The homecoming football game had just ended, and students clad in orange T-shirts were swarming the quad in search of post-tailgating festivities, but the nearly 1,700 black students packed in a nearby auditorium at the Downstate campus barely noticed.They were engrossed in African-American Homecoming, a separate celebration complete with its own pageant, fashion show and step performance that has stirred controversy and highlig...

With titles like Analyze This, Blood Diamond and Recount under his producer belt, it was only a matter of time before Columbia alumnus Len Amato got a promotion.Last month, the 1975 graduate of Columbia's Film Department was named president of HBO Films, a newly sanctioned division of the premium cable TV network HBO.Amato, who served as a vice president for the network since 2005 after a colorful career as a full-time prod...

Columbia's vice president of Student Affairs, Mark Kelly, outlined the financial challenges facing colleges all over the country during the monthly College Council meeting, held on Nov. 7 in the Hokin Annex, on the first floor of the Wabash Campus Building, 623 S. Wabash Ave.Kelly's presentation included data compiled about Columbia students' incomes and financing methods, as well as those of local schools like Loyola Universit...

Columbia's close proximity to Grant Park gave students easy access to attend President-Elect Barack Obama's historic Nov. 4 rally.An estimated 240,000 people were at the rally to hear Obama's victory speech beginning at about 11:00 p.m., long after the polls had closed."Obama reaches out to a lot of young people. He is refreshing," said Wilfredo Cruz, a sociology instructor in Columbia's Liberal Education Department.Tickets were requ...