Barack Obama

See also Wikipedia's article about "Barack Obama".

Obama the Columbia undergrad, visiting Central Park

Barack Obama CC '83, a former US Senator from Illinois, will be the 44th President of the United States. He will become the first African-American and the first Columbia graduate to hold the nation's highest office.

Obama will be the first attendee of Columbia College and the first graduate of any Columbia school, to occupy the Oval Office. Obama was also the first Columbia College alumnus to be nominated by a major modern party ticket, and the first CC alum to be a major party nominee since the Federalists nominated DeWitt Clinton in 1812.

Obama maintains a somewhat distant relationship to Columbia today.

Columbia years

The East Harlem tenement where Obama lived during most of his time at Columbia

Obama gets a visit from his grandparents during his Columbia years

Obama transferred to CC from Occidental College which (poor place) is even more rarely mentioned by the President-elect. At Occidental, Obama wrote, he had been into partying and drugs. He hoped the move to New York, and Columbia, would put him on a more serious track.

Accommodations

Columbia at that time did not guarantee university housing for all students, so Obama lived off campus. He claims to have spent his first night sleeping in an alley near the corner of 109th and Amsterdam Avenue and washing with the homeless next to an open fire hydrant. He eventually moved into a walkup on E. 94th St., in Yorkville, where he would "chat with his Puerto Rican neighbors about...the sound of gunfire at night".

Academics

When he was on campus, he concentrated on academic work, spending most of his time in Butler Library "like a monk", and made few friends. He also took up jogging and "stopped getting high".

He majored in PoliSci, and concentrated in "International Relations," (now International Politics - this is a subfield of the PoliSci major and should not be confused with a "concentration," the Columbia term that substitutes for what most schools term a "minor"). Obama's professors and classmates, including former international politics professor Michael Baron and current MTV president Michael Wolf, confirm that he was a brilliant, standout student and that he was an active participant in seminars. Baron said he was one of the top one or two students in his class. Despite this, Obama continually declines requests to release his Columbia transcript.

Sources first differed on whether he wrote his senior thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament or the North-South debate on trade and the "new international economic order". Later, it emerged that he had not really written an official thesis at all: students were not required to do so at the time, and what was considered his "thesis" was really a long seminar paper. Obama wrote his for Prof. Baron's American Foreign Policy class. A search has been launched for a copy of the paper, which was confirmed to have been on the topic of Soviet disarmament. Baron, Obama's de facto "thesis" advisor, is now retired to Florida, and claims to have lost his copy of the paper in a move some time ago.

It has been reported that Obama graduated without honors, but if the policies then were the same as they are today, he would not have been eligible for Latin honors, because he spent only two years in the college. After graduation, Obama hoped to become a community organizer, but could not find work as one, and joined a consulting firm instead.

Extracurriculars

In spring 1983, Obama wrote at least one article for the now defunct campus publication Sundial, a discussion of the aims and methods of campus anti-war groups.

Obama also claims to have participated to some extent in anti-apartheid activities with the Black Students Organization, but no one is quite sure.

Formation of views on race

The racist and anti-Semitic graffiti he sometimes encountered on bathroom walls on campus (how times never change!) helped him form his ideas about race and class. He wrote of "the almost mathematical precision with which America’s race and class problems joined; the depth, the ferocity, of resulting tribal wars; the bile that flowed freely not just out on the streets but in the stalls of Columbia’s bathrooms as well".

Recent relationship with Columbia

Many Columbia students audaciously hoped he would win the Democratic primary and the national election. Obama, however, tends to forget or ignore his Columbia affiliation, preferring to mention that he attended Harvard Law School. He has repeatedly turned down requests to be the Class Day speaker in recent years, as well as general requests to appear from the College Democrats. He did, however, note that Columbia was his alma mater while visiting during the ServiceNation Presidential Candidates Forum, and sent a letter to the attendees of the Class of 1983's 25th reunion gathering.

Other Columbia coincidences

In his primary fight to become the Democratic nominee, Obama faced, among others, GS alum Mike Gravel. His Republican opponent was John McCain, a former Class Day speaker whose daughter, Meghan McCain, was CC'07. In the general election, he also faced tickets with Wayne Allen Root, also CC'83, the Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee, and independent vice presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez CC'87.

Following his victory, Obama nominated Eric Holder CC'73 for Attorney General and Julius Genachowski CC'85 chairman of the FCC.

External links

• Columbia College Today profile of Obama
• NYT article on Obama's years at Columbia and subsequent time in New York