the eye

�e magazine of the Columbia Spectator30 April 2009 / vol. 6 issue 12

doin’ it froggy style \\\ mark rudd checks the weather(men) \\\ dressed to the nines to fives

Idealism, Inc.challenging the conventional wisdom on nonprofitsby Laura Anderson

I was sitting on a bench in Riverside Park this past Sunday, surrounded by signs of summer’s arrival—budding trees, rollerblades, ebullient puppies with wagging tongues—when I had a mild sort of transcendent experience. Emerson wrote of moments when, while immersed in nature, he could feel “the currents of the Universal Being” circulating through him, and though I don’t think I picked up on any of that last weekend, the perfect weather and the glowing faces did something to buoy my mood, to fill me with a humanity-embracing idealism impervious to whatever obstacles the final few weeks of school could throw my way. Nothing—not papers, not exams, not even swine flu—could dampen that instant of summer-spurred goodwill towards those enjoying life around me.

It’s in such moments, I think, that future humanitarians are born. (“Philanthropy,” remember, comes from the Greek for “to love people.”) It’s difficult, though, to translate altruism into action as equally pure, and as Laura Anderson explains in this week’s cover story, that’s a lesson anyone planning to

work at a nonprofit this summer will soon learn. Nonprofits, despite their benevolent aureole, are human products like anything else, complete with inefficiencies and contradictions. �ere’s a reason so many of them frame their mission statements and hang them around their offices in prominent spots—in the middle of a bureaucratic labyrinth, it’s hard to remember which way you’re supposed to be heading.

We’re lucky, here at �e Eye, not having to worry about sustaining the structure of a large organization. We do, however, face the more fundamental challenge of hewing to our early ideals, the values we embraced when, in January or before, we enthused with starry eyes about our new roles as editors, writers, photographers, and graphic designers. Zeal, when confronted by practical realities, is prone to fade. But with this final Eye issue of the semester completed, I’m proud to report that our enthusiasm—though tempered by acquired wisdom—persists. And for those of you off to heal some bleeding corner of the world this summer, I hope your motivation fares as well.

—�omas Rhiel

LETTER FROM THE EDITORIDEALISM,INC.

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\\\ EYESITESA Farewell to Prague Nishi Kumar

Singing in the Dish Elizabeth Robinson

La Dolce Vita Francesca Gottardo

\\\ EYE TO EYE�e Fall of Freelance Zach Dyer

Challenging the conventional wisdom on nonprofits, pg. 07

by Laura Andersoncover illustration by Rebekah Kim

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ARTS\\\ MUSICDownload if You Dare Jennifer Mayer

\\\ BOOKSNotes from Underground Chris Morris-Lent

\\\ ARTGoing Public Liza Eliano

\\\ STYLEDress for Success Amy Davis

Editor-in-Chief Thomas Rhiel

Managing Editor, Features Melanie Jones

Managing Editor, A & E Hillary Busis

Deputy Editor, Features Raphael Pope-Sussman

Senior Design Editor Meredith Perry

Photo Editor Kristina Budelis

Online Editors Ryan Bubinski Laura Torre

Eyesites Editor Carla Vass

Contributing Ideas Editor Jia Ahmad

Interview Editor Zach Dyer

Film EditorPeter Labuza

Music Editor Rebecca Pattiz

Books Editor Yin Yin Lu

Food Editor Devin Briski

Art Editor Hannah Yudkin

�eater Editor Ruthie Fierberg

Dance EditorCatherine Rice

TV EditorChristine Jordan

Style Editor Helen Werbe

Production AssociatesSamantha Ainsley Alexander Ivey Talia Sinkinson Shaowei Wang

Photo AssociateVitaly Druker

Copy Editor Wesley Birdsall

Spectator Editor-in-Chief Melissa Repko

Spectator Managing Editor Elizabeth Simins

Spectator Publisher Julia Feldberg

Contact Us:eye@columbiaspectator.comeye.columbiaspectator.comEditorial: (212) 854-9547Advertising: (212) 854-9558

© 2009 �e Eye, Spectator Publishing Company, Inc.

FEATURES

Work for �e Eye.

We’re always on the lookout for writers, photographers, illustrators, and Web designers. For more information, e-mail eye@columbiaspectator.com.

Rebe

kah

Kim

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EYESITES

What We’re Into �is Summer1. Transformers 2: Because there’s really nothing better than more giant robot battles with explosions.

-Peter Labuza, film editor

2. Road-tripping across the US: My three best friends from Europe are coming to this side of the pond this summer to travel across America. I can’t wait to discover this country with them and catch up during long car conversations—it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen them.

-Helen Werbe, style editor

3. European vacation: I’m going to visit one of my best friends, who is studying abroad in Madrid. We’re going to travel around Spain, but we haven’t made any plans yet. Yay for sleeping in random train stations!

-Carla Vass, eyesites editor

4. Immigration Equality: A non-profit that I’m really excited to work for this summer. It’s an organiza-tion that works to help LGBTQ individuals unable to marry get permanent visas so they can stay with their US partners.

-Laura Torre, web editor

5. Outdoor concerts: Even though McCarren Park Pool is no longer hosting summer concerts, they are moving these outdoor extravaganzas to East River State Park. �e free live music will go on!

-Rebecca Pattiz, music editor

6. Going back to Texas: I’ve been fantasizing about lying in the hot sun, drinking margaritas and eating Tex-Mex. And, of course, listening to lots of country music. I love New York, but I’m counting down the days. I miss cowboy boots and Southern accents.

-Meredith Perry, senior design editor

7. Catching up on all the culture I’m behind in: �e Duchess, �e Tudors, Dostoevsky’s �e Idiot, the De-cemberists’ new album... I’m not leaving the house until I’m done.

-Melanie Jones, managing editor, features

8. Not being in school: Drinking Peet’s coffee every morning, practicing at my old yoga studio, reunit-ing with friends of the past, and tanning in the beautiful dry California sun.

-Devin Briski, food editor

9. Campfires: Cooking s’mores over an open fire, the smoky smell that follows you for days, an ever present outlet for burning evidence! Ahh, the joys of summer!

-Zach Dyer, interview editor

10. Popsicles: �ere’s just something about them.-Kristina Budelis, photo editor

EDITORS’ TEN

College students are, for the most part, infinitely adaptable. As I look back on the last three months, and the month still ahead of me, the little obstacles that seemed insurmountable at the beginning have become a part of my daily life.

I take it for granted now that my day will begin with a cold, hand-held shower and that I will probably slip and fall when trying to get out of the very Communist-era tub. I’ve learned to use large amounts of fabric softener when doing my laundry in the rickety machines, and have come to appreci-ate the freshness of sun-dried towels. I barely bat an eye at the small idiosyncrasies of Czech life, including needing keys to get out of a building, being served half a liter of beer with my breakfast omelet, pur-posefully misleading store hours and “open” signs, and an abundance of leopard-print denim. It takes visitors pointing out a particularly gruesome statue or strange custom for me to realize that yes, men whip-ping their wives with willow sticks in celebration of Easter day is perhaps a bit archaic.

Yet the many different languages and cultures I encounter on a daily basis are a constant reminder that I am nonetheless in a truly cosmopolitan Euro-pean capital, one that is quickly becoming a hotspot destination for tourists and expats alike. Recently, a former teacher of mine was reminiscing via e-mail about the few weeks she spent in Prague in the early 1990s, shortly after the fall of Communism and break-up of the country into separate Czech and Slo-vak nations. She remembered seeing a line of at least hundred people wrapped around Old Town Square, waiting for almost an hour to buy small, four -dollar Dixie cups of Coca-Cola, previously unavail-able under the Communist government.

�ere is a lot to learn about democracy and capitalism from studying in a country that has yet to really figure them out. Since I’ve arrived in Prague, the Czech government has been dissolved and re-created. �e economies of many Eastern European countries have collapsed and been built back up. Events that would have shaken the foundations of American society are just part of the normal develop-ment of countries where these institutions are only a few decades old.

My Czech professors, who include the origi-nal drafter of the Czech constitution and a former presidential candidate, are constantly reminding us not to approach our study of the political system with such an “American” eye. More and more, however, the Czechs are looking at America, and American students, in a more positive rather than ambivalent way. Western banks, restaurants, and retail shops have a strong and visible presence throughout the region, most openly apparent in the McDonald’s

“golden arches” which have conquered every Eastern European city. President Obama chose Prague for his first foreign policy speech in early April. �e crowds began massing in the wee hours of the morning and, with the beautiful old castle as a backdrop, thousands cheered for our new president.

Last week President Obama signed a bill signifi-cantly expanding the Peace Corps/AmeriCorps pro-gram and ensuring that many more young Americans will be volunteering and working abroad in the years to come. Hopefully, formerly Wall Street-bound col-lege graduates—including Columbia seniors without employment prospects—will see this as an alternative path in the turbulent economy, and gain the benefits of an amazing experience in the process.

Travel is supposed to be a way to escape your comfort zone; in my case, the Columbia bubble had become overly comfortable over the last three years. Now I have experienced the beauty of Venetian canals and Roman ruins, the rolling hills of Tuscany, the quirkiness of Budapest, the trippy Gaudi architec-ture and beaches of Barcelona, the crazy nightlife of Krakow and Amsterdam, the ruins of the Berlin Wall, and the G20 riots in London—all of which seem a world away from Morningside Heights. I’ve developed independence, “street smarts,” and an unquenchable desire to see the world that would be hard to gain by any other means.

But at the end of each trip, exhausted from travel-ing, I cannot wait to return to my beautiful, creaky old apartment and regular Praguian coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and parks. I haven’t escaped my comfort zone as much as created a new one that will be just as difficult, if not more so, to escape.

Nishi Kumar is a Columbia College junior studying abroad in Prague.

A Farewell to Prague

TEXT AND PHOTO BY NISHI KUMAR

THE EYE ABROAD

COMPILED BY CARLA VASS

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ITES Singing in the Dish

�e frog room smells just like a marsh. �e space is closet-sized and shelves along the walls are stacked with clear plastic boxes, each filled with water and housing a couple of bored-looking frogs. But as soon as Dr. Darcy Kelley lifts the wire lid off one of the tubs and reaches for a frog, it explodes into action, squirming and kicking with its webbed feet. �is is Xenopus: a surprisingly homely-looking aquatic frog from sub-Saharan Africa. His simple song is the subject of Columbia neuroscientist Kelley’s research on vocal communication.

Xenopus is petite, with tiny claws on its webbed toes and eyes that look straight up from the top of its head. You could hold one in the palm of your hand, if you managed to catch it. Males and females look identical, save for one distinguishing characteris-tic: Males have dark patches on their forearms that act like Velcro, enabling them to hold on to females when they clasp, or mate. “She’s very slippery, you know,” says Kelley.

�e frog vocal system, though different from ours, works through the same basic physical ele-ments and processes. �eir brains interpret sound input, develop a response, and realize it through a vibrating vocal organ called the larynx. Xenopus sings a song made up of quick clicks, like the sound of a Geiger counter or a matchbox car wound too tight. However, their songs are not “musical” in the usual sense. Frogs sing based on instinct alone; they don’t have to learn their songs and they aren’t thinking creatively. �eir communication is simple,

consistent, and tractable—perfect for scientific research. In fact, Xenopus has only four songs in total, two for the males and two for the females, and only two intentions: either attract mates or scare off competition. “So the thing to do,” says Kelley, “is to take this very simple system, which is simply shut-up or be turned on, and ask how it works.”

Still, in Kelley’s lab, simplification can go one step further. “It turns out,” she says with a wry smile, “that you can make the brain sing in the dish.” By dousing a disembodied brain with neurotransmitters and electricity, it is possible to trigger a frog’s vocal organ to sing by itself, without the rest of the body. �ough it seems a bit grue-some, this technique is valuable because it allows Kelley’s team to gather more accurate data about how communication works in the brain. Having accomplished this feat, the next step for Kelley’s lab is to see if they can get the isolated brain to hear, allowing the lab to explore the relationship between hearing and utterance in the brain with unprec-edented accuracy and control.

Although Kelley’s research is relevant in nu-merous fields, including developmental biology, vocal communication, and genetics, her goal is more personal and simple— to pursue her passion and curiosity. “Often in science,” she says, “in-credibly important insights into biology come not from whatever clinical problem you think you’re studying, but from somebody who’s, you know, fascinated by spiders.” She works to find answers to questions that intrigue her and, when it comes to applications for her research, she isn’t worried. “I’m perfectly sure that everything I find out about the frogs is going to cure stuttering, but it’s not my job in life to cure stuttering: My job is to find

out how it works.”Kelley’s passion for science is clear; but her high-

school teachers had different ideas about her future. “�ey always thought I was too emotional and liter-ary to be a scientist,” she says. For Kelley, science is full of fascinating stories and beautiful ideas, and she suggests that her teachers’ skepticism “reflects an inaccurate view of what science is.” Kelley laments the public’s general apathy toward science and the fatalistic attitude of “so-called non-science stu-dents” who think science is frightening, or worse: boring. As a self-described literary person, she feels that “students who are in the humanities and know no science shut themselves off in an extraordinary way from a whole source of metaphors they could have for looking at the world.”

�is concern for science’s image incited Kelley to spearhead Frontiers of Science, Columbia’s core science class and the scourge of freshman year for many prospective English majors. Frontiers was designed to address what many professors saw as a neglected aspect of modern education: scien-tific habits of mind. �inking critically, analyzing problems, and interpreting data are invaluable skills that apply directly to all areas of study. “We see over and over again,” she says, “not just in our students but in our government leaders and in our citizens, a complete misapprehension of how you would gather data and make some sense of it, how you make an informed decision.”

Kelley feels that Frontiers benefits faculty just as much as students, if not more. “When you become a scientist,” she says, “gradually your training becomes more and more narrow ... one of the good things about Frontiers is that it promotes interaction among the science faculty in a very real and power-ful way.” Frontiers allows faculty to take a broader perspective and share ideas with people in entirely different areas of research.

Kelley is aware that Frontiers is not everyone’s favorite, but rest assured it won’t be going away anytime soon. “If we’re going to have a core cur-riculum, if we’re going to decide that there’s stuff that everybody should know, I would argue that sci-entific habits of mind are right up there.” After all, you can’t get out of Music Hum just because you’re tone-deaf, and science should be no different.

Back in the lab, Kelley has exciting plans for research this summer, mapping and manipulating how Xenopus communicates. First, her lab assistants will study which parts of the brain control which as-pect of song production and comprehension. �en, they plan to play around with the brain circuitry, deactivating different components to see how it alters communication between frogs. �e results look promising, she says, “but there’s nothing I can talk about yet.” Like any good story, science still has its secrets. a

BY ELIZABETH ROBINSONPHOTO BY KENNY JACKSON

dr. kelley jumps to conclusions

IDEAS

Dr. Darcy Kelley professes her passion for the Xenopus frog.

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I began the fall of my junior year of high school ready to become a foreigner. I believed that the American Dream was a thing of the past, something realistic only to Marcia Brady. My future lay in Europe. Having spent the previous two years at Choate, an über-preppy boarding school in Connecticut, I felt stifled by the notion that pearls and a pink-and-lime-green ensemble are as perfect of a couple as Brangelina. I got off the plane in Rome for my trimester abroad and I looked around as if I were ready to crack my knuckles and dig into a tremendous bowl of spaghetti.

I am not as American as apple pie and Won-derbread. My parents both immigrated from Europe. My mother came from England in the ’80s to attend Barnard and my father ven-tured across the pond from Lake Como, Italy to further his career as a chef in Orlando. The fact that I grew up in New York City, arguably the most international city in America, only added fuel to my Europhile fire.

During the orientation dinner on the first day of school in Italy, I made new, albeit American, friends. I needed to rectify my red, white and blue situation—and luckily, an older boarding student, American but Italianized, took my new friends and me under his wing. As the first night was a Saturday, we ventured out to experience the crazy European nightlife. Several shots of absinthe later, I was hoping to see some kind of green fairy. Instead, my new Italian-esque friend introduced me to his day student pals. As I tried to make jokes about their small cars, called macchinettes (which are like Smart cars, but less powerful and much less cool), images of the ever-friendly Italian were being squashed in my head: I wasn’t what you would call a complete hit.

As I settled into my new routine, I felt something that I had never felt before (espe-cially not as a blonde, white girl): discrimina-tion. I could not comprehend it. It was ex-plained to me that it was simply because I was an American, and therefore must be a Bush Re-publican. Ironically, I had always thought that Italy was a Catholic, very conservative place. It turns out that in Italy, religion and intellectu-alism are not mutually exclusive. (Evangelists, take note!) Although the Italians may not be pro-choice, they act liberal and look down at America as the cigarette they just put out with their shoe. Not even my status as a New Yorker could gain any points with them.

Sharing their views, although not to such an extreme degree, I aimed to distance myself from America. The first thing to go was my clean-cut, Connecticut boarding school image: My smoking, which had been a minor flirtation in New York, became a deep sordid affair, initi-ated when I realized that I hadn’t been inhaling before. I watched and learned the Italian way of life from my classmates, pretending of course, that I had known the whole time. My Italian citizenship became important, as did my Ital-ian family, to score me brownie points. Anti-American social climbing efforts aside, I was in Rome, the most beautiful city in the world, and I was the happiest I had ever been. My trimester abroad became a two-year-long commitment, and my Italian self blossomed.

Soon my favorite things about Rome had gone from the low drinking age to the lo-cal music. Specifically house music—it was techno, but not like I had ever heard before. There were no words, just beats. I would wake up in the morning to the sound of the school café’s espresso machine being turned on and the boom boom boom of the music. I thought everyone was crazy to listen to drug-popping tunes at 8:30 a.m., but they invigorated my mind. They woke my senses— or maybe it was just the cappuccino.

I also fell in love with the counterculture. The passions that rose with the mechanical hands thrusting into the sky at house clubs could be stimulated for any kind of protest; they cared and they defied. I watched as students casually rolled a joint in daylight or walked around with a Peroni in their hands as if it has always been there. Smoking on the school’s terrace, banned as a boarding student,

was a cultish ritual. Steadily I was assimilated into Italy, becom-

ing a house-listening, chain-smoking, wine-drinking Italiana. I became that crazy dancing girl, flailing my arms to the beat. I was proud to say that I was no longer on study abroad. I was so ingrained in Italy that when my high-school graduation came, it was as if I had been in wonderland and was being jolted out of paradise. Italy could no longer be my first love; it was demoted to a secret mistress you see on holidays.

Dreading Barnard and my return to Amer-ica, I wheeled my big blue cart into Sulzberger with disdain. I had managed to bring something back from Europe: snobbery. While all of these wannabe hipsters in skinny jeans and scarves were still living with mommy and daddy, I had been places.

I quickly realized I had to lose the attitude un-less I wanted to spend the next four years alone in my smoke-filled room. I began to make friends (and luckily, this time, no one expected me to denounce my citizenship). I remembered what it felt like to belong somewhere. I had finally re-turned to the city where I had lived for 15 years, and I re-experienced all the ridiculous and won-derful things about it: crazy people on the sub-way, sitting outside at restaurants, four different kinds of maple syrup (a scarce commodity in Italy), the ability to order Japanese at 2 a.m. Plus, there were the added excitements that come with starting college. I was no longer a foreigner.

I have exchanged smoking for organic foods and the pizzeria for Koronet, but there is a part of my soul that will never fully forget my time abroad. You never really forget your first love, especially if it has a dashing Italian accent. a

La Dolce Vita

BY FRANCESCA GOTTARDOILLUSTRATION BY HILLARY FORD

THE VIEW FROM HERE / ESSAY

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YE

Moira McCormick worked as the Midwest editor for Billboard magazine for 20 years, and Rolling Stone for 10, as well as working at CREEM magazine, Circus magazine, the New York Times, TV Guide, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune. Now, with the decline of the economy and the increasing popularity of online publications, Zach Dyer joins McCormick to discuss the death of what was once a profitable career.

First of all, what are the main difficulties for free-lance writers in this economy?Let’s put it this way: freelancing has always been a frustrating and challenging way to make a living as a writer, more than many other pursuits, because it is a trade-off. �e freedom that you have in not being tied to one specific publication is great, but the other side to that is that you constantly have to be off selling yourself and pitching stories. So that leads to a very unpredictable income, unless you get a regular column with someone, which I was able to land a couple times in my career. I had a column through Billboard, for example. So, it was always challenging, but now, with so many pub-lications—and newspapers in particular—going under, no one knows what is going to be happen-ing in the publishing industry.

You mentioned not being able to write for the Chi-cago Tribune anymore. Is there anyone left?For the Tribune, I haven’t even been able to reach an editor in several months. �ey declared bankruptcy in December and ever since then, I just can’t seem to find the editor that I’ve always worked with. I’ve talked to other people I know that have done freelance for them and they say essentially the same thing. �e landscape is so unknown and budgets are going crazy—that is to say plummeting—so it’s harder and harder for publications to even afford freelancers.

With all these publications ditching their history of freelancing, do you think the quality of publications changes at all when they use only staff writers?Well, I think almost by definition it’s going to get more monochromatic, more uniform, in a way. When you don’t have as much outside blood per-forming these little transfusions with these articles they write, it’s definitely going to stagnate the content a little bit.

You mentioned more recently writing for Rolling-Stone.com. Do you find there’s suddenly a higher demand for online work?Yeah, it does seem that publications are pushing freelancers in the direction of writing for them.

Blurt Online is a music magazine that is only on-line—they’re one example of where a lot of writers are forced into. �e online publications are all out there, they are flying thick and fast. But in gen-eral, they don’t pay nearly as much. When I was writing in the late ’80s to the late ’90s for Rolling Stone—say, the last time I was writing for them, in 1996, 13 years ago—a 1000-word article would get you upwards of $800. Which was decent money—it certainly was at the time. When I worked for RollingStone.com over the summer, I turned in a 400-word review. �at should be you know, 300 bucks, 400 bucks? Not at all. It was $125. Online publications, where freelancers are being pushed, don’t pay nearly as much as print. It’s become much harder to earn a living this way.

Do you think that this move to online publications is one of the difficulties that print publications are facing in trying to stay in the black? Or do you think that the two exist in separate worlds?Well, I would like to think that it is the latter of the two. I would like to think that there is still a demand for print out there. I’ve been saying for 10 years now, why would anybody want to read a magazine on that tiny little screen, where they can’t possibly get the full impact of the photo-graphs or whatever artwork is going with it? ... If you happen to leave your copy of Rolling Stone on the subway, well, that only sets you back a couple dollars. Magazines, print publications, are so much more portable and you have so much less invested in them monetarily. So, I would like to think that somewhere there are people who think this, and want to read print. But maybe that’s just too old-school. I think that virtually all magazines have online components now.

You’ve mentioned writing for online and the possi-bility that publications may ditch their staff writers for freelance writers. Is there anything else you have been doing, or does this look like the end?Truthfully, for me, I’ve gone from where free-

lance writing for magazines was my entire income, and I did fairly nicely, considering it was part-time. I’ve gone from that to realizing that I just can’t make a living on it anymore. I make my money tutoring! I’d write for someone’s blog and do it for free, just a labor of love again. And if that’s what it ends up being, it will have really come full circle. You know, when I was start-ing out in the mid-’70s, I wrote for free, and I remember my first paycheck for, like, $30, and I was turning handsprings. It’s funny, that I went from there to turning in a fairly decent annual wage just freelance writing for music magazines, and now, I’ve come back to “Oh, my God, I’ll write for anybody who will put it in print, and I don’t care if you pay me anymore.”

So, what I’ve gotten from you is that the trend we’ve got going for print media, at least, is that since they have less money to work with, they have less money to pay their writers, and the quality of the publications will decrease, and then they’ll sell less papers and have even less money. Do you see any end to this vicious cycle?Now, let’s say that even more newspapers and magazines bite the dust, and it all goes electronic and no one works in print anymore. I feel like in X amount of years, some small communities will form that will, you know, want something a little more tangible, and a little less tethered to a device. But there is no predicting how things will go. Look at the way music media has changed over the past 30-odd years. When I was growing up, we had vinyl records and we would just pore over the jack-ets—most of them had really cool artwork, and you could spend so much time gazing at the artwork. It was always so complex. Look at �e Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s. �en come CDs, and suddenly, the impact of the artwork is minimized. And now, ev-erybody downloads everything and the artwork has become incidental, if at all. So I expect that once again, people will want to hold something in their hands that is what it is—newsprint.

As far as this vicious cycle: really, for myself, I don’t see being able to freelance as a major income at this point—I think that option is pretty much over. �ere’s no coming back. a

�e Fall of Freelance

BY ZACH DYERPHOTO BY ZACH DYER

the eye interviews moira mccormick

I DON’T SEE BEING ABLE TO FREELANCE AS A MAJOR INCOME AT THIS POINT—I THINK THAT OPTION IS PRETTY MUCH OVER.

Idealism, Inc.challenging the conventional wisdom on nonprofits

by Laura Andersonillustrations by Matteo Malinverno

Jerone Hsu, who graduated from Co-lumbia College in 2007, has two small silver rings in his left upper ear, an easy, genuine laugh, and a penchant

for meandering sentences. �e walls of his one-bedroom apartment on 103rd Street and Riverside Drive—an apartment owned by his parents, who, after abruptly decid-ing to move to Taiwan, left the place to him—are decked with his own unframed, dreamlike paintings. Hsu could easily be another cool kid living the good life on his parents’ dime. But the t-shirts and hoodies strewn in boxes in his living room aren’t Hsu’s private collection of designer threads: Some say “Relief” in block letters on a green background, others bear the logo of a San Francisco-based conflict- resolution group called the Mosaic Project.

Hsu is the founder of Prime Produce, a small nonprofit organization that aims to create new ways to involve creative young people in the nonprofit sector. “I think in our official mission statement it’s something like, ‘To mutually in-spire and enhance the next generation of non-profit leaders,’” says Hsu. He laughs. “Something shticky like that.”

Over the last two years, Prime Produce has evolved from a small producer of benefit apparel to a nonprofit jack-of-all-trades—an “amorphous, general, method-based kind of nonprofit,” ac-cording to Hsu. Prime Produce has organized free LSAT prep classes for students with a demonstrat-ed interest in public-interest law, raised funds for an organization that aims to end indentured ser-vitude in Nepal, and done Web design for a group that contributes money to earthquake relief in China (hence the “Relief” t-shirts). But Hsu is less interested in contributing to any one cause in par-ticular than he is in the process of getting students involved in the world of nonprofits. “Our goal is to raise resources for the nonprofit sector, but really what we’re focused on is giving people a type of programming that will teach them something that they can take with them that has to do with the nonprofit sector. So we’re hoping that participa-tion in our programming will entice people to do more things in the nonprofit sector.”

Hsu is hardly the only recent

college graduate trying to make a career in the nonprofit world—and he’s hardly the only one to offer unqualified praise for it. Because “nonprofit” and “good” are often seen as practically synony-mous, many celebrate the proliferation of chari-table nonprofits—which, according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics, numbered well over 1 million in the United States in 2006. When President Barack Obama outlined his plan to en-courage public service—a proposal that included federal investment in nonprofits—few, apart from stringent fiscal conservatives, objected.

Yet in spite of its pristine public image, the nonprofit sector can be a thorny, inefficient, and frustrating place, a contradiction lambasted by critics, analyzed by academics, and occasionally experienced first-hand by Columbia students and graduates.

Although non-profits are often associated with altruism, they aren’t limited to charitable pursuits. �ey need only operate independently of the government and yield no profit. �at doesn’t mean nonprofits don’t make money, just that they can’t distribute earnings to partners or shareholders. Instead, all surplus revenue must go towards programming or overhead. To be considered a nonprofit in the U.S., an organiza-tion must conform to the requirements laid out

in a provision of the federal tax code known as 501(c). While Habitat for Humanity, which

builds homes for low-income families around the world, is a 501(c) nonprofit, so are other not-quite-so-charitable organizations like Focus on the Family, the National Rifle As-

sociation, and Columbia University. More easily recognizable, humanitarian non-

profits—incorporated under the third section of 501(c)—must exist solely for purposes that are “religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, or the prevention of cruelty to children or animals,” in the grammatically questionable jargon of the IRS. Charitable nonprofits often receive governmen-tal grants and funding from private foundations. �ese foundations, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Ford Foundation, are controlled by wealthy individuals, groups, or families and spend private monies instead of rais-ing funds from the public. While some foundations create their own philanthropic programs, others donate to the nonprofits of their choice through grants that often come with spending restric-

tions. Private foundations enjoy positive publicity from their support for non-

profits,

exercise control over how exactly their donations are spent, and deduct charitable gifts from their annual federal taxes.

Some critics are troubled—even outraged—by the process through which nonprofits raise funds. �ey describe an overarching “nonprofit industrial complex” (or NPIC, in activist-speak), a system in which the government and wealthy private foundations censor and control the work of non-profits by awarding or withholding funding. From this viewpoint, which has been propounded most vehemently by Marxist and feminist groups, non-profits merely reproduce an exploitative capitalist system without effectively challenging it. Because nonprofits are held hostage to funding from main-stream institutions, critics say, more progressive movements are marginalized. “�e NPIC functions as an alibi that allows government to make war, expand punishment, and proliferate market econ-omies under the veil of partnership between the public and private sectors,” writes Andrea Smith in �e Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, a book of essays published by INCITE!, a feminist group that had a grant from the Ford Foundation revoked in 2004.

Even for less-radical scrutinizers of the nonprofit sector, the current government- and foundation-fueled system is seen as problematic. Debra Minkoff, a professor and chair in sociology at Barnard College, specializes in the organiza-tional structures behind social movements. In a

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WHILE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY IS A 501(C) NONPROFIT, SO ARE OTHER NOT-QUITE-SO-CHARITABLE ORGANIZATIONS LIKE FOCUS ON THE FAMILY, THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION, AND COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

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phone conversation, Minkoff, whose speaking cadence is deliberate and unhurried, describes the ways in which nonprofits are limited by their relationships with other institutions. “�ere are a lot of pressures on nonprofits that come from what academically we refer to as external environ-ment. Be that funders, be that the government, be that the interests of their constituencies, or their constituents, or their clients, in the case of service providers—which is what a lot of nonprofits are,” says Minkoff.

In an article titled “Nonprofit Mission: Con-stancy, Responsiveness, or Deflection?” Minkoff and Walter W. Powell (a professor of sociology and organizational behavior at Stanford) examine the ways in which external environment affects nonprofits’ missions. Minkoff and Powell write that while a few nonprofits hold fast to their origi-nal missions in the face of pressures to conform, most become more conservative over time, vastly change their mission to secure new funding, or fail after refusing to adapt to their environment.

Because of their dependence on grants and donations for funding—many of which come with spending requirements—nonprofits face many constraints that for-profits don’t. Minkoff says that nonprofits are “more vulnerable to pressures that come from outside to do certain activities, organize in certain ways, and kind of walk a tight-rope between their main mission and what the expectations of them are.”

Hsu is unconcerned that donations from powerful philanthropists would in any way affect the mission of Prime Produce. “I’ll tell you right now,” he says, laughing. “I’ll take money from anyone for Prime Produce. It doesn’t really matter where it comes from. What matters is that people need help. �ese are real needs, these are real inequities in the world that need to be addressed. �ey really need to be addressed—that’s the fun-damental issue.”

According to Minkoff, the nonprofits most easily pressured to compromise their missions are smaller, more political nonprofits. Indeed, the reason that INCITE!—the feminist group that published �e Revolution Will Not Be Funded—lost funding from the Ford Foundation was its position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Hsu, who has partnered Prime Produce with many other nonprofits, does not feel compelled to enter into the political fray. “We do try to stay away from any sort of nonprofit that would be—what’s the right word?—I guess controversial,” he says. “Maybe this is something down the line that we’re going to have to think about again; maybe we’ll have to take a stand on some-thing controversial.

But, at this point, I just want it to be something that people can know is just good, with a capital G. And not have to worry about it. �e money won’t go to something that’s politically controversial; we’re sticking to—orphans! Yes. Help orphans. �at’s okay. I think everyone can agree on that.”

If Hsu sticks to smaller donors, he will con-ceivably be able to continue to run Prime Produce without betraying his principles. But for larger nonprofits—especially those looking to expand their programming—competing for grants means conforming to someone else’s ideals. “Logically speaking, the stakes are higher when an organiza-tion is seeking out a resource flow from the gov-ernment, the public sector of the foundation, than if they’re just trying to raise money from members or potential people who might not be members but who might be interested in what the organiza-tion is doing,” says Minkoff. “�e government and the foundation sector tend to put more restric-tions on funding, require more accountability measures, reports, things of that sort. So I think what you have to think about is the power of the organizations vis-à-vis these powerful actors.”

In recent years, walking this tightrope has blurred the distinction between nonprofit and for-profit. Some nonprofits have taken a cue from for-profit firms, organizing themselves based on a corporate model. Teach for America, one of the most popular organizations for graduating college seniors looking to enter the nonprofit world, is renowned for its uncompromisingly hierarchi-cal structure. On the TFA Web site, you can read about the organization’s “seven distinct operat-ing areas,” which include “Growth Strategy and Development,” “Finance and Infrastructure,” and the vaguely disconcerting “Human Assets.”

Professor Minkoff is skeptical that such corpo-rate structures are best for organizing nonprofits. She declines to comment specifically on Teach for America but says, “I think there’s been a trend in the development of nonprofit organizations in the last 10, 20 years towards a more corporate model, with the idea being that these models are more efficient, they’re more transparent, they’re more entrepreneurial. ... �ere’s really no good evidence that they are more efficient or more ef-fective in meeting their goals.”

Students who have worked in the nonprofit sector, however, see the corporate model as a godsend. Chris Daniels, a senior at Columbia Col-lege, currently interns at Teach for America head-quarters, which takes up five stories of a midtown office building. Daniels has worked at two other nonprofits, a small microfinance group called

Shared Interest, which employs four people in New York,

and a Bos-

ton-based organization called the Youth Advocacy Project. After having worked at a variety of non-profits, Daniels says he prefers a corporate model: “Based on part of my background and what I’ve seen, I find a lot of nonprofits are really loosey-goosey. ... Having that somewhat corporate structure and having people buy into everything is really important to accomplish your ideals.”

Mallory Carr, a classmate of Daniels’ who will be working in a Los Angeles classroom for Teach for America next year, has similar praise for the education nonprofit’s tight organization, based on her application experience. Carr spent last summer working at a South African nonprofit called Ikam-vaYouth, which provides tutoring and educational services to students who live in the destitute shan-

tytowns around Cape Town. (“You know those long trucks that crate stuff? �at would house five or six families.”) Carr’s experience at IkamvaYouth was rife with disorganization and miscommunication. “Teach for America is the most organized organi-zation you will ever encounter. Ikamva and Teach for America are just complete opposites—there is no way to compare the two, even though I would say they have similar missions. But I think I would rather see something like Teach for America that I know can sustain itself.”

In some ways, life at a highly organized non-profit differs little from life in the for-profit sector. At Teach for America headquarters, Daniels is currently working on a marketing project reach-ing out to TFA alumni, and he has done his share of data entry for other nonprofits. For critics, this pseudo-corporate way of organizing nonprofits is troublesome. In �e Revolution Will Not Be

Funded, Andrea Smith chides the nonprofit industrial complex

for “redirect[ing]

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“SOME OF THE REASONS THAT WE HAVE PROBLEMS IN THIS COUNTRY AND THE WORLD ARE BECAUSE OF CORPORATIONS. YOU DON’T WANT TO GO TOO FAR THAT WAY.”

activist energies into career-based modes of organizing instead of mass-based organizing capable of actually transforming change” and “encourage[ing] social movements to model themselves after capitalist structures rather than to challenge them.”

Hsu has some concerns about the way large nonprofits run. “�ere are definitely going to be huge nonprofits, and if they are huge then they definitely need to be organized like that. ... �e fundamental issue is it’s costly. �e people who run these organizations, they could have a huge-paying job somewhere else, so the nonprofit will pay them a humongous salary. Which makes sense, but it does kind of strike interesting chords. If you’re going to work in the nonprofit sector, should you have to take a pay cut? Is that part of it? I don’t know. �at’s not for me to say.” (Cur-rently, 100 percent of Prime Produce’s revenue goes to its programming. Hsu earns money for food doing creative odd jobs.)

For the most part, like Daniels, Hsu is opti-mistic about the ways that nonprofits can use corporate models for the common good. “Corpo-rate versus non-corporate, I have a little difficulty discerning them, other than how organized they are. When you think corporate, tied with money, that’s the way it is—but that’s also the way it is for a non-profit, and it should be that way. Now, whether or not all nonprofits function that way, I’m highly doubtful.”

Daniels, the Teach for America intern, rec-ognizes some of the drawbacks of the corporate model. “Some of the reasons that we have prob-lems in this country and the world are because of corporations,” he says. “You don’t want to go too far that way.”

But on the whole, Daniels—who plans to go to business school after spending two years in the classroom for Teach for America—thinks that the corporate model’s strengths outweigh its potential weaknesses. He is also enthusiastic about op-portunities for nonprofits and for-profits to learn from each other. “One of the things that I think is sort of exciting is looking right now at the explo-sion of the social sector—it’s not just for-profits and nonprofits anymore. �ere’s corporate social responsibility, there’s social entrepreneurship, and nonprofits that have for-profit ventures. And I think the tax code, which defines those two things, hasn’t caught up with what’s going on,” says Daniels. Hsu feels similar enthusiasm. “You

do have these kind of next-generation, synthe-sized nonprofits. I think that it’s good that they’re there, and I think that they’re going to lead the way to the next generation.”

It is unclear whether that next generation will effectively address not only the problems posed by the corporate model, but also the challenges that arise from the social distance between those

who work for nonprofits and those who benefit from their services. Carr, the student who worked at IkamvaYouth in South Africa, thinks that the nonprofit faced so much difficulty in part because its white Afrikaans founder was not personally affected by the problems of the township. When the founder attempted to delegate responsibility to members of the community, IkamvaYouth’s organization began to unravel. “It wasn’t that they didn’t believe in the organization, but they didn’t start it,” says Carr. “Someone else came in and started it, and then they got involved, and now they’re supposed to take it over. ... I wouldn’t say that in any kind of a negative way; I think it’s just really hard to do.”

Teach for America has not struggled with insti-tutional disorganization, but it too has been criti-cized for failing to bridge the social divide between those serving and those served. Carr acknowl-edges this criticism, but notes that, “For those two years that TFA people are in the classroom, they

are really bringing kids up to speed academically. ... Do you want to have kids who are coming up to grade level, or do you want teachers who are really understanding their kids’ cultural background? It’s hard to reconcile the two.”

Numerous studies bear out Carr’s belief that Teach for America teachers successfully improve their own students’ performance. But beyond this small-scale effectiveness, Teach for America does nothing to change an entrenched public educa-tion system in which poor students are routinely underserved. As many critics have noted, most Teach for America participants leave the classroom after two years, depriving schools of the stability that comes with having the same teachers year after year.

Despite all the criticism, though, employ-ees of corporate-style nonprofits like Teach for America genuinely want to do good. When asked what draws him to the nonprofit sector, Daniels says, “Well, I’ve wanted to save the world for a while.” Daniels likes to tell the story of the day the executive director of Shared Interest (the microfi-nance nonprofit) announced to the office that the organization had helped a million people. “�at’s the kind of moment where you’re like, ‘Wow, this does all add up eventually,’” says Daniels. “�is is worthwhile; this is why I get up every morning to do this. And that’s definitely why I’m going into the nonprofit sector—for those kinds of mo-ments.”

Of course, organizers of small nonprofits also see their work as noble. Hsu sometimes speaks in terms that might seem naïve if he weren’t so confident—and if he weren’t currently the execu-tive director of his own nonprofit. “I heard this at one of the conventions that we were at, and I wish I could tell you who said this, but this guy was talking about the nonprofit sector and he said, ‘It’s a unique sector because it’s the only sector where you’re working so someday you don’t have to work,’” recalls Hsu. “You are trying to annihi-late your own organization at some point ... which is something that I really like. It’s kind of, like, interestingly destructive, in a way. You’re aiming your weapons of good at this evil thing to destroy it, so you don’t even need to use this weapon anymore.”

If critics of the nonprofit industrial complex, scholars who examine the sociology of nonprofits, and people working within the nonprofit sector agree on anything at all, it is that grassroots orga-nizations have a good chance for success—or, at least, a good chance for staying true to their cause.

Hsu, in spite of his enthusiasm for social en-trepreneurship and his distaste for controversy, seems to like this kind of ground-level organiza-tion. He seeks to ally Prime Produce with small, committed nonprofits. “Grassroots organizations have a real spinal cord. ... �e people involved are friends, neighbors, family,” he says. “It’s not just the organization, or the goals of an organization, but it’s the sentiment between them that pulls them together to work on something. �at makes an organization a lot stronger, and I think it makes the work that they do a lot better.” a

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“YOU ARE TRYING TO ANNIHILATE YOUR OWN ORGANIZATION—AT SOME POINT. IT’S KIND OF INTERESTINGLY DESTRUCTIVE, IN A WAY. YOU’RE AIMING YOUR WEAPONS OF GOOD AT THIS EVIL THING TO DESTROY IT.”

�e quintessential dorm room familiar from TV shows and slacker comedies is strewn with clothes, books, and CDs, but the typical Columbia dorm room is suspiciously CD-free. �ough CD sales have been on the decline ever since Napster introduced mass music file-sharing in the ‘90s, the closing of Kim’s, Morningside Heights’ only record store, and a 30-percent price increase on popular songs on iTunes have both furthered students’ motivation to download music illegally. But getting an album for free can mean risking thousands of dollars and trouble from Columbia. Is it really worth it?

Columbia, more than other universities, strictly enforces penalties for illegal music down-loading. Columbia University Information Tech-nology’s policy says not only that under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Columbia must take action if informed of copyright infringement, but also that the copyright owner may take ad-ditional action if necessary.

According to Ashok Ilankovan, a SEAS senior and CUIT employee, Columbia allows outside companies to watch the IP addresses of people on its network, unlike schools including Boston Uni-versity, University of Wisconsin, UC Santa Cruz and University of Oregon. Nevertheless, he says, the university also doesn’t “give you away to the company right away.” Standard disciplinary pro-cedure holds that the student is warned via e-mail for a first violation, must meet with his dean on the second violation, and will then be sued by the company if he violates the policy a third time.

Despite the official policy, Yazzy Koukaz, a Co-lumbia College senior, was forced to pay $3,000 in fines after the RIAA directly filed a lawsuit against her. “�ey said, ‘You can go to court and you’ll be charged a minimum of $750 per file,” she recalls. Koukaz decided to settle out of court, a process she describes as “demeaning.” “It was so vile that it was typical for them to be catching these college students that have no income,” she says.

Some settlements, however, are far more costly than Koukaz’s. According to her, guilty students can enroll in a six-month payment plan that adds about $500 interest—but if they can’t pay after six months, the RIAA continues to add fees. Although Koukaz was fortunate enough to settle her lawsuit with money from her savings, the situation still plagues her: “I’m really paranoid. I have night-mares that someone’s going to sue me.”

Columbia College sophomore Kevin Elder encountered a similar problem. Elder was aware of Columbia’s policies, and, as he says, “put the downloading on hold.” He was still accused of copyright infringement by the RIAA his freshman

year. Like Koukaz, Elder was given the option to settle, but unlike Koukaz, he couldn’t come up with the money. Although the RIAA warned that failing to sign the settlement agreement within 20 days would result in a subpoena, this never hap-pened. “Now I receive a phone call time to time from one of their agents,” he says, “who tells me the RIAA is now offering settlements at a reduced cost and that I should hurry up before it’s too late.”

Elder contacted CUIT about the violation, hoping that they would advise him. He says they informed him that the settlement was his problem, but did provide him with a list of lawyers he could contact—all of whom were out of his price range. “Essen-tially,” says Elder, “Columbia had thrown me to the dogs with a curt apology and a ‘best-of-luck.’”

While it is understandable that Columbia would want to distance itself from such litigation, many students are outraged that Columbia doesn’t do more to protect them. “I find it disgusting that Co-lumbia has failed to stand up to the RIAA and pro-tect its students from these conmen,” says Elder.

As he points out, universities and organizations

from around the nation—and even attorney gen-erals of states like his home state of Oregon—have stood up against the RIAA for persecuting college students. “Maybe this is further proof that Colum-bia’s care for its students is heavily outweighed by the fetish it keeps with its reputation,” Elder says.

Fear of prosecution has not halted Columbia students’ downloading activity. Although students are usually caught and sued for illegal download-ing after using file-sharing programs like Gnutella, Kazaa, and Limewire, music lovers with tight funds who once relied on such programs have simply gotten more creative. Jeffrey Hoffman, a Columbia College senior, used to use Limewire, then switched to BitTorrent, which allows for downloading entire albums at once. After being warned by Columbia that an outside company had caught him downloading a movie, he removed all torrent programs from his computer.

Hoffman still continues to download music, employing a particularly clever system: He uses a program like GarageBand to record music from YouTube and other streaming sites. While Hoff-man’s method is small in scale and untraceable, it is still considered illegal.

�e recording industry has struggled for years to figure out how best to prevent their copyrighted material from flowing freely across the Internet. And while it seems that most students at Columbia have recognized the danger of downloading il-legally, not all can afford to pay for music or think that they should have to. As SEAS freshman Henry Jones—who pays for what little music he down-loads or uses Pandora, an Internet streaming radio station—says, “I don’t think that many people are worried about getting caught because they still do it, and I don’t know anyone that’s been caught.” It seems as though neither Columbia nor the RIAA has plans to change their policies, leaving us to wonder what has really changed since Napster was shut down—and whether the RIAA and the university are just behind the times. a

Download If You Dare

BY JENNIFER MAYERILLUSTRATION BY REBEKAH KIM

columbia and the riaa crack down hard on illegal music

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“COLUMBIA HAD THROWN ME TO THE DOGS WITH A CURT APOLOGY AND A ‘BEST-OF-LUCK.’”

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Sacco and Vanzetti died in their late thirties, Simon Bolivar when he was 47, Che Guevara when he was 39. Most militant revolutionaries—even those from the ’60s—never reach their sixties, so it was a pleasant surprise to hear that Mark Rudd was not just alive, but teaching and writing as well. His new book, Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen, is probably the first time most of the world has heard from him since the famous 1968 Columbia student insurrection and its aftermath, during which Doonsbury cre-ator Garry Trudeau,immortalized him as “Mega-phone” Mark Slackmeyer.

�e Rudd familiar to campus history buffs is the one known for leading the campus SDS in a takeover of Hamilton Hall, Low Library, and three other buildings. Rudd will also forever be associ-ated with a celebrated directive issued to then-University President Grayson L. Kirk: “Up against the wall, motherfucker.” He’s known as a revo-lutionary icon, a mythic emblem of a particular moment. But what about Mark Rudd, the human?

�is is the question Rudd himself grapples with in Underground, and the answer lies in what Rudd was before and after his blaze of glory. It turns out that he grew up in pretty ordinary circumstances: “I was raised in a town that was literally 99.9 per-cent White,” he writes, referring to ’50s and ’60s

Maplewood, New Jersey.From there, Underground takes us through

a familiar trajectory: admission, matriculation, disenchantment, depression. From the prologue, with its schizoid mixture of triumph and con-trition, Rudd dissects his previous selves with sobriety and analytical ardor. But most of the characters young Mark meets along the way are stock stereotypes: the donnish psychoanalyst, the cadres of meathead jocks, the careerist professors. Self-centeredness and a lack of empathy with hu-man nature are certainly legitimate shortcomings that seem to plague revolutionaries: Marx, for ex-ample, knew everything about himself but failed to forecast Mao and Stalin. Yet I don’t see the same kind of solipsism in Underground. Given Rudd’s interpersonal genius, humanity, and conscience in bringing off the 1968 coup, I like to think that this is just how some people are.

Besides, characters don’t need to be sketched in depth in order to be compelling. Doones-bury readers met Megaphone Mark weeks after the comic strip’s 1970 inception. Doonesbury at the time was a hilarious hodgepodge of political satire and college humor—the South Park of the ‘70s—and Rudd’s send-up perfectly demonstrated both of its tropes. �e first panel of my favorite strip shows Mark proclaiming to an audience of zero: “Even though the President has given in to all my demands, I have decided to act!” He enters an office in the next panel, saying, “I’m sorry Mr. President, but until my demands are enacted, I’m taking over this office! HOW ABOUT THAT, HUH?” �e president replies, “Well, yes, that

seems fair. I’ll leave immediately. Before I go, shall I show you where I keep my brandy and cigars?”

In reality, Grayson L. Kirk didn’t go down without a fight and acceded to none of Rudd’s demands—equality, divestment, and so forth—but readers of Underground will learn that the brandy and cigars existed. Kirk’s office was lined with books with unbroken spines, Rudd writes, which added to his 20-year-old self’s impression of Kirk as an ivory-tower phony. �is brings me to another common complaint against activists—ev-erything they see has significance. To them, each detail is just a truth waiting to be uncovered by whichever infallible hermeneutic system they ascribe to.

Beyond Kirk’s books, Underground is refresh-ingly free of these sentiments, too. Rudd doesn’t have a stellar memory for detail, but there are enough details included in the book to convey the sense that it’s meant to entertain rather than to provide tendentious commentary. When I ask Rudd, “Is it more a memoir or a manifesto?” he answers instantly, “It’s not a manifesto—it’s a story. It’s a kid from New Jersey who crosses the river and finds himself in this milieu, where people are learning about the war in Vietnam and starting to protest it.” Underground is shot through not with a philosopher’s telos to truth, but with the storyteller’s compulsion to divert.

Of course, a rougher telos makes for a better story. As Rudd tells me, “�e organizing work paid off. �e first part of the book is stories about good organizing; the second part and the third part are about good organizing turning into bad organizing. �e faction in SDS called ‘Weather-men’ was terrible organizing.”

Terrible organizing indeed: SDS splintered soon after Rudd’s conquest at Columbia, and his fragment—the Weathermen—pulled off a few non-lethal bombings in 1969 and 1970. (Of 1970, Rudd says, offhand, “�at was the year I became a fugi-tive.”) All the while, the Weathermen dwindled in membership. Megaphone Mark settled down and became a sometime student and college radio DJ. Rudd himself went underground to hide from the FBI for seven years, and his movement faded from public imagination and political relevance.

Yet these seven years were still eventful, and

Notes from the Underground

BY CHRIS MORRIS-LENTCOURTESY OF THE COUMBIA UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES AND DAVID FINCK

mark rudd wanted a revolution—then he grew up

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their immortalization in Underground is ample justification for their having happened. Rudd’s recounting of Timothy Leary’s harrowing escape from prison and all of Underground’s sex scenes come to mind—his book reads like an adolescent’s fantasy of life after college, except it’s also tinged with sorrow, solitude, and squalor. All this direc-tionless wandering culminates in the accidental death of two friends when their homemade bomb blows up in their faces. �e event must have been gut-wrenching, but Rudd’s direct and simple style, which works well elsewhere, is unable to conjure genuine pathos.

When the prose is rougher than the events it describes, Underground begins to sag. Rudd’s odyssey becomes less interesting after the bomb tragedy, and his writing less polished: “Because of the strength of the longshoremen’s union, I’d typically make $60 to $80 a shift, which in those days was excellent money, the minimum wage at the time being $1.90 per hour,” he remembers. Wasted words like the redundant “in those days” and “at the time,” are annoying, especially since Underground clocks in at a baggy 324 pages. So is the sermonizing tone, as he goes on to relate his hesitancy to tell the blue-collar dockworkers of their dependency on the war. On the same page, Rudd recalls “the loneliness”: “I was nobody, do-ing nothing except surviving ... it’s not a good way to live.” It’s unclear whether this is false modesty or self-loathing.

Whether Rudd hates himself or hates to like himself, one of the conceits behind a memoir is that the reader must love the character, or at least love to hate him. Fortunately, Rudd the narrator’s charisma is enough to carry the book, even when Rudd the character is at his least sympathetic—when Timothy Leary rats him out, he repays the favor by writing the following:

“For some reason, probably because I like audacious old charlatans, I’ve never felt angry or vindictive toward him. I exempt Leary from the principle ‘�ou shall not rat out thy comrades.’ He died in 1996, an apostle of space colonization, hav-ing transformed his identity multiple times in the previous two decades. Seven grams of his ashes were rocketed into space.”

A mix of vignettes, principles, exceptions, revisions, reminiscences, and insights: this is Underground at its best. For some reason the mélange just works. Rudd isn’t a strong prose stylist—he’s an orator, not a writer, after all—but here it doesn’t matter.

Timothy Leary was shot into space, but what has happened to Rudd in his later years? After turning himself in to the FBI in 1977, he retired to New Mexico (what is it that the counterculture loves about New Mexico?) and became a teacher at the local vocational institute.

On the phone, Rudd is easygoing, relaxed, and

serene. �e world is still a mess, but it’s no longer entirely his responsibility. “Obviously I’m still a progressive on most all issues,” he says.

“So the ends are the same, but the means are different?”

“Yeah. I think you’ll find this rather funny —in one of the first chapters in the book I talk about the split between the ‘Practice Faction’ and the ‘Action Faction.’ I think the people who advocated slow, patient organizing were right. In a way, I’ve done a 180 on that,” he says.

Rudd rues the years he spent under the Weath-ermen, but he doesn’t regret that the Columbia gym is a dank, subterranean dump. He says that university culture now is better, more diverse, but residually racist and overtly classist—still, by his own admission, he doesn’t know enough about Manhattanville or ethnic studies protesters to pass judgment on their goals or methods. He says that “the goal of organizing is always a mass movement,” and that Obama’s election is in part a byproduct of that—but an environmental disaster is still looming, and society is still shot through

with “social failures” and “market failures” that range from education to racial biases.

If Rudd could have picked something to do differently, he says, “I think I’d probably try to go to a college that was further from my own back-ground. Maybe Rutgers-Newark.” �e paradox behind a book like Underground is that, while it illustrates its point that experiences offer a better education than going to school and reading books, reading this book is an experience worth having. Rudd is, after all, a teacher. “I think teaching is very important,” he says. “Very few top-notch thinkers go into teaching.”

Rudd may not be a top-notch thinker or a top-notch writer, but he is a good thinker and a passable writer with top-notch experiences. What you take away from Underground can be anything from activist axioms to simple pleasure. �is is the mark of a good book, and anyone at all interested in or entertained by Rudd, Columbia, activism, civil rights, betrayal, free love, LSD, marijuana, New York, San Francisco, New Jersey, New Mexi-co, teaching, or learning should read it. a

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BOOKS

�ree street performers stand motionless at the 60th Street entrance to Central Park, emu-lating bronze statues of a Roman legionnaire, Che Guevara, and a woman from a Salvador Dali painting. As viewers move closer, they realize these figures are not real people but statues. �en, with a sudden shift of sunlight, they seem to pulse with life again. �is mystifying illusion, Christian Jankowski’s “Living Sculptures,” is one of New York’s newest public art exhibitions.

Public art is as much a part of our city’s landscape as delis or Starbucks. Every neighborhood boasts its own catalogue of sculptures and monuments that decorate sidewalks, parks, and building lobbies. Some pieces have become iconic symbols of New York, embodying the essence of particular neigh-borhoods and serving as indelible landmarks. Keith Haring’s vibrant mural on Bowery and Houston immediately conveys the excitement and energy of the East Village with its neon green and orange col-ors and Haring’s signature dancing figures. Central Park’s charming Alice in Wonderland statue also serves as a mini-playground for young park-goers and reminds viewers of their own childhood fanta-sies. New York City comes alive in these monuments.

Works of public art are also intrinsic to urban development and city planning, which gives them a very different function than art made specifically to be displayed in a gallery or museum. �e Public Art Fund, a not-for-profit organization and New

York’s chief presenter of public art, states on its Web site that by “bringing artworks outside the traditional context, the Public Art Fund provides a unique platform for an unparalleled public en-counter with the art of our time.” Public art allows viewers to experience their city not only as a place to live and work, but also as a medium for inspira-tion and intellectual discussion.

Aside from its aesthetic and cultural importance, public art can also be a profitable economic invest-ment. In February of 2005, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, an eccentric duo famous for their colossal environmental art, commissioned a $20 million project to place 7,500 orange gates throughout Central Park. �e Gates, which remained in the park for sixteen days, became a worldwide phenomenon, attracting thousands of foreign tourists and employ-ing at least 600 workers. �e artists financed the project themselves, allowing the city to fully reap the benefits of the nearly $250 million increase in New York’s economy. More importantly, �e Gates created a strong sense of community, proving that public art on such a grand scale can reinforce the better values of urban life.

Yet without the publicity that surrounds proj-ects like �e Gates, public art can fall by the way-side. Gregory Smithsimon, assistant professor of urban studies at Barnard College, notes that many of the historical statues in Central Park, which in-clude figures like Christopher Columbus and Símon Bolívar, are intended to represent specific ethnic communities that compose the city. While the park prohibits overtly ethnic monuments, groups can still celebrate their heritage by commemorating a person who has had an impact both on their cul-ture’s history and on the history of America. Yet

this declaration of national identity is lost on many viewers. As Lauren Everett, a Barnard sophomore, says, “I noticed that the statues are of people who came from different countries, but I didn’t know their true reason for being in the park.” Without a clear social context, these statues seem like random acts of educational adornment to the general public.

Pieces of public art placed in front of busi-nesses and on university campuses are similarly undervalued, as they are strictly defined by their setting. Once associated with large urban institu-tions, the art becomes a symbol of status, almost taking on the role of a brand logo. “Public art in front of office plazas shows panache and increases rents,” Professor Smithsimon says, while “in front of universities it shows prestige.”

But public art also needs to put on more of a show than art in a museum would to get attention—it has to shock. �e highbrow art on Columbia’s campus rarely achieves this goal. A cast of Auguste Rodin’s �e �inker stands near Philosophy Hall, yet many students barely notice the statue as they rush past it. Other campus art includes Curl by Clement Meadmore in front of the business school, Henry Moore’s �ree Way Piece by St. Paul’s Cha-pel, and statues of notable figures like Alexander Hamilton and �omas Jefferson. While Columbia’s public monuments are certainly prestigious, their uniform bronze structure and conservative design make for a less than eye-catching display.

An interest in public art is definitely tangible, especially on a college campus bustling with creative and open minds. Katie Stricker, a Barnard sophomore, says, “I like it [the art]. It makes my day interesting.” Yet Stricker, and many others, express a strong desire for student-made public art that would give the campus a more progressive and edgy atmosphere. “Students should be able to display their art more openly,” she says.

COLAB, a provocative campus dance group , seems to be moving in that direction—recently, members performed a site-specific piece in Le-rner in the middle of the day by doing tediously slow movements and forcing people to walk around or step over them. COLAB’s guerilla ap-proach may have made many students angry, but it certainly got their attention. Perhaps for public art to be successful, it must ultimately do what COLAB did—jolt people out of the monotony of the everyday and truly make them notice the world around them. a

Going Public

BY LIZA ELIANOPHOTO BY MIRA JOHN

how art functions outside of the museum

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PUBLIC ART NEEDS TO PUT ON MORE OF A SHOW THAN ART IN A MUSEUM WOULD TO GET ATTENTION.

ART

Dress For Success

In the midst of impending finals, a wardrobe for your summer internship may be the last thing on your mind. But your working wardrobe is not to be taken lightly—proper attire will not only lead to others taking you more seriously, but also allow you to feel more confident as a newbie at your summer job. Columbia College sopho-more and veteran intern Josie Aguila recommends taking note of what other employees wore on the day that you interviewed for the position in order to get a more con-crete visual of what will be appropriate in your working environment. To get you brainstorming, here are some general wardrobe suggestions applicable to the most common of internship environments.

�e Political PunditStomping grounds: city hall, local news station, law firmA conservative office environment need not be a reason to sacrifice style. With a new boxy shape reminiscent of Melanie Griffith in Working Girl, the blazer, which has appeared on runways from New York to Milan this year, has become undeniably retro-chic. Scope out the selec-tion at Urban Outfitters or, if you’re sure about your size, hit up Bluefly.com to browse a great selection of discounted designer duds. Together with a pair of stovepipe trousers you’ll scream “professionalism.”

Aguila adds that comfort is key. After working last summer in Miami on a political campaign, she recommends that although high heels might make an outfit more sophisticated, comfortable shoes are a must. Nothing’s worse than your choice of footwear distracting you from performing your best. She also says that while the demands of her job sometimes called for different choices of apparel, it was necessary to keep all selections conservative and professional. For example, on days when she was working outside at voting sites, jeans and a conservative shirt were appropriate. For occasions like meetings or dressier events that took her away from the office, she would opt instead for a business suit.

�e FashionistaStomping grounds: designer studios, fashion magazines, art galleriesPerhaps the most intimidating of internships, style-wise. Your fashion-savvy coworkers will be painfully aware of your look, from the French beret on your head to the turquoise nail polish on your toes. No need to fret. With the new Topshop location in Soho, you’ll have ample opportunity to scoop up a cute floral frock in an iconic Liberty Print that will leave even the most in-the-know of fashion insiders envious. Pair with this season’s

must have—a black leather motorcycle jacket à la Kate Moss—and impeccably styled hair, and you’re good to go. If you simply feel naked without a to-ken designer piece, head to INA, a chain of upscale designer consignment shops around the city. If you’re lucky, you’ll score a deal on a pair of Chanel flats that will be sure to have heads turning.

�e Lab GeekStomping grounds: hospital research labs, pharmaceutical companies, NASAIf you’re one of the lucky Columbians joining the ranks of world-class scientists this summer, the last thing you’ll want is for your complicated ensemble to distract you from [insert your choice of complicated-sounding scientific phenomena here]. Supportive and closed-toed footwear is a must when you’ll be on your feet all day. Sneakers are usually perfectly acceptable in a lab situa-tion, when the physicality of the job can become particularly taxing. �is season, swap your trusty Chuck Taylors for a pair of equally-as-comfy yet infinitely more streamlined pair of Keds’ iconic Champions. Keep it clean with a solid colored, short-sleeved tee from American Apparel, paired with conservative, dark pants or cords (ie. no se-quins, rips or sparkles please). Keep long hair tied back and no emergency, Bunsen burner-induced trips to the salon will be necessary.

Still unsure about appropriate intern attire? Don’t be afraid to ask your employer about a dress code. Your inquiries will only emphasize that you care about your position, reflecting on your work ethic and showing extra initiative. If you think your wardrobe through in advance, you’ll be free to spend more time focusing on your important intern tasks. a

BY AMY DAVISPHOTO COURTESY OF FOX 2000 PICTURES

impress your co-workers this summer with a savvy sense of style

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STYLE

New York, 1998: Years after their first meet-ing at the Art Institute of Chicago, Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner decide to collaborate on a performance art piece, forming the group Fischerspooner. Today, this duo works to cre-ate electronica music that is influenced by pop culture and traditional classical music.

Fischerspooner successfully juxtaposes mu-sic and performance. �eir beats are addictive, while their shows are innovative and elabo-rately theatrical. With Spooner’s background in experimental theater and Fischer’s classical training, Fischerspooner creates a pop spectacle that anyone can easily enjoy.

While Spooner is fashion and image con-scious, Fischer is more laid back. �is interest-ing combination creates a strong dichotomy reflected in Fischerspooner’s performances. Spooner performs powerfully onstage, while Fischer DJs behind the scenes. In a typical show, the entire stage lights up brightly—Fischer also has experience in lighting design—and an energetic Spooner gets onstage, surrounded by a number of dancers who fuse modern dance with traditional ballet. �e overall effect is a visu-ally and musically stimulating show, giving the audience an eccentric avant-garde experience.

Spooner’s fashion consciousness is re-flected in Fischerspooner’s newest series of costumes designed by well-known designers like Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy and Italo Zuc-chelli of Calvin Klein for their upcoming tour. These costumes reflect Spooner’s newfound interest in minimalism—a concept he redis-covered on a recent trip to Spain—combin-ing traditional couture-like styles with more modern technical pieces.

Fischerspooner’s third studio album, Entertainment, will be released on May 5th. Catch them at Webster Hall during their next New York City show on May 8.

On the Lookout:Fischerspooner

BY CLARA YOOPHOTO COURTESY OF THE WORKER’S INSTITUTE ARTIST MANAGEMENT

A CONSERVATIVE OFFICE ENVIRONMENT NEED NOT BE A REASON TO SACRIFICE STYLE.