Spam Warning

Career Services, Safety/Security, Tips

Dear Students,

I am writing to alert you to fake job offer scams being perpetrated on college/graduate students.   Read and follow the information and guidance below to protect yourself!

FAKE JOB OFFERS:

  • These job offers are usually sent via email unsolicited (which is rarely the case for legitimate jobs)
  • Or you are invited via email to apply for a job with with great promises:
    • Short hours
    • Easy tasks
    • Ability to work from home
    • Amazing salary
  • Frequently the sender appears to be legitimate with a “.edu address” but a quick search reveals that person and email address are not real.
  • The professor for whom the work will be done may not exist or if the person is real, they are not reachable at the email provided for your reply and they are not hiring and unaware of the scam.
  • These emails frequently include bad grammar and spelling.
  • The work often involves the following:
    • You are asked to buy office supplies or other goods with a promise of reimbursement.
    • You are asked to send money in the form of gift cards, cryptocurrency or bitcoin (all untraceable and unrecoverable)
    • You are sent a check and it bounces.
  • Scam job offer emails can be generic.  They often begin with “dear student.” They frequently do not include your name or the name of your school.
  • Or they can attempt to fool you by using the name of a real professor or dean.  These usually include a “reply to” email address that clearly doesn’t belong to that person.
  • Scam job offers are often too good to be true (very few hours with a large salary).
  • Scammers often ask for your personal information immediately and do not ask for a W9.

Legitimate job/internship postings come through legitimate sources that are known to you and that you can easily verify.  When you receive a job posting/offer email, check all the names and all the emails listed.  Remain skeptical until you have done your research.  Ask us if you are in doubt about anything you receive via email.

Check out the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website for more scam information. 

IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE BEEN A VICTIM, PLEASE DO THE FOLLOWING:

  • Protect yourself by stopping any further communication with the scammers
  • Notify Dean Huff
  • Notify Columbia Public Safety
  • Change the passwords to any accounts that were involved in the scam
  • Contact any financial institutions (your bank) if they are involved.
  • File a complaint with the FBI.

Also check out this video from the Columbia School of Professional Studies about avoiding fraud while job hunting online.

Business Card & Press Pass – Order Process

Checklists, Getting Things Done

COLUMBIA JOURNALISM SCHOOL STUDENT CARDS INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Go to https://www.nationsprint.com/clients/columbia/.
  2. Enter your UNI and password
  3. Create user profile by filling out the empty fields (Do not replace any auto-filled text in any of
    the fields) Once complete, press “Start shopping for this user”.
  4. On the introduction page, press “Start a New Order”. Then select the option for “Student Business Cards”.
  5. On the left, please select “Columbia Journalism School” to access the business card and press pass templates.
  6. Select the appropriate business card template by pressing the “Add to Basket” button below the
    image.
  7. Enter the imprint information in the proper fields and review the proof.
    *For the Press Pass, you will need to upload a headshot of yourself. Upload the file and crop the image appropriately.
  8. When complete, press “Checkout” to review and approve the proof.
  9. On the next page. enter your contact information and choose a pick-up location or enter an address for delivery (There will be a $15 charge for delivery). Press “Billing Info” when complete.
  10. Enter your credit card information and billing address into the appropriate fields, then click “Send Order”.
    Do not adjust any of the text in the billing code fields below.
  11. All shipping is done via FedEx. If you chose to pick up the cards at one of our Columbia Print locations, you will be contacted by email when the order is ready.

Any questions, please email printing@columbia.edu or call 212.854.3234.

Volunteer Needed: Student Library Advisory Committee

Action Item, Community Citizenship, Fun Stuff, Getting Things Done, Networking

We are looking for a CURRENT Journalism student to volunteer to to serve on the Student Library Advisory Committee for the 2020-20201 academic year.

STUDENT LIBRARY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Student Library Advisory Committee gives students an active voice in library-related issues on campus. The Student Library Advisory Committee is a two-way forum for information exchange between students and the Columbia University Libraries. Meetings are held twice per semester during the Fall and Spring academic terms. Additional meetings may be scheduled as needed.

Charge

The Student Library Advisory Committee is charged with maintaining effective communication channels between student organizations, their members, and the Columbia University Libraries. The Student Library Advisory Committee serves as a conduit for the transmission of student needs and concerns to the administration and staff of the Columbia University Libraries.

Commitment

We will meet virtually on the following Fridays from 12:30 -1:30:

September 25, 2020
November 20, 2020
February 5, 2021
April 2, 2021

If you are interested please contact Dean Huff via email at mgh2@columbia.edu by tomorrow, Wednesday, September 23.

SVR Peace & Presence Mindfulness Series!

Columbia Events, Counseling/Psychological Services, Healthcare Issues, SVR

A Mindfulness Series
Columbia University Sexual Violence Response invites you to join us for Peace and Presence, a series of diverse holistic wellness workshops for student survivors and co-survivors of sexual trauma and intimate partner violence. These sessions will explore non-verbal and experiential healing techniques, self-calming tools, and guide you in incorporating mindfulness into your daily lives.
Workshop descriptions can be found on the registration links below.Register Soon!
Week of August 24, 2020
Movement Medicine
Tuesday 8/25 @ 10:45 AM ET
Trauma-Focused & Restorative Yoga
Tuesday 8/25 @ 6:45 PM ET
Thursday 8/27 @ 9:45 AM ET
Voice Journey
Thursday 8/27 @ 10:45 AM ET

CLICK HERE FOR MORE EVENTS!

24/7/365 SVR Advocate(212) 854 – HELP (4357) HEALTH.COLUMBIA.EDU/SVR

Panel: The Economic Toll from the COVID-19 pandemic – Hosted by IRE

Career Services, Chats, New York City, Non-Columbia Events, Speakers

Join IRE next week as panelists discuss the economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic. 
You can register for the webinar here. 


The economic toll from the coronavirus pandemic is hard to fathom. This session will cover finding data to quantify and dig into the economic fallout, as well as finding the human stories to illustrate the staggering toll. Panelists will show how to find and use economic data from the St. Louis Fed, how to dig into WARN reports of layoffs in your state, and how to crowdsource to find human sources, especially among vulnerable populations.

Speakers include Paul Overberg of The Wall Street Journal; Keith Taylor of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; and Wendi C. Thomas of MLK50. IRE Deputy Executive Director Denise Malan will moderate the panel.
The webinar will also be recorded and posted on the IRE website for those who cannot attend live. The webinar is free and available to members and non-members of IRE.

Time: Apr 15, 2020 2 PM Eastern Time; 1 PM Central Time (US and Canada)
Register here.

GRADUATION: The Year-end Awards & Grading

Awards/Grants, FAQ, Graduation, Greatest Hits, M.S. Program

GRADUATION: The Year-end Awards & Grading

This information is for M.S. Students primarily.

We received the following question from a student:

Today in REPORTING, we had a guest speaker whose bio mentioned that she received the “Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, won for graduating first in her class…”

Since we don’t receive grades, I’m wondering how this designation of “first in class” is decided.

Good question. Here’s the answer:

The Journalism School has a Pass-Fail system of formal grading. It aims at encouraging students to perform as well as they can, without competing with classmates. In most courses, students receive written evaluations of their work from the instructors. Copies of these evaluations are kept in the DOS Office. As part of that evaluation process, we use an informal system of additional grading, which permits each instructor to designate one or two students as having completed a course “with honors.” Students are informed of the honors designation via the written evaluation form.

That designation, in the individual classes, is “honors in class,” and you will see it – if you get it – in the written evaluation form you receive (It will not appear on your official transcript). If you receive two or more “honors in class” in our six-credit courses (Reporting, Master’s Project, S&P 1, S&P 2) AND one or more in a three-credit module (Written Word, Image & Sound, Audience & Engagement), you will “graduate with honors.” 

At graduation, the honors list is announced, recognizing students for superior performance in multiple courses; the faculty determines the honors based on the number of honors-in-class designations. The faculty also awards more than a dozen special prizes at graduation, including five Pulitzer Traveling Fellowships for overall performance during the academic year.

Except for a few prizes for which students can submit stories to be judged, the rest of the prizes are decided by faculty, without input from the students.

We hold briefing sessions close to Graduation to explain the procedures.

Part-time students are eligible for the awards and are tracked during their entire academic career here (though the prizes are typically given out the year they graduate).

Please direct all questions to Dean Huff – mgh2@columbia.edu.

Covering Religion 2020

Action Item, Courses, Curriculum, FAQ, Greatest Hits, M.S. Program, Part-time Students, Registration, Spring Prep, ,

INFORMATION SHEET AND APPLICATION FOR “COVERING RELIGION”

SPRING 2020

PROFESSORS ARI L. GOLDMAN, GREG KHALIL AND DUY LINH TU

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

  • Info Session: Tuesday, November 5, 12;30 p.m., Room 601B
  • Application Deadline: Monday, November 18, 9 a.m.

“Covering Religion” aims at preparing students to write about religion with intelligence and sophistication for secular media outlets in the U.S. and around the world. In the Spring 2020 semester, the class will focus on the role of religion in the American South with special (but not exclusive) attention to the 2020 Presidential election. Thanks to a generous grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation, the course will include a 10-day study-tour of two Southern states, Louisiana and Mississippi, at virtually no cost to students. (The minimal expenses that students will incur are described below.)

The study-tour will take place over Spring Break, with the weekends before and after the break used for travel. The tentative dates are March 13 to March 23, 2020. The first seven weeks of the course will be spent reporting on religious diversity in the greater New York area. At the beginning of the term, each student is assigned a faith, or a sect of a faith, in which to specialize. While a primary focus of the semester will be on the region’s diverse Protestant and Catholic communities, the class will also look at minority faiths like Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and others. In addition to their reporting and writing projects, each student will make an oral presentation in class about his or her assigned faith. While still in New York, students will identify and begin to report on the stories that they want to cover while traveling in the South. (The stories they report on the trip will not necessarily be on their faith beat.)

We believe that this spring is a particularly good time to look at the role of religion in the Southern states, especially as we approach the 2020 presidential election. It is clear that the Evangelical support for Donald Trump was one of the stories overlooked during 2016 election. This factor was one of the reasons that Trump’s victory caught much of the news media by surprise.

The 16 members of Covering Religion class will travel as a group for parts of the trip, visiting houses of worship and speaking with religious leaders. But there will also be several “reporting days” for students, working alone or with a partner, to pursue their reporting projects. Students in the class will have the opportunity to work in print, audio or video.

During the 2020 trip, the class will maintain a website that will include daily updates from our travels. Each day on the trip, one student will be responsible for reporting on that day’s activities and posting the story on the Web. In addition, two students serve as Webmasters and others coordinate photographs, video and social media. Upon returning from the study-tour, students will complete and post their major reporting projects from the trip. (The Websites from previous years can be found at www.coveringreligion.org.)

Here are a few additional points —

  • Class size: The class is limited to 16 students drawn from the M.S. Program.
  • Dates for the trip: The trip roughly takes place over spring break, making use of the weekends before and after for travel time.
  • Full-time and part-time students in the M.S. Program & M.S. Data Journalism programs are invited to apply.
  • The class meets for 15 Tuesdays, from roughly 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., beginning on Jan. 28.
  • Academic Requirements: All students must be up-to-date on assignments for all other classes. No student on academic probation or academic warning will be allowed to go on the trip.
  • Composition of the class: We are looking for a group of students that will reflect the diversity of the school in terms of gender, language skills, travel experience, region of the United States and country of origin. No prior travel experience is necessary.
  • Cost to students: The Scripps Howard Foundation grant pays for airfare, hotels, transfers and two meals a day. Students can apply for extra money for other reporting excursions during the class trip. Students will have to arrange their own travel to and from the airport in New York.
  • Application process: Please fill out the on-line application at http://bit.ly/CUJ_religion. 
It asks for a 500-word essay on why you would like to be considered for the class. It should include personal information as well as a statement about what contemporary religion story you would cover in the South if you had the opportunity.

Good luck. We look forward to reading your application.

DEADLINE: November 18, 2019, 9 a.m.

Invite: Meet Culinary Innovator and Chef Ferran Adria (Spain)

Business School, Chats, Columbia Events, Fun Stuff

LANG INNOVATION TALK: 
Meet Culinary Pioneer Ferran Adrià: Chef, Author and Founder of the elBullifoundation

WHAT:  Ferran Adrià presents Coffee Sapiens – Innovation through Understanding, a well-timed event on all things coffee (before the International Coffee Day, Sept. 29).

WHO:  Ferran Adrià joined the staff of elBulli in 1984 and became a foremost innovative culinary pioneer for introducing molecular gastronomy to the world of fine cuisine. elBulli won three Michelin stars, along with many other accolades, and is now being transformed into a food laboratory and a museum that’s open to the public, the long-awaited El Bulli 1846 (named for the 1,846 different dishes that were created throughout El Bulli’s history). Adrià’s new mission to study and catalogue the entire body of world culinary knowledge has brought him to New York, with his publication of Coffee Sapiens (Phaidon), a multimedia project created by Lavazza and the elBullifoundation, with the aim of promoting experimentation and innovation in the gastronomic field. This opera omnia on coffee is one of the first pillars of what will be the most complete database of the Occidental fine dining restaurant industry, Bullipedia.

WHEN:  Wednesday, September 25, 2019. 2:15 pm to 4:00 p.m. EST. 

WHERE:  Columbia Business School, Uris Hall, Room 301 at 3022 Broadway, New York, NY 10027. Directions:  https://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/about-us/campus-maps-directions

NOTE:  This event is open and free for the Columbia University Community who have a CUID; registration is required. Members of the press must RSVP to attend at Sabina.Lee@columbia.edu.Doors will close promptly at 2:30 pm. Due to limited space, we recommend a ticket per person and cancellation of your ticket if unable to attend the event. The event is sponsored by Lavazza and PHAIDON, hosted by Columbia Business School’s Lang Center.