Thursday, November 3: "A Transit System Hiding in Plain Sight"
From the President's Desk
One wonderful thing about retirement (even if you actually  are still busy “working”) is that you can give yourself a bit more time and space to be reflective. That’s one of the things I love most about EPIC--it allows me to think about things outside my academic comfort zone. And, as a bonus, I can join in discussions with extraordinarily interesting people. At our October 25 meeting, EPIC members broke bread together over a lovely buffet, and considered ways to contribute to University governance through the Senate. Our thanks to Professor Philip Genty and Jessica Rami for talking with us about the Senate. 

Professor Jo Shepard led us in discussions about possible outreach and activism opportunities. I think we were all truly and pleasantly surprised at how interesting the discussion turned out to be!! School of Professional Studies program directors Suzanne Stein and George Calderaro brought us updates on lifelong learning programs and community outreach opportunities that hold much promise. We will keep EPIC members apprised of teaching, lecturing and learning opportunities as the plans go forward. 

Have a good day!

Jeanne Mager Stellman, President, EPIC

Professor Emerita & Special Lecturer

Mailman School of Public Health

First Thursday Graduate Student Talk
November 3 at 12:15 p.m.
Eric Goldwyn, recent Ph.D. in Architecture and Urban Planning will present the second First Thursday Talk of the semester from his dissertation, "A Transit System Hiding in Plain Sight."


First Thursday Graduate Student Talks are scheduled on the first Thursday of each month during the academic year. They provide advanced Ph.D. candidates and recent graduates 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.
Time: 12:15-2:00 p.m.

Ward H. Dennis Room,

602 Lewisohn Hall

Please click here for map.

Sandwich lunch provided.

Guests welcome.
Columbia Community Scholars Lecture
Ragtime to Jazz Time:
Harlem's Black and Jewish Music 1890-1930

Friday, November 4, 2016

6:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Faculty House

Harlem historian and Columbia University Community Scholar John Reddick takes us on a journey back to when the innovative Harlem rhythms of “ragtime” were the equal of today’s “hip-hop” in their invigorating influence on early 20th-century jazz and popular music. Young Harlem composers including George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart gravitated to these challenging and inspired rhythms introduced by Harlem’s early black composers, including James Reese Europe, H. T. Burleigh and the theatrical music and comedy team of Williams & Walker.

John Reddick is actively engaged in Harlem’s culture, art and preservation. He has authored numerous articles and has spoken at the Apollo Theater, The Museum of Modern Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem and the Museum of the City of New York among many other prestigious venues.

The Columbia Community Scholars Program, administered by the Office of Government and Community Affairs and the School of Professional Studies, enables independent scholars to pursue their lifelong learning aspirations, whether it be completing an independent project or attaining skills in a particular area. The program helps to foster and deepen ties between the University and the many independent members of the cultural and intellectual community surrounding it.

Presented by the Columbia University School of Professional Studies:  sps.columbia.edu/events .

This event is free and open to the public. For further information please contact SPS Events at  sps-events@columbia.edu .
Benefits Open Enrollment Briefing
Join EPIC members, members of the Society of Senior Scholars, and other retirees for a briefing on Benefits Open Enrollment for 2017. Members of the Human Resources Benefits staff will present information about policies and the enrollment process and answer your questions. Sandwich lunch provided. 

Friday, November 11, 2016
1:00-2:00 p.m.
Ivy Lounge, Faculty House 
Tuesday, November 15
Columbia's Professorial Past
Come and explore how earlier professors at Columbia did their work, and what records they've left behind them. We'll get to see a special selection of materials chosen and presented by the University Archivist, Jocelyn Wilk.

The Rare Books Library also will be have on display exhibitions about the history of the Pulitzer Prize, and a celebration of the 75th anniversary of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.


Meet for conversation and coffee (if you wish) on the ground floor cafe at 11:15 a.m.

At noon we will meet in the Donor's Room of the Rare Book Library, located on the sixth floor of Butler LIbrary.
 
The EPIC table will be reserved in the Faculty House Dining Room at 1:30 p.m.
Schoff Memorial Lectures
Robert G. O'Meally, Zora Neal Hurston Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and Director of Columbia's Center for Jazz Studies, will present the twenty-fourth series of the Leonard Hastings Schoff Memorial Lectures.

All lectures are held in Faculty House, 64 Morningside Drive. Reception immediately following each lecture. Lectures are free and open to the public. Please click here for further detail.

“FANCY STICKS”
The Action-Art of Toni Morrison, Romare Bearden, and Jazz

Monday, November 14, 2016, 8 PM

I. “If the White Man Is Laughing at Me, at Least He’s Not
Shooting at Me”: Ralph Ellison and Jean-Michel Basquiat
on Louis Armstrong’s Intercontinental Comedy

Monday, November 21, 2016, 8 PM
II. The Open Corner—Space Is the Place: Romare Bearden,
Toni Morrison, Duke Ellington

Monday, November 28, 2016, 8 PM

III. Questions of Translation: Paris Blue—from Novel and
Movie to Collage

These three lectures take to heart Toni Morrison’s assertion that the spaces between the art forms “are not porous,  they are liquid.” If so, what terms define the modern in the liquid spaces of American art? In African American art? These talks wonder about fiction, collage, and jazz music as forms that flow into one another and as bright prisms through which to read our lives as they ask: How does any art make a difference in a world of division enforced by violence? What can these fancy sticks—writing pens, painter’s brushes, or drumsticks—what can art do to draw us together?
On EPIC's Horizon
First Thursdays in the Fall Semester
Ward H. Dennis Room, 602 Lewisohn Hall
12:15 - 2:00 p.m.

December 1 : "Replacing Guns with Pens: How Education Became a Reward for Military Service in the United States," Masako Hattori, Ph.D candidate, Department of History

Alternate Tuesdays in the Fall Semester
Faculty House
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m.
 
December 6 : Caitlin Hawke, “Community Matters: The BAiP Model”

Bloomingdale Aging in Place is a vibrant community of older adults residing in Manhattan's west side in an area bounded by 96th and 110th Streets. Over 1200 members strong, it is a grassroots, all-volunteer nonprofit organization that relies heavily on peer-to-peer exchange to achieve its mission to keep retirees connected. In great part, it does this through over 1000 activities each year, which range from ongoing reading and exercise groups to social opportunities to informational panels. Caitlin Hawke (Senior Science and Strategy Officer at the Columbia Aging Center) co-leads the BAiP activities committee and serves on its board in her community work. She will discuss what has worked (and what has not) as the organization has grown and sought to become sustainable. Incorporated in 2009, BAiP recently received the 2016 Joan H. Tisch Prize from Hunter College “for outstanding accomplishment in the field of urban public health” and may be one of the best kept secrets outside its UWS catchment.

December 20 (with Holiday Lunch) : Professor of Historical Musicology Susan Boynton and Brad Garton, Director of the Computer Music Center, will demonstrate and discuss the project for which they received a Provost Hybrid Learning Course Redesign and Delivery grant,  “Using Music Visualization to Enrich Student Learning in Music Humanities."

Professor Boynton teaches a course in the history of western music, middle ages to baroque. While at the Columbia Global Center in Paris she participated in teaching music and art humanities as parallel and contemporary courses and she drew on her extensive knowledge of the visual arts to make connections between works of music and what students were seeing in Paris.