City’s continuing ed programs respond to the changing job market

By Laura Shin

Bob Makarowski has been teaching at Baruch College’s Division of Continuing and Professional Studies for more than 20 years. In the course of those two decades, Makarowski says he has witnessed a noticeable shift in the role these programs play in students’ lives—a shift toward the practical.

“There’s a lot less interest in the courses that are more entertainment-oriented, more fun,” he said in a recent interview. “We still have fitness and swimming courses, but most people come into class not because they have intellectual interest, but because they have a financial demand.”

New York City’s economy has made a robust comeback since the 2008 recession, recovering all the jobs it lost during that time, plus more. But in order for the city’s residents to take advantage of new opportunities and stay competitive in the eyes of employers, many adults have had to learn new skills. They have turned to the city’s continuing and adult education programs to fulfill that need.
“Individuals are seeking certifications and taking classes to strengthen their resumes,” said Roy Cohen, career coach and author of The Wall Street Professional’s Survival Guide. “It also makes a difference on the job as companies measure employee qualifications, commitment and value. Continuing education demonstrates a desire to remain current and to contribute in a meaningful way.”

For some schools, the sudden influx of students seeking to improve their skills has provided an opportunity to grow their continuing education departments.

Cathy Pagano, director of Continuing and Professional Education at Pace University, said her department took off in a new direction and has been going strong since 2008 precisely when a large number of displaced, underemployed or just plain worried workers suddenly became interested in going back to school to enhance their skills.

“[The students] are busy people, and if they’re going to put their time and money toward something, they want a reward in terms of career advancement or a new job,” Pagano said. “And that’s how Pace has positioned itself with its continuing education program.”

There are many continuing and adult education programs in Manhattan, and nearly all of them have added programs or courses to accommodate the new needs of the city’s adults. Here is some more information on a few of them.

Continuing Education at Hunter College
695 Park Ave.
www.hunter.cuny.edu/ce

Though the Continuing Education division at Hunter College offers numerous personal enrichment courses, such as those offered by its Italian school Parliamo Italiano, the school has added numerous certificate programs due to an increased demand from students.

New programs include the Finance and Accounting Certificate, designed for students who may want to pursue a job at a financial institution, government or nonprofit institution. Another example is the Legal Secretary Certificate, created for both beginning secretaries as well as experienced secretaries who want to improve their skills.

The number of certificate programs has doubled from 10 to approximately 20 in the last few years, said Christy Moorman, deputy director of Continuing Education and Special Programs at Hunter.

Baruch College – Continuing and Professional Studies
William & Anita Newman Vertical Campus
55 Lexington Ave.
www.baruched.com

At Baruch College’s division of Continuing and Professional Studies, more students are seeking courses to obtain advanced level skills in computer programs such as Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint, said Bob Makarowski, technology instructor.

“We take care of adults who need to quickly become workforce-ready,” he said. “What we’ve seen now is when you’re hired, you’re expected to know these programs.”

In response to this new trend, the school has allowed for more “custom-designed” curricula, Makarowski said, allowing businesses, organizations and even government agencies to come in to take courses and request what topics they want covered in those courses.

Other popular courses include Flash programming, Photoshop, project management and Quickbooks, an accounting and payroll software suitable for small to medium businesses, he said.

Pace University—Continuing & Professional Education
One Pace Plaza
www.pace.edu/continuing-professional-education

One of the most successful new programs at Pace University’s Continuing and Professional Education department has been the Paralegal Certificate Program, said director Cathy Pagano.
It is a five- to six-month program that provides hands-on training in addition to education, she said. Students put together a portfolio while they are in school, and they are also assisted with finding a job once they complete the program.

Another popular program is the Human Resources Management Certificate program. Though the program has been around for several years, Pagano said many new classes have been added as human resource jobs have evolved in recent years.

“Human resources people are becoming revenue producers, so they’re working hand-in-hand with management now,” she said.

Columbia University— School of Continuing Education
203 Lewisohn Hall
2970 Broadway
www.ce.columbia.edu

There are three new areas where certificates are being offered at Columbia University’s School of Continuing Education. They are Business, Sustainability (certificates in Sustainability Analytics and Sustainable Water Management) and Bioethics.

These offerings were added in response to a growth in opportunities and global trends, explained George Calderaro, executive director of public, corporate and media relations at the School of Continuing Education.

“They all reflect developments in society and career opportunities globally,” he said. “With businesses coming out of the economic crisis, people who have business experience need to re-tool, and we also find a number of students coming from a liberal arts background who need a business edge.”

Sustainability is a growing area of interest and opportunity, particularly in the wake of events such as Hurricane Sandy and increased awareness of the environment.

Columbia already offers a master’s program in bioethics, which looks at the ethical implications of advances in biology, biotechnology and biomedicine, but the program has now been expanded and will offer a certificate option in the fall.

Unlike most continuing education schools, Columbia’s School of Continuing Education requires students to apply and be admitted to the programs.

NYU School of
Continuing Education and
Professional Studies
7 E. 12th St.
www.nyu.edu/academics/continuing-education

As New Yorkers seek out ways to be more competitive in the job market, NYU’s School of Continuing Education and Professional Studies is offering some new unique programs.
One is the Certificate in Creative and Critical Thinking with courses designed to challenge students to think in new ways, equipping them with tools to help them be more effective in the workplace.
“In a time where innovation is ever more necessary, competition is ever more fierce and product development is accelerated, the ability to generate ideas seems to be more and more important,” said Robert DiYanni, director of the program.

Other new offerings at NYU’s SCPS include three real estate certificates—Real Estate Development, Real Estate Finance and Investment and Construction Project Management.

The school has also added a “Mandarin for Real Estate Professionals” course, which teaches “basic language skills as well as cultural elements to aid real estate professionals in dealing with Mandarin speakers effectively and appropriately,” said Syd Steinhardt, senior director of public relations for the school.

Nyack College – Division of Adult Education
361 Broadway
www.nyack.edu/content/DAEExplore

At Nyack College’s Division of Adult Education, changes in the job market have inspired administrators to reformat one of their main programs—the Bachelor of Science in Organizational Management program.

Students are enrolled for 12 months and participate in an applied research project, where they look at an organization in their lives, whether it is where they work or a community group they are a part of, and they identify a problem and learn effective ways to resolve that problem.
“Employers want employees to bring about positive change to help the company become more efficient,” said Julie Hood, academic department chair of Organizational Management.

Nyack also offers a wide array of non-degree courses known as “Adult Intensive Tracks,” Hood said. According to her, enrollment in these courses has skyrocketed in recent years.

From Sept. 22-29, the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre at Columbia University are inviting community members of all ages to participate in a series of free lantern-building workshops, culminating in an illuminated procession in Morningside Park. Called Morningside Lights, the procession will begin at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29, at 117th Street and Morningside Avenue.

Participants—including families, Columbia students and whoever else wishes to take part—will parade lanterns on poles, play instruments (their own or new creations built in the workshops), and carry radios playing Nathan Davis’ score, which will be broadcast via Columbia’s radio station, WKCR.

Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles—the artistic directors of the Processional Arts Workshop, the organization behind the annual Halloween Parade in the Village—created the concept as well as this year’s theme, “The Imagined City.” The procession will celebrate the diversity of Morningside Park’s surrounding communities of Harlem, the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights, and give participants the opportunity to voice their own ideas and aspirations for urban space, realistic or fantastical.

The workshops take place in the foyer of Miller Theatre, located next to the main Columbia gates at 116th Street and Broadway. There, tables are set up with materials for “giant lantern techniques, such as bamboo-forming, decoupage, and paper-casting.” Participants are encouraged to get creative with their lanterns.

Last Sunday, a group of Columbia undergraduates worked on a 4-foot-tall building, while a mother worked with her daughter to create a jellyfish. To guide the building process, many child artists drew colorful images (many of which were taped to their creations), and others drew up elaborate drafts. The lanterns will be completed over the course of the workshops; originators can come back to finish their creations or hand them over to be completed by the community of volunteers who will stream in to assist throughout the week.

“We’re just delighted to open our doors wide and invite our neighbors to participate in the creation of this artistic project,” says Melissa Smey, the executive director of the Arts Initiative and Miller Theatre at Columbia University.

The production of the procession is meant to be a huge collaborative effort, engaging and uniting the greater community of Morningside Heights.

Photo Courtesy of Wiki Commons

A Columbia student fell to her death from her dorm last night in what was originally reported as an accident but is now being treated as a possible suicide. Martha Corey-Ochoa, who was 18-years-old, fell from her 14th floor dorm around 11 p.m., reports Gothamist. The freshman’s dorm was on 114th Street in Manhattan. Columbia’s dean, Kevin Shollenberger, emailed students to offer his condolences, according to Gothamist.

A witness told the New York Post people filled W. 114th Street shortly after the incident, and CPR was performed, but Corey-Ochoa later died at the hospital.  The Daily News reported police were treating the death as a suicide, because of “a history of psychiatric problems.” At this time, reports of suicide are unconfirmed.

In an article published last fall on Patch.com, Corey-Ochoa was depicted as academically hard-working. Gothamist reports Columbia’s school year has not yet begun, but freshman orientation started yesterday.

—Alissa Fleck

A Dog Named Randall tells the story of a dog that loves other animals and only eats vegetables. Randall’s tale was inspired by a real story that the author heard from other people who take care of animals in need.

Hailey-Moss started her career as an actress, became a psychotherapist and most recently a writer. “I feel a natural progression from acting to psychotherapy to writing. Those fields are all about understanding human nature,” she explains. She’s lived on the Upper West Side since 1964.

She will host a book-signing event at Gary Null’s Uptown Whole Foods, 2421 Broadway, between 89th and 90th streets, on Saturday, Aug. 18, from noon to 2 p.m. All profits go to 11th Hour Rescue.

Brewer Honors UWS Restaurant
Celebrating its 31st anniversary on the Upper West Side, local favorite comfort food joint Good Enough to Eat received an official proclamation from Council Member Gale Brewer earlier this week, recognizing owner Carrie Levin for her culinary and community excellence.

“For the past three decades, Carrie has brought good food and a sense of community to the neighborhood and hopes to continue to enrich the West Side for another 30 years to come,” said Brewer in the proclamation.

Levin was born in New York in 1958, and her family soon moved to Brussels. She attended college in France and trained in London at Pru Leith’s School of Food and Wine before returning to the city in 1979. After working at the Russian Tea Room, the Four Seasons Restaurant and Basque, Levin opened Good Enough to Eat in 1981, serving up power breakfasts and her now-famous buttermilk biscuits along with lunch and dinner favorites of solid American fare. The restaurant moved to its current, expanded location in 1989 and has been thriving ever since.

Columbia Fraudsters found guilty
Four cyber-criminals were convicted for executing a financial scam against Columbia University, defrauding the school out of $5.7 million.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance announced last week that George Castro, 50, Walter Stephens Jr., 66, and Jeremy Dieudonne, 47, were each convicted of grand larceny in the first degree as well as criminal possession of stolen property for transferring funds from Columbia into their own bank accounts. A fourth member of their team, Joseph Pineras, 35, was also found guilty of fraud through his access to Columbia’s vendor payment system.

Between Oct. 4 and Nov. 24 of 2010, Pineras, an accounts payable clerk at Columbia at the time, helped redirect a series of payments meant for Columbia Presbyterian Hospital into a TD Bank account. The account was registered to IT & Securities Solutions LLC—a company founded by Castro with Stephens and Dieudonne as executives. The three men attempted elaborate transfers and payments in order to hide their illicitly obtained funds. Castro withdrew over $800,000 in cash from the account, spending $80,000 on a brand new Audi Q7 and $18,000 on Apple products. He also directed some of the stolen loot into other brokerage accounts controlled by himself and Stephens and another shell company set up by Dieudonne.

“Fraud by insiders against an institution dedicated to the public good is egregious,” Vance said in a statement. “Like so many cyber-fraud cases my office prosecutes, this scheme was set in motion by an ‘insider,’ who made the larger theft of $5.7 million possible.”
Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 24.

The Fastrack program replaced the old system of closing down subway stations for several weekends at a time in order to make repairs. Now the MTA will partially close a line during four consecutive weeknights from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m., keeping it fully operational during the day and over the weekend. The change is partly in response to a 5.3 percent boost in weekend ridership since 2007, according to MTA figures.

The survey, conducted between mid-June and July of this year and answered by 990 people, also found that locals are clamoring for Upper East Side ferry service. Seventy-one percent of respondents said they’d use the East River Ferry if it stopped nearby. Seventy-two percent said they support a new City Council proposal to give letter grades, much like the Department of Health currently gives to restaurants, to each subway station.

Columbia Jumps Into Tech Ed
Earlier this week, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Columbia University President Lee Bollinger announced that the city will be partnering with the school to create a new institute for data sciences and engineering as part of the city’s Applied Sciences NYC initiative.

The city will give $15 million in funding and financial assistance to Columbia to create the new school, a figure that includes discounted energy transmission costs and partial debt forgiveness. The school will create 44,000 square feet of space on the campus by 2016 and hire 75 new faculty members over the next 15 years as the applied science and engineering programs grow. The program will be located at Columbia’s Morningside Heights and Washington Heights campuses and will fall under the umbrella of the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

“We are proud of Columbia Engineering’s ascent among its peers over the past decade and the impact of its constant stream of innovations on our economy,” said Bollinger in a statement. “We know from experience that the creativity and dynamism of this new Data Sciences Institute will be ignited by collaborations that are possible because they are part of the wide diversity of intellectual excellence that defines not just a great urban research university like Columbia, but the genius of New York City itself.”

The mayor and other politicians praised the deal for its potential to create jobs and boost the local economy. According to a study conducted by the city’s Economic Development Corporation, the project is expected to generate $3.9 billion in overall economic activity over the next 30 years, including 4,223 permanent jobs and 285 construction jobs, as well as the creation of 170 spin-off companies in the city.

Columbia’s proposal was also hailed for its focus on data science in ways that will impact the city in the near future. The new institute will have five specific departments: new media, smart cities, health analytics, cybersecurity and financial analytics.

“New York City is quickly becoming a national epicenter for tech innovation,” said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer in a statement. “The new Center…is an exciting new initiative that will support advances in the promising technologies of tomorrow and will continue to attract the best and the brightest to the city. The city’s investment in the project is a forward-thinking use of capital resources to promote continued growth in these fields.”

Columbia had previously put in a bid to receive a hefty chunk of city funding and access to city-owned land to develop a new applied sciences campus; that $100 million deal was awarded to a partnership between Cornell University and Israel’s Technion Institute to build a 2 million-square-foot tech campus on Roosevelt Island. Bloomberg has consistently said that the city would be open to awarding funding and making deals with more than one of the 17 schools that initially applied. In April of this year, the city reached an agreement with an NYU-led consortium to create an urban science and progress center in downtown Brooklyn as part of the Applied Science program.

East Side Access Tunnel Finished
The giant underground construction project that will eventually connect the Long Island Railroad to Grand Central Terminal hit a major milestone this week, though it still has a long way to go before it’s operational. Construction crews for the East Side Access project finished boring the tunnel that will make the rail connections possible. The MTA’s 200-ton boring machine, nicknamed “Molina” after a group of sixth graders chose the moniker, finished its journey on Monday and will now be scrapped as the next phase of the project gets underway.
“We’re literally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel on completing East Side Access, the largest mass transit project under construction anywhere in the country. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but it’s worth taking a moment to celebrate this important milestone. I congratulate all the sandhogs, MTA employees—and Molina!—for completing this difficult and grueling task,” said East Side Rep. Carolyn Maloney.
The project is located almost entirely in Maloney’s district, and she has pushed for federal funding to keep it going.

Night Out Against Crime
The Upper East Side’s 19th Precinct will participate in the National Night Out Against Crime this Tuesday, Aug. 7, from 5–8 p.m. Police officers will be on hand to talk to community members about crime prevention and the issues that are of concern to the neighborhood. There will be activities for kids and adults, including live music from the French Cookin’ Blues Band and refreshments from Manny’s on 2nd, Butterfield Market, Pintaile’s on York, Maz Mescal, Le Pain Quotidien and Shake Shack. The event will be at Carl Schurz Park at East 86th Street and East End Avenue, weather permitting. For more information, contact the 19th Precinct’s Community Affairs liaison at 212-452-0613 or lynch19ca@aol.com.

By David Stoll

The story this month seems to be that it is harder than ever to gain admission to a selective college. Harvard, for example, admitted just 5.9 percent of its 34,302 applicants this spring, down from 6.2 percent last year. However, this trend should be viewed in a larger perspective—one that suggests that applying early remains an important part of the admissions process.

The Harvard story is instructive. Harvard reinstated early admissions, in the form of nonbinding early action, this year. A full 772 students—18 percent of early applicants—were offered early admission, a number representing nearly half the size of the entering class. Harvard naturally assumed that the yield (the percent who will eventually accept) would be high. Thus, fewer students were offered regular admission this year, making that larger pool even more competitive.

Harvard is not alone. Princeton offered admission to 21 percent of its early applicants, who would fill more than half the class if they all accepted. The 15 percent accepted early by Yale would also fill more than half the class. The University of Chicago admitted over 18 percent of its early applicants; because Chicago’s yield is lower than those of the Ivy Leagues (despite its stellar reputation), the school admitted more people early than it has freshman slots. Locally, Fordham admitted more than 45 percent of its applicants early, also admitting more students than there are slots.

The early decision story is even more interesting. Applying early decision involves a binding promise to attend the school if accepted. Columbia University admitted more than 20 percent of its early applicants, filling 45 percent of its freshman class before most people had even submitted their applications. University of Pennsylvania admitted more than 25 percent of its early applicants, filling 47 percent of its freshman class.

Duke, as competitive as the Ivy Leagues, admitted nearly 25 percent of early applicants, filling 38 percent of its class. Williams College admitted over 42 percent of applicants, representing 43 percent of its class. Locally, NYU admitted nearly 46 percent of early applicants, representing 29 percent of the class.

What do these numbers mean? Applying early decision is wise for a competitive student who has a clear first choice and for whom financial aid is not an issue. For such a student, the odds of acceptance are higher, because the student is showing an interest, the school will accept a higher percentage of applicants and there will be fewer slots available for those applying regular decision.

On the other hand, someone uncertain about attending a school should not apply early decision as a means of gaming the system; attending a good-fit school is well worth the wait.

Applying early action is also wise, and financial aid need not be a consideration yet. While chances of admission are not quite as high at an early action school as at an equivalently selective early decision school, the odds for a competitive student are still are better than they would be in April. Do note that some early action schools, including Harvard, Princeton and Yale, will not permit early applicants to apply early to other schools. Thus, it may be better to apply to other schools early to allow for more possible options.

David Stoll is a premier tutor and college admissions counselor at The Princeton Review.

My first home in New York was the basketball frat house at Columbia University. The men were tall, smart and gorgeous. But in the July heat, the airconditioned-less house sweated and stunk of old beer and rancid gym socks. My space was an illegally subleased bunk bed in a two-room suite, compliments of the boyfriend of the daughter of my aunt’s colleague. I was 22 and decidedly Southern and suburban. So I felt cool and connected — until I realized everyone had such a real estate tale.

I spent my days interviewing Modern Orthodox Jewish women for my thesis, my nights throwing kosher dill pickles at the cat-sized rats that overran the ground floor and backyard. One night my roommates’ hamster escaped from his cage and I woke at 3 am to the feel of a thin rodent tail sliding across my bare stomach. I leapt out of bed, convinced the rats had come for revenge.

After my first two weeks, suddenly $1,500 poorer and limping with blisters, I decided New York was a great place to visit, but I’d never want to move there. Everything I had grown up hearing was right: it was dirty, expensive and full of vermin. I fled back to my quaint Missouri college town and promptly had four car accidents in just 10 months.

By the time of my May graduation, I couldn’t afford car insurance anymore and needed mass transit. I opted to try the New York City again, this time sans exit strategy. I vowed to stock up on rodent bait. I booked a one-way ticket, emptied my $3,000 savings account and sent my stuff and my dog to my parent’s house in Alabama. I landed at LaGuardia without a job, friends, or a place to stay except for a one-night reservation at a seedy hotel with a three-deadbolt door.

True to the single girl trifecta, I scored a job, an apartment and a boyfriend within two months. My shoebox-sized studio on 85^th Street was a fraction of my graduate school living room and cost three times as much, but it had a tiny balcony and an exquisite view of the firefighters next door. I thought I’d made it. Then one evening a furry rodent dashed across the floor.

I jumped on the bed and called the boyfriend. Jonathan trekked from Gramercy to Yorkville, with a collection of snap traps and peanut butter. He set the traps and warned me to be careful of my fingers. I didn’t tell him how I used to tease my grandmother for being petrified of mice. Karma was not my friend.

Alone later that night I heard a trap snap shut. I peeked into the kitchen. There was a long thin tail protruding from the trap’s wooden platform. In college when I found a bat in my house, I’d called animal control to deal with it. In New York, I called the boyfriend.

“I caught one! Now what?”

He headed back north. There was no mouse — the “tail” was the thin metal release arm of the trap. I felt even more pathetic.

When we broke up, I turned to glue traps, a cruel move that left me dealing with squeaking shaking creatures that stared me down with beady black eyes. More scared of them than they were of me, I dropped second traps on top and scooped them up in a dustpan while wearing plastic dishwashing gloves and knee-high boots.

Many mice and years later, I married and moved into my husband’s co-op in Murray Hill. From the window I could clearly see rat bait traps in the back patio area. My dog’s food was an irresistible lure and I developed the ability to smell dead vermin upon entry. Marriage and a live-in super had its perks. I delegated disposal of the corpses.

When my marriage crumbled, I couch surfed at a friend’s Upper East Side luxury high-rise. The best thing about it was that there were no mice.

When I was finally divorced, I moved to an alcove studio downtown. Two months in, the rampant kibble-fueled breeding of the mini Mickeys led to daytime sightings. This was different – this was my home and the mortgage was too high for heads to not roll.

A contractor discovered there were fist-sized holes around the pipes and no kickboards under the cabinets. I pictured rodent-sized ruby-red carpets from the holes to the puppy chow. I paid him to gut the kitchen and fill the holes. He promised me I would be vermin free and I was. For a year.

As the winter months rolled around another mouse made it into my place. It was war and I was going nuclear. So was he. I set glue traps; he ate the munchies and escaped. I put out poison; he rolled around in it with immunity, sprinkling powdery green pellets around the black plastic dishes like toxic fairy dust. The exterminator dropped guaranteed-kill poison packets behind the furniture; he dragged them out to the middle of the living room, an outsmarting act of vengeance. When I saw my pooch pondering the poison pack with a curious look I considered trading him for a cat.

We sprinkled sand-like layers of tracking powder behind the stove, the bookshelves, the TV. I spent hours on my hands and knees, using a flat-head screwdriver to shove extra-coarse steel wool into every crack and crevice. And every morning, my rodent – by this time he was mine – left a new trail of droppings. This was Mighty Mouse, and I hoped he was infertile.

Weeks into the battle, I smelled the stench of victory. I found his furry body on a pile of scarves, a casket worthy of a warrior. A dustpan was not an option — I doubled up a Duane Reade bag and lifted out my feather-weight foe, dropping him down the garbage disposal chute. I sent the scarves out to be dry-cleaned.

Last month when out on a date in the East Village, a rat ran across my path. I startled and grabbed my date’s hand, but it wasn’t out of fear. Perhaps rodents weren’t so bad after all.

Now relatively rodent-free in downtown New York, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle (www.alexandreajravenelle.com) is a marketing and communications consultant and adjunct instructor of sociology. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, thefrisky.com and The Houston Chronicle.

By Jordan Mazza

You and your best friend are the perfect match. You share countless qualities: you both like to go to bed early, stay organized, listen to Lady Gaga—even eat cold pizza. But one of the few qualities you do not share is gender, and according to your school’s housing policy, this means you cannot share a room either.

A movement to allow college students to choose roommates of either gender is spreading.

This year, though, more than 30 colleges nationwide are launching unprecedented gender-neutral, or gender-blind, housing policies. Such a policy permits upperclassmen to select their own roommates, with no restrictions on gender. Participating schools include Cornell, Stanford, Sarah Lawrence, the University of Michigan and Dartmouth.

Columbia University is one school currently debating gender-neutral housing. Sean Udell is the president of the Columbia College Class of 2011 and leader of the Columbia Genderblind Housing Initiative.

“Our policy is first and foremost for transgender and gender-nonconforming students who don’t feel comfortable with the current housing options,” Udell said.

The Columbia proposal passed almost unanimously in the university’s student senate. But just days before housing selection began in February, Dean of Students Kevin Shollenberger announced the policy would not be considered, due to insufficient student support. In response, the Columbia Genderblind Housing Initiative collected more than 1,000 student signatures for a petition, and hopes to draft a new proposal by September.

“They just don’t want to bother explaining this to incoming freshmen and parents,” Udell said of his university’s decision to reject the policy.

Though gender-blind housing is generally not available to freshmen, who are assigned roommates, some parents of incoming students are wary of the option.

“As a dad, I’d feel a little awkward about it,” said Bill Clarke of Bedford, N.Y., whose daughter is a prospective New York University student. The university currently allows mixed-sex suitemates, and is considering offering gender-blind rooms.

Columbia and NYU may look to the almost 50 colleges nationwide that have implemented some form of genderblind housing, including many in the last year.

Ross Maxwell is the housing services coordinator at Occidental College in Los Angeles, which introduced three gender-neutral rooms in 2009.

“We’ve expanded it quite a bit this year and added a lot more rooms,” Maxwell said. “So far, we haven’t had a whole lot of complaints, but I think it helps that our institution is small and our student body is more liberal.”

Yet the idea of co-ed roommates irks some students and officials at other colleges.

“I would be afraid as a male that if I had conflicts, the female would always win, and say I tried to sexually harass them,” said Mark Cubbage, a junior at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Va. “

According to a recent study by Dr. Brian Willoughby, professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, “co-ed dorms seem to be associated with higher levels of risk-taking” activities like binge drinking.

Dr. Gayatri Gopinath, director of Gender and Sexuality Studies at NYU, said she believes gender-blind housing embodies a logical evolution from earlier movements.

“Gender-blind housing should absolutely be an option,” Gopinath said. “Early feminism was about women’s empowerment, and this is a great progression to transgender empowerment. But we should remember that some people prefer the dynamic of single-sex housing.”

“I’m sure there’s some social value to the traditional policy,” Udell said. “But really it’s about choice. Everyone at this school is an adult, and should be able to make decisions for themselves.”
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Jordan Mazza studies journalism at New York University.