Columbia Love Stories 2019

"Alex K. and Laura M.K. met and fell in love in 1991, during their junior year at Columbia University. They first met at Canons Pub, a popular hangout for students at the time, located on West 108th and Broadway. Since Alex had jobs in both the microfiche and periodical rooms of Butler Library (how old fashioned), Alex and Laura spent a lot of time studying together there!

After graduation, Alex enrolled in Columbia Law School and Columbia Business School, graduating with his JD/MBA in 1996. Even though Laura temporarily moved to the Boston area to begin her teaching career, Alex and Laura continued a long-distance relationship until they became engaged in the winter of 1993.

Alex proposed to Laura in his tiny Columbia University apartment on West 113th street! After Laura returned back to NYC, Alex and Laura were married in 1995, surrounded by many of their classmates from Columbia’s various schools, including Columbia College, Barnard College, and the Law and Business Schools. One of Alex’s friends from Columbia Law School signed their marriage certificate, while Laura’s best friend from Barnard was a bridesmaid.

Their college romance and subsequent wedding were featured in the “Vows” section of the New York Times and subsequently published in the book Vows: Weddings of the Nineties from the New York Times by Lois Smith Brady.

In 1996, Laura proudly attended Alex’s Columbia JD/MBA graduation ceremony on South Lawn. Soon after, while working full-time as a teacher, Laura began her own graduate work at Teachers College, Columbia University.

In the spring of 1999, nine months pregnant and barely fitting into her graduation gown, Laura was awarded her Masters Degree in a ceremony at St. John the Divine.

Last spring, Alex and Laura attended their 25th reunion at Columbia -- spending quality time with best friends from their college years at Columbia. Alex is currently a Partner at an investment bank in New York City, while Laura works as Associate Director of Admissions at an independent school in New Jersey. Together, they share five Columbia University degrees and four children! They are a true Columbia University love story."

"Our Columbia Love Story is a little different than most. As Nick was graduating from his bachelors in Spring of 2015, I was moving into the city to start my Master's at Columbia Journalism School, gearing up for the intense Reporting Bootcamp that begins in the summer. We never overlapped at school, but our paths must have crossed on campus or nearby, because thanks to the location-based algorithms of Tinder, we matched a few months later.

Our first months of dating were intrinsically connected by Columbia: Nick was the subject of one of my projects for my video journalism class, he was my date to Lucille's Ball (J-School Prom), and he came to my Lavender Graduation as well as Commencement.

We're now engaged and frequently come back to campus to enjoy alumni events, the tree lighting ceremony in the winter, and the place where our loved bloomed." 

"My mom (Sally '85BC) and dad (Sebastian '85CC, '88LAW) started dating when they were freshmen at The Bronx High School of Science.

Fate was on the young couple's side as they were accepted their senior year to Barnard College and Columbia University in the City of New York, and were able to continue their relationship through college.

Shortly after graduation in '85, my dad proposed to my mom and they got married at the end of that summer. Since then, they have lived on three continents and raised two daughters. They will be celebrating 34 years of marriage this year!"

"My husband and I met at Columbia University in the City of New York in 2012 when I was a freshman and he was a junior. We were both at Columbia/Barnard Hillel's annual formal and hit it off right away.

We started dating shortly after we met. Most of our dates were at the library! Since then, Michael has graduated from medical school, we've moved downtown below 110th Street, gotten a cute cat, and traveled all over the world. We've been happily married for seven months now!" 

"Steve and I met as graduate students at Columbia University in 1995.

More specifically we met at the Hungarian Pastry Shop NYC after sitting and working at the same table for approximately four hours over approximately 3.5 bottomless cups of coffee. He was preparing to teach Lit Hum, I was preparing to teach Contemporary Civilization. We were both reading the Bible.

Fast forward to 2019: We have been happily married for 20 years, have two wonderful daughters (Molly and Marlena), and are both professors at Indiana University (Steve is in the Dept. of Spanish and Portuguese, and I'm in the Dept. of Philosophy).

Here we are at IUB's commencement ceremony in our matching set of Columbia regalia! This fall, our eldest, Molly, started at... Columbia College. We couldn't be more delighted or proud." 

"Alan and I met at Columbia our second year of business school. We married two years later and have four children who appreciate Columbia Business School for more than its excellent academic reputation."

"My husband, Michael, and I met during my freshman orientation week. He was a junior and we were both on the respective varsity men and women's tennis teams. I was practicing with my teammate, when she suddenly hit herself in the head with the racket and fell to the ground. He saw us in distress and ran over to help. From that point we became friends and started dating the following semester.

Six years later, we got engaged on the same court where we first met at Dick Savitt Tennis Center. After 13 years together, we have two children, Max, 3, and Leo, 1."

"My wife Susan and I have been married 48 years. We met at the first Freshman mixer on September 12, 1964. Susan thought I was too interested in athletics (rowing) and too young for her to have a serious relationship during college. We saw each other a lot, but were not really dating. When we got engaged after the second year at Columbia Law School, however, the only people who were surprised were the two of us." 

"I was a graduate student in the Applied Physics & Applied Mathematics Department, Columbia University when I met my wife to be at an Intervarsity fellowship event in the chapel of Columbia. She was a freshman undergraduate student at Columbia University in the City of New York at this time.

Shortly after this, my wife joined a Bible study which I was co-leading with another undergraduate female at Columbia, a study sponsored by Intervarsity. Shortly after this I invited her out to a movie, The Last Waltz, celebrating the brilliant career of The Band. She thought I was just being a good Bible study leader.

It was not too long after our first date (from my perspective) together that I asked her to marry me. We had to wait awhile to assure her parents that she would not be curtailed from getting her degree, but we were married one year before she received her Bachelor degree and I received my PhD."

"In June 1958, I had completed my junior year at Columbia College and had boarded a bus in NYC to go work helping to open a summer camp in the Poconos Mountains in Pennsylvania. On to the bus stepped Ellen, who would be a counselor at the camp. I knew Ellen only vaguely; she had briefly dated my roommate, Jay, and I thought her to be extremely attractive. She smiled at me as she neared my seat, but as I was engrossed in reading Albert Camus' The Stranger, I barely nodded and then said nothing for the rest of the long journey. And that is something which Ellen has never let me forget.

But soon upon arrival at the camp, we were working together, hitchhiking to go bowling, and making the most of our time for the rest of the summer. After which we "went steady" (as they used to say) for the next four years. Meantime, I graduated in 1959, went to Indiana University to earn a doctorate in history, and Ellen finished at Barnard College, worked in publishing in New York, and in 1962 we married, lived in Syracuse, NY for five years and in Newton, MA since 1968. And remain very happily married for the past 57 years, and are blessed to have two married children, four wonderful grandkids, and many longtime, loving friends.

Is there a moral to the story? Yes; next time you see a lovely Barnard woman, forget about existentialism and ask her to dinner."

"Let me say from the very start that this is a best-friend story about two Columbia Law School students. But it actually all started a few years before in the eternally snow-dusted hills of upstate New York.

I first noticed Jason B. when we were sophomores at Colgate University. He had sandy blonde hair and eyes of blue ice and charisma that seemed to draw everyone to him. He was the popular guy, the big man on campus. Women flocked to him, and men wanted to be him. And me. Well, I was just this nerdy insular guy who admired him from afar. I never thought he would want to be friends with me. But then I showed up at Columbia Law, a little bit older and a tad bit more confident. And guess whom I ran into in the hallway on my way to my Evidence class. It was him. Jason.

I don't remember what I said to him. Probably something stupid like 'Hey Jason, cool jacket.' He used to always wear his high school varsity football jacket. One of those old leather things with his high school name (Horace Greeley) and the school mascot (a ferocious bee) stitched on it. I always thought it was so cool how athletic and muscular Jason was. And is! He instantly recognized me and said 'Hey, you're Randy from Colgate right? I always wanted to talk to you. So exciting that we are at Columbia Law together.'

We got a drink that night at Arts & Crafts Beer Parlor on 116th and Amsterdam. Afterward, we walked around the campus together. We talked about life and love and everything in between, as we felt the campus' beautiful red bricks and copper roofs and bright lights speak to us, telling us: this is home, this is home.

We have been best friends ever since. Three years later and we still walk through the Columbia University in the City of New York campus just appreciating everything it has given us."

"Me and my now husband met during our Columbia Business School Executive MBA program. We are doing the program in conjunction with London Business School - so our very first meeting happened the first day of the program in London.

Who knew that the gregarious and cute guy I ran into over orientation drinks will become my husband and now father of my daughter just 2.5 years later! It has been a dream for both of us to attend CBS. We will forever treasure memories of our first dates in little cafes around the campus, late nights preparing for yet another Dean Hubbard's assignment, and graduating together full of aspirations and hope."

"My boyfriend Joe and I met in the fall of 2013 during my second year at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and his (I want to say) third year at Columbia GSAS. We actually met through the Bard Hall Players, CUMC's student-run theater troupe, during a production of the musical Urinetown. Joe studied opera in undergrad so he was one of the leads, and I studied French so I stood in the back and mouthed along to the group numbers.

We became fast friends and a year later during our production of The Music Man, he was the only person I would trust to affix my bald cap before each performance (it also meant spending an extra hour with him before the show). All told we did about five or six shows together, during which time he became one of my closest friends. I think we both had a secret crush on the other but were too scared or too already-dating-someone-else to act on it.

It wasn't until shortly before we graduated in 2016 that we were both single and decided to go for it. It was a bit of a risk since graduation came with lots of changes, including an hour's drive between us, but nearly three years later we're going strong and finally about to move in together. Joe is the sweetest, smartest, cutest person I know and it's hard to imagine what my life would be like if we hadn't taken that chance three years ago. And I never would have met him if it weren't for Columbia!"

"It was final exam period of my senior year at Columbia. In two weeks I would graduate and report for active duty with the U.S. Navy. Despite the pressure of final exams I was persuaded to go on a blind date with a student nurse from St. Luke's who I had never met. We've now been married for more than 62 years!" 

"I met my lifelong best friend on Day 7 at Columbia University in the City of New York!

The summer before matriculating, I applied on a whim to be a part of Columbia Urban Experience (CUE), Columbia's pre-orientation volunteer program that begins a week before commencement. Coming from a rural-suburban background, I knew moving to NYC would be a huge lifestyle change, and I was concerned about making new friends. But little did I know that I'd meet my best friend as soon as I moved into my CUE dorm at McBain!

Like me, Autumn was quiet, came from a small town, was interested in neuroscience, loved watching movies, and had a quirky, introverted personality. She was the first person I met and befriended at Columbia. Without her, I would never have gotten through Columbia without someone to laugh with, eat with, vent with, and study with.

Almost seven years later, we are still living in NYC, still reminiscing about life at Columbia, and still the best of friends."

"I've had a crush on my fiance Caroline since I first saw her perform Mozart's Flute Concerto with the Columbia University Orchestra. We really became friends during our senior year when we were both worrying about grad school auditions night after night in adjacent practice rooms. We used to take practice breaks and visit each other's room to chat. We were both waitlisted at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, and somehow, both of us were admitted.

In grad school, we became each other's best friend and biggest fan. We used to go on study dates and (platonic!) trips to the movies, and we would always watch each other perform. Caroline was always there for a hug and a cup of coffee after a rough day. I knew even then that I wanted to spend my life with her. We only got together officially in the spring of our final year in the program. We quickly began a long-distance relationship after I moved back to New York and she continued to complete her doctorate at Eastman.

We got engaged on May 5 last year, just before I moved to Jerusalem for the first year of my cantorial studies. After completing her doctorate, Caroline was immediately offered a job at Eastman as the Director of Graduate Advising. I will return to New York in just a few months, and we will be married on September 1 of this year. We hope to find a way to live together at that point. We are so grateful for our time together at Columbia. Without the trust that we built during our senior year, we would never have grown so close in the years after we graduated. Now, whenever I hear Mozart, I think of Caroline in her grey-blue dress playing with the CUO all those years ago."

"Our Columbia | SIPA program was relatively small, so I had seen Hanno around and knew who was long before I ever spoke to him. It wasn't until our second year when I happened to sit across from him at Bier International that I actually met him in person. Apparently, all it took was a two-liter boot of beer before we realized we had found our match, and the rest is history.

We dated throughout the rest of the year, and I convinced Hanno to extend his visa to stay another year in NYC. We both got jobs working for the City of New York and married at City Hall shortly before our two year anniversary. A week later, we took our love story overseas to Hanno's home country of Germany where we've been happily living ever since. A truly successful international SIPA love story."

"My husband, Tanner, and I met in the first semester of our Columbia University Programs in Physical Therapy class back in Fall 2013. We became the best of friends - we would go on runs together, study together, and we enjoyed exploring all the city has to offer. We were both in love with other people and were in long distance relationships, but we began to realize that not only were we in toxic relationships, but we began to fall in love with each other. We eventually ended those relationships and began dating in June 2014. We graduated in May 2016 with our Doctor of Physical Therapy degrees, drove across the country and moved to San Diego. We moved in together and began our careers together on this new adventure. In July 2017, we went on a trip to Olympic National Park in Washington and he proposed to me along the coast. We got married in June 2018 and bought our first home together in July 2018. I am working my dream job as a physical therapist at Rady Children's Hospital - San Diego and Tanner is successfully working as a Clinic Director for a private outpatient orthopedic physical therapy clinic.

We are so thankful for Columbia University, not only for the incredible education and opportunities it has opened to us, but for bringing us together."

"My pawrents met in Japan 4 years ago. My dad (Rex '17GSAPP) went to Columbia University in the City of New York for his Master's degree and at the same time, my papa (Ron '19BUS) decided to apply, too. They were both accepted to Columbia and got married in New York. The most beautiful thing is they decided to have me while studying at Columbia.

My name is Udon. I've grown up at Columbia University and come here almost every day. I love my campus and everypawty here is so friendly to me. If you see a white fluffy ball walking on campus, don’t hesitate to say hi! (although I am exchanging in Spain now, I will come back soon)." 

"We met the first day of Columbia | SIPA orientation for the MIA program, group 14. I knew from the moment I saw her that I wanted to date her.

I spent the first couple classes of Marco economics trying to convince her that I wasn’t proficient in calculus and asked if she would tutor me, even though I had taken multiple calculus classes in undergrad. After a couple of weeks, we went on our first date at Momoya in the UWS. We spent the rest of our time at SIPA growing/learning together and eventually getting married in Cartagena, Colombia with family, friends and especially SIPA friends! We will celebrate our one-year anniversary February 24th!"

"In November 2018, Daniel B. and Jaime C. became the first-ever same-sex couple to be married by the Federal Government of Mexico. The wedding happened at the General Consulate of Mexico in the city of New York, and it set an important precedent for LGBT rights in Latin America."

"We met in 1981 right before Dan graduated Columbia College and was moving to Boston to attend law school. I was finishing my Sophomore year at Barnard College. We had lived in the same co-Ed dorm that year (Plimpton) and had friends in common, but didn’t know each other all year. Dan decided to change his plans and stay in NYC for the summer so we could be together. He then came back on weekends my junior year and transferred to NYU School of Law for my senior year. I stayed in NY for law school and we got married the day after I graduated, June 9, 1986."