November 21, 2017
EPIC News
From the President's Desk

Thanksgiving week already! WithThanksgiving come the rapidly approaching deadlines for auditing courses in Spring 2018. (By special arrangement with the School for Professional Studies, all courses are now open to retired faculty.)   Here are salient dates and more information is available here.  

·       December 8, 2017 – submit applications
·       January 8, 2018 – projected registration date
·       January 26, 2018 – final date to obtain instructor approval

Also, don’t forget to SAVE THE DATE - December 12, for EPIC’s annual winter luncheon reception and talk by Walter Frisch, H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music. Professor Frisch will lead a multimedia discussion of his new book, Over the Rainbow. Five copies of Over the Rainbow will be offered as door prizes.

As part of our effort to increase the visibility of emeriti activities and to keep the EPIC community informed, we have started a News section on our website. Dean Emeritus Frank Wolf has developed a number of automated searches for keeping track of emeritus activities, but if you have writings, appearances or news items that we have not covered, please send them in so that we can share the information. Two recent publications of interest are a review by Robert Paxton, Mellon Professor Emeritus in Social Sciences in The New York Review of Books and an essay by Gouverneur Morris Professor Emeritus of History Richard Bushman on Mormonism in Deseret News.

During our last Tuesday Talk, Professor Emeritus Michael Rosenthal delivered an engrossing lecture on Barney Rosset, Grove Press Publisher. It was interesting to reflect on events that we all experienced but yet are far enough away in time now to allow a bit more perspective. It’s almost amusing what we considered inappropriate and offensive in those days of yesteryear – the 50’s and 60’s.
 
Hope to see you at Mischa Schwartz’s Tuesday Talk on November 28.

Have a good day and Happy Thanksgiving.

Jeanne Mager Stellman, President, EPIC
Professor Emerita & Special Lecturer
Mailman School of Public Health
Tuesday, November 28
"Engineers in America: Early History"
Join EPIC and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science for a special intergenerational talk by Mischa Schwartz, Charles Batchelor Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering. Professor Schwartz will describe the foundations of American engineering from early efforts to build roads, bridges, tunnels, and canals led by French and British engineers to the development of professional practice and training.  He will conclude with a brief discussion of the early days of Columbia's School of Mines, opened in 1864, and the Electrical Engineering department, in 1889.
11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Refreshments available at 11:00 a.m.
Limited Seating
Thursday, December 7
"The Biology of Disadvantage:
The Immune System and Social Inequality"
Please join us for December's First Thursday Graduate Scholar Talk, presented by Megan Todd, Postdoctoral Research Scientist, Columbia Aging Center, Mailman School of Public Health.

First Thursday Graduate Scholar Talks take place the first Thursday of each month during the academic year. The talks provide Ph.D. candidates preparing to defend their dissertations an opportunity to make a generalist presentation on their research to a cross-disciplinary audience ready to listen carefully and ask good questions. EPIC members help give the Ph.D. students a useful learning experience and at the same time learn about something that may be well beyond their own scholarly interests.
12:15 - 2:00 p.m.
Ward H. Dennis Room
602 Lewisohn Hall

Guests welcome!


A sandwich lunch is provided. RSVP to insure an appropriate catering order.
Tuesday, December 12
"Somewhere over the Rainbow"
Holiday Buffet
Walter Frisch, H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music , will lead a multimedia discussion of his new book, Over the Rainbow .

From the Pubisher: Frisch "traces the history of Arlen and Harburg's song from its inception during the development of The Wizard of Oz screenplay to its various reinterpretations over the course of the twentieth century. Through analysis of the song's music and lyrics, this Oxford Keynotes volume provides a close reading of the piece while examining the evolution of its meaning as it traversed widely varying cultural contexts. From its adoption as a jazz standard by generations of pianists, to its contribution to Judy Garland's role as a gay icon, to its re-emergence as a chart-topping recording by Hawaiian singer Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, "Over the Rainbow" continues to engage audiences and performers alike in surprising ways. The book is accompanied by Featuring a companion website with audio and video supplements, this book leaves no path unexplored as it succeeds in capturing the extent of this song's impact on the world."
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.

Faculty House, Garden Room 2

Guests welcome!

Spring 2018 Course Auditing
Thanks to a generous arrangement made by the School of Professional Studies, retired officers of instruction who were full-time members of the faculty are eligible to audit any course at the University if (and only if) the course instructor provides written authorization for the retiree to do so.

Retired officers of instruction have access not only to the existing portfolio of courses available to auditors, but also to other courses at Columbia, with instructor approval. To audit courses not listed in the existing portfolio, retired faculty must submit an email from the instructor confirming that her/his approval has been given according to published deadlines.

For the Spring 2018 semester the following deadlines are in effect:

  • December 8, 2017: deadline to submit applications
  • January 8, 2017: deadline for completing registration
  • January 26, 2018: deadline to submit instructor approval

The existing portfolio of courses available for audit can be viewed in the  Directory of Classes  by searching for departments beginning with “A”. The "Auditing" department is the last department in the list of those beginning with "A."

Retired Columbia officers of instruction who wish to audit courses must complete a short  online application form so that the School of Professional Studies may appropriately code their enrollment as eligible for this benefit. Please enter the code EPICSPS to waive the application fee.