Opinion

COLUMBIA’S CASH

“Columbia’s Cave-In” (Editorial, Nov. 17) is based on a number of factual misconceptions.

The relevant faculty committees on undergraduate education have been working for the past year on proposed enhancements to our core curriculum as part of the university’s effort to add greater global perspectives to students’ educational experience. This includes a proposal to make the existing Major Cultures lecture course more consistent with other key parts of the core that have small seminars.

The number $50 million reflects a hypothetical estimate of how much of Columbia’s current $4 billion fund-raising campaign it might take to provide the incremental endowment revenue to pay for the additional professors needed for these faculty-proposed enhancements to the core curriculum – if ultimately approved by the relevant faculty oversight committees.

There is not, and never was, a commitment to raise $50 million in response to student demands.

The proposed enhancement to the core curriculum has been under review since long before the recent hunger strike. If such an enhancement to the core is ultimately approved by the faculty, how to pay for the relatively small incremental-funding increase in existing departments whose faculty teach Major Cultures seminars has not yet been decided.

Robert Hornsby

Director, Media Relations

Columbia University

Manhattan