Bollinger Hosts First Fireside Chat for Grad Students

Amid the freezing weather and bitter winter winds Wednesday night, graduate school students gathered at University President Lee Bollinger’s home for the first-ever fireside chat exclusively for them.

Students were eager to voice their opinions and concerns, emphasizing their interest in what the University is doing to help students find jobs after graduation, the need for cooperation among graduate schools, and international education.

The conversation began with an update from Bollinger on the University’s financial situation. According to Bollinger, the University is in both “a good and bad position.” He said that everything but the endowment is in good shape. “The tuition revenue is strong, clinical revenues are up and fundraising, believe it or not, is doing well,” he said.

Bollinger then acknowledged that the economy is on everybody’s minds and recognized that his audience is directly impacted by this situation, as its members are “making some serious choices in life.”

The issue of scarcity of jobs after graduation was brought to the table multiple times. One student pointed out that faculty lines were rapidly decreasing and asked Bollinger what the University had on its agenda to help current Ph.D. students with this situation. Bollinger replied that the University had no immediate solutions to this problem but that he was optimistic about the future of Ph.D. students. “I must say that universities will enter a period again of expansion. There is too much need for knowledge.”

Another reoccurring theme throughout the evening was the fact that the various graduate schools at Columbia are isolated from each other in terms of their curricula. One student said that there were not enough opportunities for students to interact with each other. Overall, students voiced their desire for synergy and centralization—for the schools to share their breadth of knowledge and experiences with each other.
In response, Bollinger acknowledged that there is more room for interaction, and he linked this area to a need for an international mixing of ideas. “This fits into a bigger issue for me—the issue of globalization and the need to deal with this intellectually,” he said.

A student from the Graduate School of Journalism voiced her concerns for the bleak job prospects that J-School students face. “Students are going to graduate this year as if there are jobs for us out there. But there aren’t,” she said. “We’re educating people as if there are still newspapers out there. But there aren’t.”

Bollinger admitted to the decline of the journalism job market, saying, “this is a threat where society is losing institutions that took a century to build up.” He added that he is working with Nicholas Lemann, Dean of the J-School, to help students prepare for their futures.

Next, a student from Europe said that compared to the University’s quality of education, the facilities at Columbia are substandard. “There might not be that many Nobel Prize winners in Europe but the facilities are definitely better,” she said.

When Bollinger asked for a show of hands of how many people agreed, a vast majority of students in the room responded that they did. “We are working very hard to build up our resource base,” Bollinger said. “Our fundraisers have been very successful in doing this.”
As the chat came to an end, Bollinger asked students how well they felt they were being prepared for the global world. Many students expressed their feeling that there was a lot of room for globalization in the grad schools’ curriculums.
Throughout the chat, Bollinger repeatedly emphasized that he was always open to ideas from students. “Let’s get practical about this,” he said. “If you have ideas, send me an e-mail.”
news@columbiaspectator.com