The weekly magazine of the Columbia Daily Spectator. Stories will be told thoughtfully, wholly, and originally.
Our content is meant to inform, challenge, and entertain the Columbia/Barnard student through word and picture with insightful, sophisticated analysis and commentary on some of the most critical issues facing the University. The Eye will take an active and subjective look at the Columbia community while still holding itself to the highest standard of accuracy and truth. It will teach staffers the
skills of writing, curating, and editing narrative journalism. It will challenge their own ways of thinking, managing, and collaborating, and teach them how to tell the stories of others in a voice that is their own better than a college class. When The Eye covers topical issues, it will do more than just present the story—it will give a voice to the various people and perspectives at the heart of the issue. When it comes to perennial topics, The Eye will unearth the complexities and nuances of the Columbia experience that most students previously weren’t aware of. The Eye will be human, and each week it will be an unrivaled media event.
This isn’t Saphe Shamoun’s first time in media coverage. The fourth-year anthropology Ph.D. candidate has gained national attention for co-founding Laylit—a party hosted across the United States and Canada celebrating Arab/SWANA artists—but Profiles Editor Mayra Kalaora sits down to dig deeper into his musical projects, research, and personal philosophy.
Story by Mayra Kalaora
Photos by Sydney Lee
“When you go into teaching, you’re prepared to not make a lot of money,” AJ DeFelice, a junior in Columbia College concentrating in education studies said. “And that doesn’t seem like something that Columbia is very interested in.” Although Barnard’s education program offers a concentration and certification, there is no education major at Columbia—part of a trend of elite schools cutting their education programs amid a nationwide teacher shortage.
Story by Caelan Bailey
Illustration by Caroline Niu
“It’s a really important reminder, I think, for all non-men that we are sufficient among ourselves,” Lizzy George-Griffin said. Event-planning group LionLez creates social and educational events that foster community and support for q***r women and q***r non-binary people.
Story by Sadie May Ellis-Caleo
Photo by Grace Li
There is a “bone lab” in Schermerhorn Hall with nearly 100 human remains contained inside. The Eye investigates where the remains came from, what the lab is doing with them, and the University’s role in returning them.
Story by Annie Cheng
Illustration by Kelsea Petersen
“Two days into working at Subway, things weren’t off to a great start.” In this View From Here, Barnard senior Ellie George reflects on her time working at her hometown Subway chain during the pandemic—and on conversations not had with coworkers.
Revolution Books is more than just a small, local bookstore—it’s the New York City hub of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Just 20 blocks from Columbia’s main campus, the bookstore and its staff have had an increasingly significant presence on campus, bringing the Revolutionary Communist Party, and all its controversies, along with it.
Story by Itzel Franco and Jesse Levine
Photos by Jesse Levine
Since 1938, Columbia’s hardware store has been the local go-to spot for dorm essentials. But for students, it creates home in more ways than one. The Eye talks to the owner, Bob Fendell, and first-year customers about how University Hardware and Housewares helps students start a new life on campus.
Story by Ewa Siemiatkowska and Mehreen Zakaria
Photos by Selina Yang and Salem Maru
“This place has been sort of a microcosm of how we live in New York City.” Roti Roll and Suite—the gay bar next door—are owned by the same trio of friends. Regulars talk to Spectator about the relationship between these two businesses and the culture of inclusion the owners have fostered.
Story by Morgan Desfosses and Haniya Cheema
Photos by Soleil Guevara, Ryan Newberger, and Gabriella Raine Gregor-Splaver
Thank you, Claudia, Eve, Parth, Rebecca, and Teresa for visiting us at the Spec office last night and speaking on our alumni panel. We loved hearing about your experiences, memories, and careers, and we learned very much from all the advice you shared! 👁❤️
As he receives his first tattoo, Eye editor Mason Cannon talks about art, identity and life with Barnard senior, history student, and tattoo artist James Perry.
Story by Mason Cannon
Photos by Millie Felder
In her View From Here, Isabella Farfan explores her relationship to three white marks on her face and how they define her brownness in the past, present, and future. A month or so after she was born, Farfan’s mom noticed the gradual appearance of one, and then two, and then three markings on the right side of her face extending above and below her jawline. They were not so much marks as they were the absence of melanin in oblong swatches with severe, jagged borders where their whiteness met her normal skin tone. She paid no mind to these “birthmarks” until much later in her life. In middle school, faced with the whiteness on her face, Isabella accepted that she was brown for the first time—and reckoned with the fact she might not always be.
View From Here by Isabella Farfan
Illustration by Grace Kim
Why have Columbia and Barnard adopted different stances in combating COVID-19, and why are Barnard’s policies almost always more strict than Columbia’s? The Eye considers how the institutions’ different COVID-19 policies have affected their respective student bodies over the last two years.
Story by Derek Ng
Photo by Violet Mendelsund
One viral Twitter thread. 22 SIPA students. A papered-over storefront and a changing collaboration. This fall, SIPA’s Co-Designing Smart Cities course has faced public backlash for allegedly asking SIPA students to redesign Harlem. But beyond the surface controversy, the class reveals a larger story about SIPA’s institutional involvement in Harlem.
Story by Caelan Bailey and Ysabella T**i
Photo by Beatrice Shlansky
Before he was a talk show host or a Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz was a surgeon, professor, and researcher at Columbia. But since the spring of 2022, Columbia has been quietly erasing Oz from its online presence. Is the University trying to erase its ties to Oz?
Story by Megan Lunny
Illustration by Max Graves
If you are a current student at Columbia, The Eye welcomes you to publish a personal essay with us. Submit an idea or pitch at this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/u/3/d/e/1FAIpQLSc0a6nnNPwtuW3qoEckk1PTzC0yrv19GSuHsCtzkEJ4qdAQDw/viewform
Ghosts, asylums, secret gatherings—the tunnels underneath Columbia University seem ripped out of the pages of a gothic novel. But they’re real and full of a deep, complex history older than campus itself.
This article is part of The Eye’s archival Space Issue—link in bio.
Article by Bella Aldrete
“It looks like a crooked picture, you just want to reach out and fix it.” Lerner Hall’s windowed wall to campus exposes its empty space connected by ramps criticized since their construction. The current student center stands as a flash point for student life on campus, with its predecessor and history caught between University priorities and student control.
This article is part of The Eye’s archival Space Issue—link in bio.
Article by Caelan Bailey
Once a storage closet in the Furnald Hall basement, Columbia’s Stephen Donaldson Lounge went on to become the first LGBTQ student lounge in the nation. Thanks to LGBTQ student groups on campus, led by Stephen Donaldson and Morty Manford, the lounge facility overcame a lack of institutional recognition. Now relocated to the first floor of Schapiro Hall, the space remains a site of LGBTQ visibility on campus.
This article is part of The Eye’s archival Space Issue—link in bio.
Article by Jonathan Truong
She was expelled from Barnard in 1968 for living with her boyfriend. Over 50 years later, Grace LeClair tells The Eye her side of the story—one that fits into a much larger narrative of coeducation at Columbia, the autonomy of women, and the rapid evolution of Columbia’s residential spaces in the late 20th century.
This article is part of The Eye’s archival Space Issue—link in bio.
Article by Annie Cheng & Lilienne Shore Kilgore-Brown
Columbia and Morningside Park have been neighbors for more than a century. Over the decades, some students and community members have donated their time, money, or even risked arrest for a park that others hardly care to remember exists.
This article is part of The Eye’s archival Space Issue—link in bio.
Article by Isabella Noonen
Was the excitement the best part? In a View From Here written on the eve of becoming a junior, Derek Ng, Managing Editor of The Eye, reflects on how COVID overturned a bright vision of Columbia over two years of isolation.
Read more on theeyemag.com (link in bio)
Article by
Illustration by Carlos Ochoa
Sports writer Stephen Dames writes, “As the era of baseball being our national pastime seems to come to an end, this ‘crisis of fandom’ is existential for baseball, and executives have gotten increasingly desperate in attempts to lure young people to games. From cutting short extra-inning play to promoting the game on TikTok, many attempts have been made in recent years to make baseball attractive to a younger generation.”
Read more at theeyemag.com (the link is in our bio).
Photo by Caitlin Buckley.
Aside from a few winter days at outdoor rinks with my friends and family, my primary mode of engagement with figure skating over the past few years has involved piling a YouTube queue with programs from recent competitions and watching those videos in blocks, often during time nominally scheduled for writing essays or finishing problem sets.
Over the past week or so, with a stomach full of warm dread and a numb mind, I’ve looked several times at a photo on my phone from the night of November 8, 2016: Three friends and I pose, smiling (it was early in the night) somewhere in the middle of a Westin in downtown Denver, the site of severa...
A perfect shot by Anthony Davis brought the Lakers closer to the NBA championship, and compelled this VFH writer to reflect on the durable power of sports, even in quarantine: “In the NBA playoffs, the Game 7s are typically the most memorable. But I will never forget the moment of disbelief, which soon turned into euphoria, when Davis sank that three-pointer against the Denver Nuggets.”
Sports fans ache to see this kind of finish. Down by one and with two seconds remaining, Anthony Davis pulled up for a three-pointer. It could not have been more perfect: The ball sailed cleanly through the net as the backboard buzzed red to signal the end of the game. Even from thousands of miles a...
The pandemic kickstarted the esports industry and benefited Columbia’s esports club. Once it is over, there will be interesting new jobs awaiting young job seekers, and Columbia might be getting a high-tech game room.
Although Sunday night for students is often spent alone, working on next week’s homework to make up for a weekend spent with friends, Matthew Wang, Columbia College junior and president of the Columbia eSports team, spends the night on Discord with more than 200 other members. At first glance, the...
Skate culture is not strong at Columbia. No Columbia skating clubs or student organizations exist. Most Columbia students do not meet at the skate park after class to “shred.” Few Columbia students even skate on campus at all—and when they do, it tends to be individual and for utilitarian purposes.
However, the success of individual skaters at merging skating with Columbia—like Barnard alumna and professional skater Alexis Sablone— suggests the two cultures’ compatibility and the possible full entrance of skate culture to Columbia in the coming years.
This past summer, I attempted to learn how to skate and immerse myself in the surprisingly exclusive New York City skating community. Since Alexis Sablone, a 2008 Barnard graduate and one of the best professional female skateboarders in the United States, developed her professional-level skating whi...
"In Manhattan, it’s just special for Columbia.”
Spectator found that in the past three years, 42 percent of Columbia athletes have pursued a career in finance and consulting. The athletic department’s institutionalized support structure creates extensive opportunities for athletes with interests in these fields—ranging from one-on-one consultations to coaches who provide helpful inroads.
Leads Features View From Here The Ear Eyesights Past Issues For Athletes, Career Networks Unlock a World of Opportunity in Finance and Consulting By Miles Schachner Data reported by Elizabeth Karpen and Clara Ence Morse Interactive by Melissa Wang and Charlotte Li November 14, 2020 Illustration by Y...
On our quiet campus this fall, Columbia has missed its athletic events, as the Ivy League has canceled all fall and winter sports for the 2020-2021 school year. But that does not mean that sports stop, so in honor of the would-have-been fall season, The Eye and Spectator’s Sports section have teamed up with a simple goal: to capture the struggles and triumphs of a remote session by detailing the communities that sports create even when we are so far away. Check out the entire issue here or keep reading to uncover some of what this collaboration has to offer.
The Eye: Volume XXIX Issue 6
Cholera, influenza, polio, and COVID-19 are each different in scale, symptoms, mortality, and solution. But perhaps in understanding these events, there’s something to be found in how we—both as a society and as a university community—think about public health. And as Columbia faces a global pandemic, examining how we engage with disease, its causes, and its solutions is more important than ever.
Welcome back to The Ear, The Eye’s podcast dedicated to documenting, detailing, and excavating Columbia’s history! In this week’s episode, reporters Teresa Lawlor and Sam Hyman examine three health crises from Columbia’s history—the 1832 cholera epidemic, the 1918 influenza, and the outbre...
Amid the pandemic and countless questions about how connections can be forged in online classrooms, taking online classes—and being part of the Columbia community virtually—is not a foreign idea. Columbia’s courses that were designed to be online are similar to the Zoom classes all students take now, so—the little moments that help shape relationships are not available. Amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, all our connections have been challenged, be that within and outside of the classroom. Read Claudia Gohn's feature today!
For many students, the transition to taking classes online on Zoom has upturned what it means to be at a university. Many op-eds and columns have been written about the negative impacts of the coronavirus outbreak—be that personal loss, stress about job security, or a generalized feeling of loneli...
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