Earlier this morning, Barnard students received a message from outgoing President Judith Shapiro informing them that their would-be Vag will not be completed by its scheduled Fall 2009 date -- something about subcontracting gone awry -- but will instead open in January 2010.

But there are silver linings abounds: Starting this fall Lewis Parlor will function as a cafe/student lounge, and Shaprio promises that student-oriented events will receive a higher priority when assigning space. The fully functioning Vag, Shapiro assures us, "will definitely be worth this uncomfortable wait." Oh, we have no doubt.

Full email after the jump.

The naming of buildings at Columbia has always been a project undertaken with the greatest care. Indeed, the majority of buildings on campus carry the names of prominent alumni who have contributed much to the university and to society at large. One is hard-pressed to find a building on campus without a family name of some significance attached to it. Yet, Barnard has deliberately deviated from this fail-safe approach to the naming of edifices at Columbia, in its choice to name the new student center currently under construction at the heart of its campus, the Nexus. While Nexus may not even be the final name of the building, Barnard has suggested that it would consider selling the naming rights to the highest bidder over the Internet, many have claimed that the choice of the word "nexus" for a campus center is quite suspect. Some Bwog tipsters have even recently suggested that the ignominious name of the new Barnard campus hub actually derives from the Latin root meaning "bondage in slavery or debt." Bwog set out to clarify if Barnard's new campus center will indeed be a campus hub of human bondage by emailing Barnard's Media Relations Director. Her response after the jump:

Whether for study or sleep, some of us wish the night would last just a little bit longer. With this in mind, Bwog presents a retrospective look at the most night-y night of recent memory. During the total lunar eclipse of February 20, Bwog's polyhistoric daily editor Zach van Schouwen ascended the heights of Pupin and snapped a couple of photos of the largest holes on campus. At right is the new Earth Sciences building. After the jump is the Barnard Nexus.

It appears that Morningside Heights coffeeshops took winter break as an opportunity to shake things up.

In the case of Saurin Park Café, a coffee and sandwich shop with free wireless located on the corner of 110th and Frederick Douglass Blvd, the cafe's ownership has changed. It's now called Cafe Amrita and is owned by "some Chinese man" according to the cashier. The new owner is considering small alterations to the menu and prices (read: it will get more expensive) but otherwise the cafe is virtually untouched. The same grad students and Morningside moms are there, and the easy-listening music is still just a little too loud. Hungarian Pastry Shop update after the jump.

The grounds will be looking a little spiffier upon your return, as an anonymous photobwogger documents below.

College Walk, swathed in black plastic for most of the summer, updates its look with new asphalt paving, new granite curbs, a storm drainage system and new lighting.

More photos after the jump!

Bwog thought the seventh floor of Hamilton was kinda just fine the way it was. The Hamilton elevator not so much. But hey, what the hell d o we know?

Elsewhere in the ever-exciting world of campus facilities: the Mac is still standing, but probably not for that much longer--Barnard residents have told us they've been informed by e-mail that everybody's favorite concrete slab has been slated for destruction sometime during the next couple of weeks.

Sad news, but we're oddly comforted (or maybe just thoroughly confused) by this ancient piece of Digitalia:

"One's experience of traveling through MacIntosh Hall can be understood as a purely spatial experience dictated by a drastic contrast between forward motion on this journey and retrospection on reverse motion along the journey."

Will one's experience of watching Mac get torn down be quite the spatial, drastically contrasting, forwardly moving and plaintively retrospective experience as grabbing a cup of Java City between classes? Stay tuned.

"Sweet shit!" Bwog thought as it considered the network of temporary fencing cris-crossing College Walk. "They're filming a sequel to 'The Siege' right here at Columbia!" But a quick glance behind the fences--as well as the ominous absence of Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington--revealed that the university is undertaking a long-overdue renovation of its main thoroughfare. Although things seem to be at a preliminary stage, Bwog sincerely hopes that oddly-placed, high-heel devouring hexagonal bricks are a thing of the past on this campus.