Thanks to the endowments established by a $4 million gift, Columbia University Libraries are purchasing additional print and electronic materials relevant to Jewish Studies and supporting and expanding its collections of historic Judaica. The gift also provided an endowment for the University’s first dedicated librarian in Jewish Studies, a position since filled by Michelle Chesner. The new librarian works with faculty to further develop the general collection and assists students and scholars in their use of the Libraries’ extensive holdings — which already include some 1,500 Hebrew manuscripts, hundreds of Hebrew books from the 15th and 16th centuries, and thousands of Yiddish publications and Jewish scholarly works in Western and Slavic languages.

“Mr. Alexander’s gift is an investment in our students, our faculty, and in the many scholars whose learning and research will benefit from the outstanding collections and services at Columbia," said James Neal, Vice President for Information Services and University Librarian.

Thousands of undergraduates have already begun to enjoy a more integrated academic advising experience since the new Center for Student Advising opened in August 2010, bringing together under one roof general academic advising, Academic Success Programs, the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program, and the Office of Preprofessional Advising. The center’s guiding principle is to build what Dean of Advising Monique Rinere calls “a true partnership — a relationship between students and advisors based on mutual engagement, responsiveness, and dedication.” It’s been a successful formula to date, with more than 12,000 visits to the center by undergraduates last year, including 97 percent of first-year students during their very first week on campus.

The Student Advising Center is funded in part by the Austin E. Quigley Endowment for Student Success, which also provides funding for career education, summer internship programs, and more. The initiative to comprehensively support College and Engineering students across these multiple platforms was conceived by several key Campaign leaders and named in honor of the longtime College leader who stepped down in 2009, after 14 years as dean. “A substantial endowment will enable us to enhance our advising programs and career services substantially,” Quigley says, “while sustaining their quality for the long term.”

Photo by Michael Moran

Soon after their daughter Isabella was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 14 months, Nicole and Daniel Lesta of Southampton, N.Y., heard about the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University. “I called and was able to make an appointment the following week. Our appointment was wonderful. I couldn’t have hoped for anything better,” Nicole said.

Today Isabella is a happy three-year-old — and one of more than 10,000 children and adults who have been helped at the Berrie Center to date. “I feel she’s getting the best care possible,” said her mother. “Isabella's doctor is helping her live a long and healthy life.”

Photo by Bob Handelman

John Chun lives and works in Seattle, more than 2,400 miles from Morningside Heights — as he did in 2004 when he first encountered the then relatively new website LinkedIn. Seeking to connect with fellow graduates, Chun took the initiative to create an informal group that he called the “Columbia Alumni Network.” As LinkedIn grew, attracting more and more users, Chun’s group became the site’s go-to spot for Columbians of every stripe — allowing them not only to network professionally but also to reconnect with old friends, make new connections, and explore similar professional and personal concerns.

He approached University officials when the group hit 5,000 users; it had grown to about 10,000 when the Columbia Alumni Association agreed to assume administrative responsibilities. Today, the online network connects more than 17,000 alumni worldwide who share a commitment to the University and to each other. It’s just one of several CAA tools that helps thousands maintain ties to their alma mater — and it started with a lone Columbian in the Pacific Northwest.

Columbia’s undergraduate program in environmental biology educates the next generation of environmental leaders. Under the guidance of core department faculty and experienced researchers from organizations including the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden, and the Wildlife Conservation Society, student majors complete an extraordinary range of internships at research sites around the world. In doing so, they develop professional working relationships with respected researchers and experience firsthand the realities of conducting original fieldwork under sometimes unpredictable conditions.

In 2010, Cristina Matesanz (pictured) traveled to Spain to research estuarine parasites. Other student interns in recent years have studied the biological effects of groundwater pollution in Bangladesh, the effects of farming practices on disease risk in Kenya, the infection dynamics of Lyme disease in Connecticut, bobcat habitat use in Virginia, sea turtle nesting behavior in Costa Rica, the effects of warming on alpine meadow plants in New Zealand, and much more. Their work, typically conducted after junior year, serves as the basis of their senior theses and inspires many to pursue careers in the field.

Construction of the Center, the future home of the Mind Brain Behavior Initiative (MBBI), is already under way on Columbia’s Manhattanville campus. Led by professors Richard Axel, Thomas Jessell (pictured here), and Eric Kandel, MBBI will open up new areas of collaboration not only with the sciences and social sciences, but also the arts and humanities — addressing the roots of human behavior as well as the causes of neurological and psychiatric diseases — from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to depression and autism.

This state-of-the-art research center will be the nation’s largest private academic facility dedicated to brain research — a home for the world’s leading neuroscientists to investigate complex questions of the brain and mind. Renowned architect Renzo Piano has designed the center to facilitate collaboration and interaction, with an eye to engaging and educating the public.

Photo by Jill LeVine

The Columbia University School of Social Work has long led the way in addressing contemporary social problems. Today, distinguished faculty continue to conduct cutting-edge research and often convene national and international conferences that contribute new knowledge to the field. Donor support for the School’s building fund has proven instrumental in maintaining an environment that is conducive to this leadership as well as teaching and learning.

The school’s relocation in 2004 brought modern classrooms, additional meeting space, and dedicated library and computer facilities that allowed the school to expand its programs, add students, and truly globalize social work education. “The building at 1255 Amsterdam Avenue enhances the educational experience,” says Kaziem Woodbury ’05SW, an active alumnus. “From a student’s perspective, it’s an environment deliberately designed for learning.” Scholarship gifts help ensure that the very best students can attend the School and take full advantage of its many resources.

Challenges like low-productivity agriculture, a high disease burden, and high transport costs render hundreds of millions of Africans especially vulnerable to persistent extreme poverty. By helping to make the investments in human capital and infrastructure required to achieve self-sustaining economic growth, the Millennium Villages project offers a bold, innovative model for helping rural communities.

In 80 villages in 10 countries across sub-Saharan Africa, simple solutions like mosquito netting, high-yield seeds, fertilizers, medicines, drinking wells, and materials to build school rooms and clinics are effectively nourishing communities into a new age of health and opportunity.  The Millennium Villages are proving that, by focusing on community-led development at the village level, rural Africa can achieve UN-established global targets for reducing poverty and hunger and improving education, health, gender equality, and environmental sustainability by 2015.

In 2009, the architect, developer, and former New York City planning official Vishaan Chakrabarti (pictured) became the inaugural Holliday Professor of Real Estate Development and the first full-time director of the Real Estate Development program at GSAPP. Now he’s helping the program and its graduates seek — and achieve — positions of leadership in the field.

“Real estate today is at the epicenter of the forces shaping our world, be it the economy, the environment, the design of cities, or the planet’s irrevocable shift towards urbanization,” said Chakrabarti. “Columbia’s rigorous professional program — structured in the context of the world’s most innovative laboratory for architecture, planning and preservation — provides an unrivaled platform to tackle these pressing issues.”

Photo by Bob Handelman

When Javi Plasencia ’11CC was a high school senior, he dreamed of attending Columbia but assumed that financial considerations would steer him to a more affordable state school. Thrilled to receive the Kluge Scholarship that allowed him to come to Morningside Heights, he says it changed his life’s trajectory.

Determined to make the most of the opportunity, the avid cyclist became involved with the Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program, through which he led incoming freshmen on challenging four-day bike trips. He also served on the Columbia College Board of Visitors as a student member. Now a newly minted graduate, the onetime comparative literature major looks forward to his first assignment with Teach For America. “In terms of intellectual development and personal growth, attending Columbia has been as invaluable an experience as I had hoped it would be.”

Each year, financial aid allows a great number of talented and deserving students to attend Columbia College (and other schools at the University) — students who could not attend otherwise. Plasencia says he plans to do his part to keep the pipeline open: “I’m looking forward to giving back to help other students enjoy the same opportunities I received at Columbia.”

Photo by Jill LeVine

A $100 million gift from Henry R. Kravis — the largest in the history of Columbia Business School — will support the construction of two buildings on Columbia’s new campus in nearby Manhattanville. As it addresses a critical need for space, the planned expansion will elevate the School’s role as a source of global business and economic policy innovation and enable it to cultivate new generations of leaders who go on to careers in business, government, academia, and the nonprofit sector.

Featuring state-of-the-art technology and a design by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the new facilities will encourage collaborative learning while also creating increased opportunities for students, faculty members, and alumni to engage the local community. One of the buildings will be named for Kravis in recognition of his extraordinary generosity.

When Cassia Burke '11GS was chosen to dance with the Miami City Ballet, she thought she would forgo college for a life en pointe. But after several years, she knew it was time to consider a different career path. Burke volunteered to live and work with AIDS orphans in Uganda, where she was asked to teach English without textbooks or even a lesson plan. “I took a deep breath and spent all summer digging up old poems from memory,” she remembers.

Inspired by the possibilities of life offstage, Burke enrolled in the School of General Studies. Since coming to Columbia she has studied sustainable development, French, and Swahili, and completed a thesis on linguistic policy in Senegal schools. Her outstanding academic performance has earned her crucial financial support — including the Larry J. Lawrence Scholarship, which completely funded her senior year. “Since that summer in Uganda, my passion has been teaching, and I hope to one day make it my career,” says Burke. “The gift of an education is priceless.”

Photo by Bob Handelman

As the first holder of the Mary O’Neil Mundinger chair, School of Nursing Dean Bobbie Berkowitz (pictured) is implementing her own vision for the future even as she builds on the work of her long-serving and accomplished predecessor. Today, the School’s leading priorities include raising money for scholarships to ensure a diverse student body, expanding research to help build the science of health and healthcare, contributing to health policy, and engaging staff and faculty in developing strategic initiatives. Another key goal for Dean Berkowitz is to continue to strengthen relationships with Nursing alumni, one of the school’s most valued constituencies.

Photo by Catherine Gibbons

The accomplished violist Christopher Jenkins ’11SIPA has worked extensively with youth musicians in a variety of settings and, as a chamber musician and string quartet member, performed in venues from Carnegie Hall to Cameroon. A few years ago, he realized he wanted to develop new skills for a different kind of stage.

Jenkins knew the School of International and Public Affairs could be the ideal springboard for a career focused on international humanitarian work. But the graduate of Harvard University, the New England Conservatory, and the Manhattan School of Music was extremely reluctant to add to his existing student debt. The Ottaway Fellowship provided Jenkins with the financial support he needed to attend SIPA. “It’s great to find classes so targeted to specific humanitarian assistance,” he said. “Everyone here wants to make the world a better place.”

Photo by Jill LeVine

Michael Collins is a pioneer in the field of statistical natural language processing, or NLP. His work explores how computer technology can dissect human language — through automatic translation, speech recognition, and refined search processes. “There is tremendous strength in computer science and related areas at Columbia, including a huge amount of talent in natural language processing, machine learning, and other areas of artificial intelligence,” Collins said. “I’m thrilled to be at Columbia Engineering during such an exciting time.”

Collins was recruited to Columbia Engineering from MIT to fill a newly established chair funded by University Trustee Vikram S. Pandit and a matching donation from fellow Trustee Armen Avanessians and his wife, Janette Avanessians.

Professor Zoë Strother helped affirm Columbia’s strength in non-Western art when she rejoined the faculty as the first Riggio Professor of African Art in Fall 2007. A nationally renowned specialist in 20th-century art of central and west Africa, Strother had taught at the University from 1995 to 2000 before leaving New York for UCLA. As Professor Robert E. Harrist Jr., chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology, noted at the time, “The Riggio professorship in African Art takes its place among a constellation of other professorships in non-Western art that ensure Columbia’s continuing preeminence in these fields.”

Strother is known especially for her work on the role of the visual arts — especially masquerade — in articulating power and knowledge, and has conducted research in Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Mali, and Senegal. She is also a contributing editor for Res: Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics and associate editor of the e-journal Art in Translation. Her published work has been praised as “scholarly but accessible” and is widely used in teaching.

In 2007, Columbia upgraded its baseball field by installing a state-of-the-art artificial playing surface known as FieldTurf. As a result, the Lions could practice and play outside more often in February and March, the early months of the NCAA baseball season.

In Fall 2010, Columbia completed extensive work on the stadium surrounding the playing field. Today fans enjoy chairback seating and expanded seating down the first-base line. The facility also features a new home dugout, press box, and multimedia scoreboard.

In 2008 Columbia won its first Ivy League title in more than 30 years. The team has continued to be competitive, winning the league’s Lou Gehrig Division in 2010.

Columbia’s Mobile Dental Center regularly visits more than 65 day-care facilities, schools, and Head Start centers in northern Manhattan and the Bronx, offering comprehensive dental care to children between three and five years old.

The fully accessible van has two complete dental stations as well as x-ray equipment and a waiting area to provide oral health education. Staff members — including a dentist, pediatric resident, dental hygienist, dental assistant, and driver/data entry clerk — provide regular exams, cleanings, fluoride treatments, referals and more. A unit of the Community DentCare program, it’s a great example of how Columbia truly makes a difference in the lives of its neighbors.

If a country sinks beneath the ocean, is it still a country?

At the request of leaders from the Marshall Islands, internationally recognized environmental lawyer Michael Gerrard convened a global conference in May 2011 to explore legal issues that will arise as island nations disappear under water. As the Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia Law School and director of the Center for Climate Change Law, Gerrard is knee-deep in scores of environmental issues affecting water, land, and skies around the world.

Gerrard’s chair, the first endowed professorship at any law school devoted exclusively to the study of climate change, was established in 2009 with support from the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation. “Climate change law emerged as a field only a few years ago,” says Gerrard, who holds a joint appointment to the faculty of the Earth Institute. “Now, it’s by far the fastest growing area of environmental law.”

For students at Columbia College, the Core Curriculum lays the groundwork for lifelong learning and critical thinking. Classes like Contemporary Civilization and Literature Humanities inspire students to develop insights about themselves and the world around them, helping them to derive knowledge and wisdom critical to both their studies and their future lives. The experience has also proven to be a touchstone that unites alumni whose time at the College years is separated by years, even decades.

Annual giving not only provides vital direct support to Core programs, it also helps support some of the conditions that make the Core remarkable. By providing financial aid, for example, the Columbia College Fund helps ensure the diversity of voices in the classroom that is one of the hallmarks of the Core experience.

Beyond Core programs and financial aid, the College Fund provides funding for many aspects of the student experience, including summer internships, career education, student advising, and residential life programs. Outside Columbia College, donations to annual funds and alumni funds provide equally critical support at each of the University’s schools and units.

Photo by Eileen Barroso

What separates humans from machines? How do science and the humanities connect? Seeking answers beyond technology is Lydia Liu, the Wun Tsun Tam Professor of the Humanities and Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. In her latest book, The Freudian Robot, she examines the role of writing in the digital age — “a new understanding of human-machine interplay at the level of the unconscious.”

Liu also serves as the director of graduate studies at the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. “The Tams believed that education can change a person’s destiny,” she says. “Thanks to their bequests, professors can encourage students to explore into new ways of thinking about living in a digital society.”

Photo by Jill LeVine

Emily Bell had spent five years dedicated to online news and information, but it was a telephone call that got her attention. Was the director of digital media at Britain’s Guardian News and Media interested in leading a new center at Columbia Journalism School? Bell seized the opportunity to bring her expertise to New York and educate the next generation in digital journalism and emerging media.

Since October 2010, under Bell’s direction, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism has examined the interaction between journalism and readers who are both consuming and contributing online content. The center and its students explore innovative methods of digital reporting and presentation, providing pathways for truly interactive journalism to emerge and creating models that will serve both new and established media outlets. “Journalism has been set some profound challenges by digital progress,” Bell has said, “and needs help answering them.”

Photo by Bob Handelman

Raised on a small farm in El Salvador, Rosa Mendoza came to the United States as a youngster. “My parents didn’t get to go to school,” she said. “They wanted me to do better.” Now the former major in molecular biology at Princeton University is in her first year of medical school at the Columbia University Medical Center, thanks to her Vagelos scholarship – and mentoring from Dr. Vagelos himself. “He makes time for you,” she says. “He really makes you feel he cares about you and your future.”

Photo by Bob Handelman

Brittany O’Neill ’12SOA was a young theatre professional determined to enhance her knowledge and skills when she enrolled in the Theatre Management and Producing Program. A merit-based Whitman Fellowship allowed her to leave part-time work behind without taking on too much debt. Now O’Neill is devoting herself full-time to the stage and her studies, and has served as general manager of recent SOA productions of Love’s Labor’s Lost and Three Sisters.

“This fellowship allows me to take a full course load without worrying about working outside school; I didn’t realize what a difference it would make not to have my brain in two places at once,” she observes. “That’s the best thing about the fellowship — it allows you to focus on your passion.”

Photo by Jill Levine