Last November, Columbia was beset with a number of students, dissatisfied with the response to bias incidents, formed an "anti-racist coalition" and wrote a list of demands to improve campus. Eventually this coalition began a hunger strike to push the administration into action. Now, nearly a year later, the effects of the strike are still being felt. Bwog takes a nostalgic step back to look at both the events of the strike and its aftermath.

• Diluted Gatorade and bathroom scale in hand, the strikers set out on a chilly November evening. Supporters formed a negotiating committee to talk with administration.

• Later, Gandhi expert and political science professor Dennis Dalton agreed to join the strike despite worries about age.

• One student was CAVA'd and two quit after eight days, Community Board 9 told the strikers not to starve for Manhattanville.

• Then, it ended, tents were torn down and strikers answered questions posed by their adversaries.

After the jump, Bwog has collected the main changes that have occurred since the strike.

Academic

VP of Arts and Sciences Nick Dirks and other administrators agreed to hire three tenured faculty for the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, a new scholar in Native American Studies and a scholar for African American studies. However, most, if not all of these hires had been in the works months before the strike. The Global Core, which was part of the striker's curricular demands for a restructuring of Major Cultures, was also being examined by the Committee on the Core.

Administrative

The administration agreed to increase funding for the Office of Multicultural Affairs and for the Office of Public Safety to meet with students to discuss staff diversity education and training.

Manhattanville

Since the area of West Harlem where Columbia is planning to expand was declared to be "blighted," it seems as if it will be the University will be able to invoke eminent domain and build the shiny-ist campus on earth.

-JJV