Students confined to campus

The University’s official name, “Columbia University in the City of New York,” is a source of pride for a number of administrators and trustees, symbolizing the integration of a major research university with the metropolis that surrounds it. We’re all deeply engaged with the city, travelling through parks and across bridges for daily doses of culture and nightlife—right? On the contrary, the isolationism of Morningside Heights is no secret.

Columbia’s campus creates a neighborhood that is entirely self-contained. Thousands of four-year residents are concentrated in a ten-block radius that encloses all the necessities of everyday life—including book shops, restaurants, pharmacies, bars, and banks—making it quite easy to remain within this zone for weeks at a time. The result is a “college town”-type enclave of University affiliates who have isolated themselves from the rest of the city. But Morningside’s ivory tower is not without benefits—packing all undergraduates into a few blocks creates a meaningful sense of community, unlike the sprawling campuses of many other urban colleges.

The balance between these two extremes has conventionally tipped in favor of college community over urban interaction. While this is in large part due to the preferences and habits of students, it is increasingly becoming a byproduct of financial necessity. A series of recent reforms will likely make off-campus engagement more difficult to sustain, shutting the gates between “Columbia University” and “the City of New York.”

First, University President Lee Bollinger recently requested a 30 percent funding cut to CU Arts Initiative, a program crucial to making New York’s expensive cultural landscape accessible to students. CU Arts Initiative’s discounted ticket programs are unique in their ability to connect the University with the city, as they encourage off-campus activity without reducing the sense of school community.

Second, the proposal to require all Barnard students to sign up for a meal plan threatens to sever ties with New York’s world of food and entertainment. At a recent forum, Barnard President Debora Spar argued that the plan to make the purchase of cafeteria meals mandatory will build campus togetherness, ignoring its toxic effect on urban engagement. All Barnard students will be required to pay in advance for a number of on-campus meals, making a great deal of off-campus eating financially insensible.

With the new decision, we can expect Barnard to isolate itself—quite involuntarily—not only from the wider city, but also from its peer institution across the street, all in the name of closer intraschool ties. While I cannot speak for Barnard students, I submit that “community” should categorically be resigned in importance to initiatives that strengthen opportunities for connecting with our city.

The third reform that threatens to detach Morningside from greater New York concerns the repeated fare hikes from the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Though not a product of University decision-making, the new policy suffers from the same fatal flaw as recent University decisions—a disregard for or ignorance of the relationship between individual neighborhoods and the city at large. To fill a $400 million deficit, the MTA is considering raising subway and bus fares by more than 7.5 percent, even after MetroCard fares were recently raised by 25 cents. Additionally, the agency will once again cut service from key subway lines and bus routes—essentially using its government monopoly on mass transit to force New Yorkers to pay more for less.

The MTA’s outrageous negligence of transit sustainability contributes to the isolation of all neighborhoods from each other. By increasing the cost of travelling around the city, the agency contributes to restricting people to their neighborhoods of residence. These fare increases, to which there has been no demonstrated end in sight, endanger the city’s status as an accessible cosmopolitan center, not least for cash-strapped college students.

Traditionally, critics attribute Columbia’s insularity to a quality of listlessness or provincialism on the part of its students, stereotypical as this analysis may be. With the spate of recent changes, though, students are increasingly deprived of opportunities to be meaningful New Yorkers. Campus isolationism is becoming a financial necessity, rather than a question of volition or interest. Administrative decision-makers must begin to consider their effects on students’ abilities to engage with the city on a routine basis, and stop the overemphasis on a campus life that is already quite firmly rooted. Without this approach, Columbia’s position “in the City of New York” is of paltry significance.

Daniel Amzallag is a Columbia College junior majoring in political science and English. Outside the Gates runs alternate Tuesdays.

Tags: Opinion, Daniel Amzallag, community, Morningside Heights, New York City, Outside the Gates