Tax Savers, Inc., spoke about research and development, and energy tax incentive opportunities.

As Columbia’s technology transfer or- ganization, STV’s core objective is to help facilitate the development and real-world application of Columbia innovations to benefi t business and society across the globe. STV starts the dialogue between researchers and investors early in the research and development process.

“Sometimes it can take a couple of years to form a business relationship,” said Abraham. “Information exchange can lead to a start-up or investments or other partnerships.”

STV gets researchers

and investors talking

NIC

OLE

TTA

BARO

LIN

I

Climate Scientists Work To Battle Disease

continued from page 1

3304.indd 63304.indd 6 10/24/07 1:49:43 PM10/24/07 1:49:43 PM

A s a nurse who specializes in biomedical informatics, Suzanne Bakken focuses her research on ways to use information and communication technologies to improve

care for those who need it most: the elderly, young children, and groups that are more vulnerable to certain diseases. They are, in nursing speak, the underserved, and most broadly they are “those people who are most at risk for health disparities,” said 56-year-old Bakken. “There’s all kinds of data on what that is, and it’s very clear that particular racial and ethnic groups are more likely to experience such disparities.”

Bakken is principal investigator of the School of Nursing’s Center for Evidence-based Practice in the Underserved, which develops tools to help patients manage their own healthcare, or provide them with the resources to do so.

The center, which was established in 2001, received $2.4 million from the National Institute of Nursing Research to fund it for the next five years. Bakken and her colleagues are using the grant for four feasibility studies: evaluating a tailored, Web-based intervention to help adolescent diabetics and parents learn how to manage their diabetes using insulin pump technology; developing interventions for Heart Healthy living in HIV/AIDS; evaluating a self-management technique that adult diabetics with hypertension can use to help reduce their blood pressure; and designing a fall-and-injury assessment and prevention module for elderly patients that could be included in their medical records, so that there is an account of their risks to such injuries.

Bakken spent six years early in her career as a critical care nurse, but turned to informatics to help more people. “Although I enjoyed making things better for one patient,” she said, “I would always try to think, ‘How can we develop a standard of care for this kind of patient?’”

Q.What are some key issues the center is addressing?

A.Much of the materials that are written and on Web sites tend to be written at eighth-grade levels and

above. Some people use the approach of just writing everything at a low level, like third- to sixth-grade levels. That’s not the approach we like to use. We fi rmly believe that, regardless of the level of health literacy that a patient has, it is the clinician’s responsibility to fi gure out how to communicate with that patient. This is essential for high-quality care and it is essential for patient safety … It is very important that you match the level of the message with the person’s literacy level.

Q.What challenges do you face in delivering the necessary health information to the communities

you serve?

A.Sometimes it is the language [barrier], so most of the materials are still in English; sometimes there

are increasing amounts in Spanish. Sometimes they are culturally inappropriate. And thirdly, there is the issue of the readability—a mismatch between the readability of the health information that is presented and the health literacy of the person who needs the information.

Q.You are originally from the San Francisco Bay area. What brought you to Columbia?

A.It was the ability to have a joint appointment at a place that was good in both nursing and

biomedical informatics. [Columbia] is one of the few places in the country that has strength in both.

Q.What excites you about nursing

A.From the minute I was a nurse, I was always thinking about how to make it better for a group

of patients. So I probably was an informatician before I even knew what one was. That is the part that I still enjoy—designing tools that help both clinicians and patients address healthcare problems.

TheRecord OCTOBER 25, 2007 7

FACULTY Q&A

Suzanne BakkenInterviewed by Melanie A. Farmer

POSITION:The Alumni Professor of Nursing,

School of Nursing

Professor of Biomedical Informatics,College of Physicians & Surgeons

LENGTH OF SERVICE:7

HISTORY:Professor of Nursing at University of

California-San Francisco

Critical Care Nurse, Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit,Stanford University Medical Center

ON EXHIBIT: KARA WALKER

CHAR

LES

E. M

ANLE

Y

Slavery! Slavery! By Kara Walker

COURT

ESY

OF

SIKK

EMA

JEN

KIN

S &

CO

In her new exhibit at the Whitney Museum, Visual Arts professor

Kara Walker’s compositions, set in the antebellum South, play off ste-reotypes and portray life on the plantation, with masters and slaves in an unsettling historical struggle.

Arranged as a narrative, KaraWalker: My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love,features works ranging from the artist’s signature black-paper silhouettes to recent fi lm anima-tions. Walker has gained national and international recognition for her large-scale (often room-sized) scenes, in which she combines themes of racism, violence and sexuality. She has received many grants and fellowships including the John D. and Catherine T. Ma-cArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997, the Deutsche Bank Prize in 2004 and the Larry Aldrich Award in 2005. The exhibit will be on view at the Whitney through Feb. 3, 2008.

—By Record Staff

3304.indd 73304.indd 7 10/24/07 1:50:29 PM10/24/07 1:50:29 PM

SCRAPBOOK

100 Years of Barzun continued from page 1

HINT: Rain or shine, this knight stands guard on a popular ledge. Where does he keep post? Send answers to curecord@columbia.edu. First to e-mail us the right answer wins a Record mug.

ANSWER TO LAST CHALLENGE: The lamp post in front of Havemeyer; No winner.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

TheRecord OCTOBER 25, 2007 8

NO PLACE LIKE HOMECOMING

The stands at Wien Stadium at the Baker Field Athletics Complex—newly named Robert K. Kraft Field—were packed for Columbia’s Homecoming game Oct. 13 against the University of Pennsylvania. Across, from left to right: Creative fans roar for the Lions, and Head Football Coach Norries Wilson shares a moment with son Cecil.

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SOEI

LEEN

BAR

ROSO

MIC

HAE

L D

AMES

DAV

ID W

ENTW

ORT

H

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

A GREAT READ FOR LITTLE READERS

Who doesn’t love a good bedtime story? Especially in the middle of the day. More than 10,000 people attended the third annual New York Times Great Read Oct. 14, hosted by Columbia and presented by Target. Civic leaders, journalists and television, film and Broadway stars read to children from throughout the city from books selected by librarians from the five boroughs. Clockwise, from top left : NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly reads Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham; Actress Julie Andrews Edwards reads from her book, Thanks to You: Wisdom from Mother & Child; and Mariska Hargitay of Law & Order: SVUreads from Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

EILE

EN B

ARRO

SO

GOLD MEDALISTS 2016

Kids aged three to 12 got to tumbling in Dodge Physical Fitness Center Oct. 5 and 12, for free gymnastics clinics to show off what the Wendy Hilliard Foundation offers in its gymnastics training and sports clinics. The Hilliard Foundation, which aims its efforts toward inner city youth, is one of the recipients of funds from Columbia Community Service, an employee-driven fund-raising campaign, which raises money for more than 55 local community groups. Above photo: Budding gymnasts participate in a free class; bottom photo: A child enjoys one-on-one instruction on the parallel bars from a Wendy Hilliard trainer.

“As one whose teaching career began virtually in college, when I did a good deal of tutoring, I could readily understand receiving a Long Teacher award,” Barzun wrote. “The appellation of Great Teacher must come to anybody as a surprise and make one feel humble and grateful. This is because teaching is an activity that defi nes assessment, certainly assessment by the performer. It consists in the effort to change the contents of many minds at a time, by removing error and inserting knowledge in its place. What an impossible task!”

Born in France on November 30, 1907, Barzun moved from Paris to New York City in 1920, was valedictorian of the Columbia College Class of 1927, and received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1932. He taught as Seth Low Professor of History and in the course of his career served as dean of the Graduate School, dean of Faculties and as provost before re-tiring in 1975 as University Professor.

Speakers at the dinner included Austin E. Quigley, dean of Columbia College, Henry L. and Lucy C. Moses Professor, and Brander

Matthews Professor of Dramatic Literature; Henry R. Graff, professor emeritus of history; William Theodore De Bary, John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus and University provost emeritus; and Kenneth T. Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor in History and the Social Sciences.

Graff, co-author with Barzun of six editions of The Modern Researcher and a fellow baseball afi cionado, capped his remarks by mentioning a baseball bat that Barzun bought in Cooperstown, presented to Graff with his signature, and which Graff, in turn, sent back to the Baseball Hall of Fame where it now resides in the museum alongside Barzun’s most famous quote.

“If all the Great Teachers chosen by the Society of Columbia Graduates could somehow be here tonight,” said Graff, “they would collectively rejoice over their ranks being joined this year by the towering—and handsome—Jacques Barzun, the Babe Ruth of humanistic study and teaching.”

In a quote that is not nearly so famous, but certainly explains his standing as a great teacher, Barzun said, “when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.”

ALL SCIENCE, ALL DAY.

That’s what was in store for more than 1,300 students, parents and instructors who participated in workshops and science exhibits at the Oct. 20th Siemens Science Day at Columbia. Above photo: Middle school students learn how to test water quality in “Rain or Drain!” workshop—one of many interactive workshops offered at the all-day event.

3304.indd 83304.indd 8 10/24/07 1:50:32 PM10/24/07 1:50:32 PM