Columbia Love Stories 2021
"On the very first day of nursing school, an alumnus came to address the class, telling us that he had sat in the very seats we were now occupying, and not only did he go on to achieve great things in his career as a Columbia nurse, but he had also met his wife. I laughed to myself, looked around the room at my cohort and thought - ‘wow, what are the odds of finding a husband in nursing school - hope she played lotto’.
Needless to say, during the second half of nursing school at Columbia, Nick and I met through a mutual friend (Liz Miller '19NRS). I had come to lab unprepared and needed to borrow a pen. With relief, I recognized my good friend Liz’s study partner, hoping he had come to lab extra prepared (he was). Though he was unimpressed with his study buddy’s slacker friend (me), I was allowed to be part of their study group as the semester went on.
Fast forward to a later part of the year, I was struggling in one of our mutual courses. Out of sympathy, pity, or perhaps the beginning of trying to win me over, a review book showed up to my home with a gruff note about needing to be better prepared. We began dating later that year once my grades were more impressive, and a shared integration experience in Cooperstown, NY. Despite the lows 2020 has brought, we began our careers together as nurses and were engaged this past summer - we will be returning to Cooperstown for the wedding! For the record, I still haven’t won Powerball, but you could definitely say I won the lotto with Nick."
"I met my husband on the uptown A train. We didn’t speak on the subway, but I knew I had just laid eyes on my future husband. In fact, I told my friend who was riding the train with me that my husband was sitting across from us! About a half hour later I walked into my first class and there he was! Sitting across from me again. Turns out we were both going to our first class at CUIMC. We are both graduates of the Masters OT program and both believed in love at first sight. We have been married for 19 years. ❤️"
"I was attending my first year at Columbia Law School and had a Rotary International Graduate Fellowship to study international law in Geneva, Switzerland the next year. I took a year off of law school, went to Geneva, and met the love of my life a few months later. He was a journalist from Ethiopia who was escaping the military regime in order not to be imprisoned or killed.
When my year was finished, he came back to NY with me. It was tough studying at the law school, working part time and worrying about his well-being. After a year, he returned to Geneva but promised he would come back for my graduation. He did. It was then that I decided to move to Switzerland and to find a job at the United Nations.
I ending up helping to draft the first convention on Climate Change, working in Ethiopia for the UN for four years and starting a charity helping children there. I retired as Deputy Director for Africa. Through it all, my husband has been my biggest fan. 43 years later, I am still married to my best friend and the love of my life."
"I have to thank Columbia for my family. We met while I was studying my LLM and Gracia was finishing her last year at SIPA. Now we are married and have a daughter, Eloísa, to whom we will tell our life changing adventure in NY."
"Laura '80BC, '81TC and Brooks Klimley '79CC first met at lunch one day at St. Anthony Hall. Brooks arrived recounting the wonders of one Professor Peter Onuf’s memorable lectures (e.g. 'Fear and Loathing in the American Republic: Unstable Pluralism and the Quest for Legitimacy') and inquired as to what Laura 'did' to which she responded, 'I dance.' Brooks replied 'that’s interesting' and shortly thereafter promulgated the nickname 'Legs' for Laura, which is still in use today.
They spent their undergraduate years dancing everywhere from the rejuvenated Stork Club to the newly-opened Studio 54. Brooks also would note that he attended 'a ton of bad modern dance programs' and reciprocated by having Laura come see the fledging Columbia squash team (which he had a hand in forming) play in their inaugural matches.
After graduation, Brooks studied at Oxford under the auspices of Columbia’s Kellet Fellowship (for which he is eternally grateful) and Laura got her Master’s (Dance Education) at Teachers College. Upon his return from Oxford, Brooks invited Laura to go (ice) dancing at Rockefeller Center whereupon he slid across the rink on one knee and proposed under the Christmas tree. Laura accepted and this July will mark their 40th wedding anniversary. They still dance whenever and to whatever music is playing and continue on their longstanding tradition of hosting tailgate parties at Columbia football games, which co-opting Deantini-speak, 'are the greatest parties…at the greatest College…in the greatest University…in the greatest City in the world!'
All that said, Legs has decried that under no circumstances shall their upcoming anniversary be celebrated tailgating at the Baker Complex. Go Lions!"
"If you're a firm believer that first impressions hold true then this love story probably isn't for you. When I met Will I thought he was pretty insufferable...a bonified know it all, and on top of that he was Australian! But after being put together, rather, forced together for two years in our EMBA program, I learned that first impressions can be quite misleading. Disdain turned to curiosity, then a genuine friendship, and eventually love. After a year together, I'm glad to say the Australian accent has grown on me...and I guess he has too!"
"Married in 1967. We just celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary in Marrakech Royal Mansour with my CBS 71 most desirable associate. Our wish: to celebrate the next one in NY."
"It was the end of the first day of J-School, September 1970. Four new grad students, strangers, met on the steps and decided to go to dinner. I was one of those students. Pat was another. She was an experienced local newspaper reporter from Pennsylvania. I was just out of college but had worked in local radio in Massachusetts. We hit it off and eventually married. 50 years later we’re still together, 12 years in Europe, eight more in Africa, the rest in the DC area and three children. We stayed in journalism until we retired. Pat worked for AP and the German Press Agency DPA. I worked for Radio Free Europe and Voice of America, first as a foreign correspondent and later as a news director. It's been a rich life."
"Ruth and I were members of Robert Lekachman's class in Economic History at Barnard in 1963-64. At the end of one of the classes, a mutual friend also from the College introduced us. I was immediately taken with Ruth and invented an excuse to walk down Broadway to get a new watchband. During that stroll down Broadway, something clicked: it wasn't love at first sight, but it was humor and laughter at first sight.
Dates followed, a relationship developed, and 54 years later, that sense of fun and laughter has continued. Yet like so many relationships, it was not without difficulties. I went off to Yale Graduate School while Ruth was completing her final year at Barnard; despite having been together for almost a year and a half, there was a six-month breakup. But it did get patched up and we married in June, 1966. It's undoubtedly helped that we have lived in London for most of our married life, have travelled extensively, raised a lovely family, and had an incredible journey together."
"Kimberly and I first met at Columbia in the autumn of 2010. It was her first year at the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and my second. While our courtship often spanned the city, from Brooklyn to Harlem and beyond, it was mostly confined to the halls of the Soviet-esque SIPA building perched above the Law School at 118th. We were both in the Conflict Resolution Program due to her time in Colombia and my experiences in Uganda along the Congolese boarder: it was a SIPA dream match. We courted over econ homework, coffee, and those weird Mac computers that only ran Windows at SIPA for some reason.
After my graduation, I followed her to Sri Lanka for her second-year internship, and we’ve never stopped traveling since. From Kenya to Mozambique, from Kinshasa to Baghdad, and from the Upper West Side to Queens, we’ve seen a few things.
We got legally married at NYC City Hall in the summer of 2019 and had our formal ceremony in the South of France two months later. We currently reside in Geneva, where she works for the World Economic Forum and I manage a startup that helps to mitigate the effects of climate change. These days, we’re both quietly awaiting a return to normalcy. A return to travel. And, of course, a return to New York City."
"Our Columbia Love Story began when we were recent graduates. We worked for the same company and met for the first time at Faculty House to recruit current students. Despite having several mutual friends and taking a class together (Intro to International Relations), we hadn't yet met...which was probably for the best. We became close friends and started dating right after fellow Columbia alum Barack Obama '83CC was elected.
Skip ahead 12 years. We're married and live about a mile from campus with our 18 month old daughter. During COVID, the Columbia campus has been a destination to walk to and a respite. It's been incredible to watch our daughter grow on campus. From being carried in her Columbia and Barnard onesies to walking up Low Steps on her own."
"We met during orientation week at the J-School in 2012 and soon became an inseparable group of five best friends. Through late-night video editing, crappy coffee at Brad's (RIP), master project meltdowns and even Superstorm Sandy, these women were a part of every experience and remain a huge part of my life. Though we're now spread out across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, there is a very active (and aptly named) group chat that still allows us to lean on one another through all our new experiences -- job changes, marriages, motherhood and still the occasional reporting meltdown."
"Derek and I met at a ZBT mixer in February during my senior year at Barnard. He was at CC. We were smitten from the start and spent our summer after graduation living in the frat house and working in the city before moving back to our respective states and returning for grad school a year later. Despite resistance from my traditional Italian parents, we moved in together to share the financial responsibilities of living off campus while pursuing our masters in social work and teaching. After graduating once again in 1997, we married and moved to Jersey.
While we never forgot our time on campus, the nostalgia really set in the first time we walked onto campus with our son, Jackson, moving in for his freshman year! The excitement of knowing his entire life was about to change filled us with hope for his future. We are so happy to be part of this second Columbia adventure!"
"Ankit and I met during World Tour, actually at a pre-Yacht Week party where I was standing in the DJ booth attempting to play music and Ankit came up to join me.
We bonded in our first semester over a shared love of wanting to make the most of our CBS experience. Both of us joined our cluster leadership (A19 and B19) and performed with our friends in the annual Diwali dance. Our friendship grew in those first few months and became more as we got to know each other better. We started dating our second semester and had the luck of being able to take classes and travel to 12 countries together.
Our CBS experience was amazing and we had the time of our lives over the 2 years. We love CBS so much that Ankit proposed in front of the curl this past year. It's been full circle for us with CBS as we embark on the rest of our lives together. We are so thankful for CBS for bringing us together and giving us so many amazing memories. Now we know #whyCBS!"
"From Nonhuman Primates to Baby New Year! Through enrolling in Anthropology: Nonhuman Primates my sophomore year, I not only furthered my knowledge of bonobo lifespans and macaque mating habits, but also laid eyes on my future wife for the first time.
Nonhuman Primates was likely the largest lecture I ever attended at Columbia, the anthropology equivalent of 'Physics for Poets' filled with humanities majors desperate for non-threatening options to fulfill our Core science requirements. I mainly remember the class for who else was in the lecture: the musicians Lauryn Hill (who hit it big with the Fugees a few years later) and Sean Lennon (son of John and Yoko, who was always surrounded by a minimum of four females of the human primate variety at any given time), and the future love of my life.
I first locked eyes with her as she rushed late into a TA review session before the final exam—a tinge of sadness about her, like the heroine of a Hemingway or Graham Greene novel. When I officially met Anne a year later through mutual friends after her semester abroad in Paris, I didn’t even recall our first chance encounter. After my own summer abroad in Korea, I returned to Columbia and worked up the courage to ask her to Senior Ball (after some good-natured ribbing from my friends) before graduation. As we gamely sashayed to the gentle rhythms of the Macarena during Columbia’s equivalent of senior prom, I knew that I wanted to spend my life with her.
Years later, in between attending grad school in Chicago together and embarking on a peripatetic expat life throughout Asia and the Middle East, we returned to New York, got married, and had the first baby of 2004 at the Columbia-affiliated NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Read all about our happy day at: https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct.../mar04/profiles2.html.
Baby New Year just turned 17, and we hope that she will consider carrying on our proud Columbia tradition one day."
"Beijing '06 study abroad with Columbia. Now we've got two cubs."
"It was September 1984. My first day of class in the Masters of Social work Program at Columbia. I sat next to a pretty woman (Shari) and we got to talking. Later on I recognized that she had the same unique last name as a girl that I went to junior high school with. She confirmed that this was her cousin! We became friends, attracted to each other, but were otherwise involved. At the end of our final class in graduate school 2nd year (psychopathology of Adulthood) we decided to go out together on a date. We went to Carumbas (you might remember the awesome frozen margaritas). After a very nice time together, we ran into a host of fellow students from the school. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.
We have been married for 32 years, have two children, and are both social workers in public service. It was the best part of my school experience, to fall in love with the woman who is my best friend."
"We met as juniors. We had both volunteered to work on the freshman orientation committee and were paired to interview other volunteers. This was sort of a set up as the organizers thought we would be a good match. We were friends throughout that semester but when we returned our senior fall, we started dating. After a few years of separation for grad school, we got married in 1988. It was such a long time since we had met that one of our Columbia friends noted that he was not missing our wedding since we had waited so long! This picture below is in front of Ferris Booth for an anniversary trip a few years ago."
"A Case of Mistaken Identity Most of this Columbia 'love story' takes place at the International House on W. 122nd St., that extraordinary student housing near campus for overseas graduate students and selected Americans whose fields of study align with the goals of the house. During my first year in residence, an American graduate student and I were selected as 'International Affairs Fellows' tasked with organizing a lecture series on global issues. We participated in a summer training retreat along with other fellows before the start of the academic year.
One afternoon early in the year I was waiting for the elevator near the Claremont Avenue entrance and thought I spied my program partner. The profile view of his ash blonde hair and wire-rimmed glasses was familiar and I cheerfully said, hi there! But when he turned around, I realized it was someone else! Embarrassed, I mumbled excuse me and scurried away. Later I told my fellowship partner that he had a 'twin' in the house.
Some months later while serving on a fellowship committee as student representative to select next year’s fellows, I had to interview the 'twin' who was among the applicants. He suggested that a 20-minute interview wasn’t enough to really get to know an applicant. We should spend more time together in an informal setting instead, like visiting a museum. He had done his homework and knew I was an art history major. So off we went on the M4 bus to the Met. Summoning the questions I had prepared, I began to casually interview him on the bus ride. He brushed away my questions and chatted about other things instead. At the museum, he asked countless questions about the exhibits and I found myself reluctantly transformed from interviewer to inadvertent museum docent. The bus ride back to I House wasn’t any better. I was so upset at his subterfuge that when the fellowship committee met, I voted nay. But the committee loved him and out-voted me, the lone dissenter.
A couple of years later, we married at St. Paul’s Chapel on campus followed by a buffet reception at I House. In addition to close family members, our wedding guests were mostly fellow graduate students, making it a fun, youthful gathering. It is will be our 37th anniversary on July 14, 2021."
"I met my love of 55 years at a local bar near campus. I was attracted to Pat because of her awesome mind. If you want a boring life, marry a dolt!"
"It was a cool spring day in April 2015 and Michael, a first-year at the Architecture School pursuing his master's in Urban Planning, was leading a tour for accepted students to the next year's program. Sahra was a prospective student for the Urban Planning program and liked how his tour was centered around the best coffee shops, pastry shops, and bagel shops on and off-campus. Sahra ended up joining next year's class but a full academic year went by before they reconnected.
It was a late-night studying session in the Urban Planning lounge in the basement of Fayerweather when they started talking, which led to laughing, which led to dinner, which led to dating in New York for a year, which led to a cross-country road trip to Los Angeles, which led to dating in LA for 3 years, which led to pursuing their passions and careers, building a life together, and which eventually, during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020, led to an engagement! We will be getting married this June and are so excited to start our lives together and so thankful to Columbia for bringing us together. Photo credit to Jordan Jankun Photography."
"I met the Hinojosa sisters during my freshman year at GS - and we all immediately clicked as if we had known each other for years and years. Through thick and thin, through the tough times and celebrations of love and laughter, we’re there for each other. We’re family now, and I’m the luckiest guy in the world for finding my sisters!"
"It was January of 1992, the second semester of our freshman year, when John Opubor sauntered into Logic and Rhetoric, late to the first day of class. I was a shy Indian-American girl who had never had a boyfriend, and he was a confident Nigerian-American student-athlete. Although we appeared to have little in common, we became friendly. We made each other laugh.
When we were told to write book reviews, John dug up a children's book our grouchy teacher had written on Sojourner Truth and panned it. She photocopied his essay and made the class discuss it, as she and John stared each other down. We all writhed around in discomfort, except, wait... was I charmed? God help me, I was.
John and I married, had three kids, and moved to Nigeria about a decade ago. We still like to do the things we began doing during our time at Columbia. We talk nonstop and pick ideas apart. We laugh. We take long walks, only now instead of an Upper West Side backdrop, we are in Lagos. We have adventures. We have shared the joys and sorrows of life together, each and every day, for 29 years."
"This could very well be the longest extant love story in the history of Columbia University: My mother, Naomi Lipman (née Loeb), Barnard 1951, and my father, Marvin M. Lipman, CC 1949 and VP&S 1954, met on campus in 1948 in the Columbia Players in the fall of 1948 (they've known each other for almost 73 years!), and, having raised four children, are alive and well and living in Scarsdale, New York."
"Working at community impact was an important part of all of my time at Columbia. My last semester in particular, I met another work study passionate about helping others. We got to talking on a group outing and one trip to Pinkberry and nine years later, we are married and parents to a four month old baby girl. Add in a couple cross country moves and some graduate degrees, we still remember those afternoons in Earl Hall fondly and that desire to make a difference and help others is still one of our favorite things about each other."
"I first saw my now husband during the fall semester of sophomore year while I was walking to class. He did not notice me. But what I didn’t know at the time was that he had already noticed me during our first year when we both lived in Carman.
It wasn’t until months later when we met in a mutual friend’s suite did I learn his name. A few weeks after that meeting I invited him-- along with a few other friends-- for a home cooked meal in my Owl House suite… and that was it. We went for our first date three days later, and then proceeded to spend every day studying, walking, and spending time together.
We got engaged during the fall semester of our senior year in my hometown. Despite spending essentially all of our free time together (and class time since we took Egypt and Econ together), Max managed to surprise me by planning for the engagement while he was working in the lab (sorry independent study!). Although our original wedding plans were derailed by the pandemic, we were able to have a wonderful, COVID-safe micro-wedding this past summer. And our two witnesses were friends from Columbia."
"In the summer of 2016, we met each other during the student orientation in the GSAPP building. We were in the same class MSRED'17 and soon we became friends. Then we started to hang out together, study together, go to events together, and drink/eat together. Looking back now, the school year has become our most precious memories of NYC.
In October 2019, he proposed at the summit of Bear Mountain. Of course, I said YES. Now we are changing diapers for our 3-month baby boy together. Life is an ongoing process of adventures as real love stories never have endings."
"It was a beautiful summer day in NYC. Buzzing crowds sandwiched themselves into the subway. The experience of having people take over your personal space like amoebas might be uncomfortable at best and anxiety-inducing at worst, but in the midst of that urban cacophony, I met my future husband, or so he says. According to him, he spotted me at the Columbia station, as I made my way to our US Legal Methods class. According to me, we met while having lunch that same first day of class, with another fellow Venezuelan classmate.
Though our stories might differ in some details, what remains constant is that we were smitten during that lunch date. We both concur that such love at first sight blossomed into a marriage a year later and a beautiful family of three girls and two dogs. Almost 25 years later, and a LLM and MIA later, we will sandwich ourselves into the subway to Columbia station to help our youngest daughter Magdalena move into the very university where our love began."
"Bailey and I met before freshman year started, when we stayed in the same room during a visit sponsored by the women's soccer team. Back then, we were two quiet seniors in high school who happened to play the same position and join the Columbia women's soccer team at the same time. We didn't speak to each other. Our freshman year we became more friendly but still didn't get particularly close.
We each were trying to find our way at Columbia, and still hadn't really found each other. But sophomore year we became roommates and everything changed. Initially, our friendly but semi-distant relationship remained the same. Though as the weeks went on and the days grew longer, we found ourselves spending more and more time in our room together and discovering more and more similarities between each other. We both deeply cared about the environment, had big dreams for our future careers, and were obsessed with JJ's curly fries. We would talk all night about soccer, the core, pop culture, and more, and quickly became attached at the hip. We would easily spend the whole day together, going from Ferris to practice to class side by side. While we stopped living in the same room, we continued to live together until we graduated, and often found ourselves stifling laughter during the wee hours of the morning in a shared kitchen.
In March, when the pandemic caused us to move out early, we reluctantly bought our graduation gowns and took pictures together on the steps. We didn't have a big celebration, but we had each other, and to leave Columbia with a once-in-a-lifetime best friend was more than enough."
"In August of 2018, I moved to NYC to begin my graduate degree at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health. When I moved into student housing, I did not know a single person in the city and was excited to meet new friends. Before the pandemic, Mailman would host a cruise dinner for first year graduate students of all degree plans. I attended the cruise with the friends that I made that first week of school and had a wonderful time. While socializing on the rooftop, I was introduced to a funny, smart and charming fellow student from Alabama. The student, Stephen, would quickly become my best friend, study partner and the person who I have talked to every day since that first day we met. Stephen and I now work and live together in NYC! Although this last year has been turbulent, I am happy we were able to spend it together."
"Jenna and I met at Dodge in our sophomore years. We both were working at the gym, and bonded over folding towels and giving out locker keys. After a year of bringing her snacks from the vending machines and flirting, I finally asked her out, and COVID made us move in together later in the semester. We now live together a few blocks from campus, we're in class together, and love our Columbia community. Yesterday, I asked her to marry me on College Walk, a few steps from where we first met."
"We missed each other by 10 years! David graduated from the school of Engineering in ’97, Marilia graduated from GSAS in ’11. David started his career in NY and years later moved to Miami. Marilia, on the other hand, moved to Spain, where David is from. In 2014, fate finally took Marilia to Miami where they met three years later, of all places, at a South Beach nightclub!
Their first trip together was a visit to their beloved alma mater. They strolled around campus, shared a delicious lunch at their favorite Korean restaurant around the corner, and joked about the many places they coincided, only a decade apart. They look forward to visiting again, this time with their baby daughter Lucía, who they hope will have the opportunity to attend Columbia a few decades from now."
"At Columbia, I gained more than a degree...I met three lifelong friends. Jackie, Maggie, and Kim have attended my wedding, shared parenting experiences, helped me stay connected to NYC, and have continued to be both excellent friends (including spouses!) and advisors. I am so grateful to have them in my life!"
" I met my wife Deirdre Dempsey at a 7 Hartley floor party fall '74, 3-4 weeks into her first year Barnard. I was Columbia junior just back from sophomore year dropout. We had 5 years of 'once in a while.' Then lost touch by 1979. Married other people. Both had kids in April 1990. 16 years later, November 20, 1995, we ran into each other on the subway. (We celebrate that as our anniversary). That never happens. Both separated/ divorcing. Been together ever since; more than 25 years."
"My husband and I first met back in 2016 at one of the student group gatherings in Columbia. A few months later, we got reconnected on LinkedIn, and as one thing led to another, soon we started dating. Because back then he was still a grad student and I was a recent grad, we used to spend so much time together near the campus. When he proposed to me in February 2017, we couldn’t think of a better place to tie the knot than the St. Paul’s Chapel in campus. The Chaplain and all the staff members were so supportive along the way, and we finally said YES at the Chapel with our friends and families, who flew all the way to New York from across the US and around the world, on October 7, 2017."
"Claudio was a freshmen engineer and Patricia a sophomore psychologist when they were introduced by a mutual friend, Helen Harris '04CC (thank you!). He worked hard to get her attention amidst her busy schedule on campus. They developed together the Columbia University Brazilian Society, creating ample chances for social interaction. After finally falling for his looks in a rowing uni and budding mutual admiration, particularly during the emotive and introspective days after 9/11, the relationship evolved. Marriage came after stints working in New York, Hong Kong and Zurich. Since 2010 they settled in London and have three marvelous children, Lucas (7), Julia (5) and Emma (2)."
"John and I were put in the same cluster at CBS and over the course of our first year, we became close friends. We found common ground in wanting to be creative and make others laugh, so while in school, the two of us performed stand up comedy together, made Follies videos, and represented Columbia in the MBA Battle Royale last May.
When COVID hit, John let me crash at his apartment near campus for two months until we graduated, just so that I wouldn’t risk getting my grandparents sick (who I was otherwise living with at the time). Though neither of us could be with family, we got to celebrate graduating with each other. Even though we now live on opposite coasts, I’m grateful that I found a lifelong, incredibly big hearted (and funny) best friend!"
"Gaurav and I first met in 2018 during our induction for the Executive Master of Science in Technology Management. We had a great chemistry from the first week of classes. At the time, we never thought the political discussions during the breaks in-between classes would lead us to finding our soulmate in each other.
We got to know one another better during the course of the program and working in group projects. We empathized with each other being a part of the same program and working our full time jobs alongside. We grew professionally and personally during our time at Columbia. We were inseparable by the time we graduated just before the pandemic in 2020. We moved to the suburbs in New Jersey buying a new house in the summer of 2020. The only logical next step was to get married.
Gaurav made a romantic plan and proposed on the steps in front of Alma Mater. We got married in our backyard just before Thanksgiving. We are eagerly awaiting to have proper celebrations here and in India and Bulgaria."
"Kevin and I met our first week at Columbia Law School in 1985. I was Barnard '85 and he was CC '84, but thankfully Kevin took a year off before law school or we might never have crossed paths. Kevin and I married after graduation. Flash forward about three decades and our son Jeremy Liss '13CC met his love, Neeti Deoras '13CC, in their freshman year of college. Our other children, Daniel '16CC and Aaron '22CC, have given us additional opportunities to spend time visiting Morningside Heights."
"My fiance and I met when we were placed in the same cluster in the 2019 EMBA Friday/Saturday program. I remember we would always find each other at happy hours and EMBA events, but I was seeing someone at the time, so we stayed friends.
Then, in the spring of our first year, we went on the study abroad trip to Cape Town and were placed on the same learning team, helping entrepreneurs in South Africa vet their business ideas. We spent a ton of time together in South Africa and our relationship continued to grow.
Then, when we got back, Hunter tore his meniscus in a CrossFit class. Suddenly I found myself wondering 'where’s Hunter?', 'how badly injured is he??', 'is he not going to make it to happy hour??' A few quick-thinking classmates realized I had a bit of a crush and quickly texted him to get on his crutches and come hang out. It was that night, crutches and all, that Hunter asked 'when was the last time you went on a first date?'...and the rest is history. We’re getting married in New York in May!"
"Flora and I were in the same class but didn't meet until the last term of our 2nd year in B-School. I had long admired her from afar, but one day found myself ahead of her in line at the cafe in Uris Hall and heard her say she didn't have change for a cup of coffee. Throwing my proverbial cloak over the puddle, I offered to pay for it. Next thing I knew she tripped me one night in the library, ostensibly by accident. That same evening I ran through a blinding snowstorm to get to an ATM so I could take her to dinner. Desperate for a way to keep talking to her, I suggested we become pen pals by slipping notes into each other's mail folders in the Uris hallway. We were both English majors and I somehow thought I had a better shot by channeling my inner Cyrano. Our epistolary romance accelerated rapidly as the term drew to a close. It got so bad friends were telling me to close my mouth while I was staring at her in classes. At the B-School Follies that year I was presented with the 'I got lucky this semester' award. Truer words were ne'er spoken. We got married at St. Paul's Chapel on June 1, 1985, and I've been lucky in love ever since."
"My husband, Rich, was getting his PhD in Physical Chemistry at Columbia, main campus, and I was getting my Master's degree in Occupational Therapy uptown at Physicians and Surgeons. I was living in the medical students' dorm and a friend, an MD/PhD student who had graduated from Columbia, knew Rich as a TA in his chemistry course.
One day, he told me he had the 'perfect guy for me' and fixed us up. We finally met in January, 1973, got engaged in May and married on December 23, 1973. It was pretty much 'love at first sight'!
We celebrated our 47th anniversary this past December. We finally got the chance to 'walk' together at our 35th anniversary graduation in May, 2008, having both graduated in 1973. After a post-doc at Columbia, Rich got a job in Boston where we have been since 1976. We have two wonderful sons, one an architect in Boston and the other an attorney in Washington DC, who is getting married this coming October."
"I graduated from Columbia's Business School in 1961 and returned to the PhD program in 1964. I was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Business School when I first met Berit Spant '66. In the '60s there were very few women at CBS. We started dating at that time. I left the Business School in 1966 to join McKinsey & Co. and Berit was to become one of the first women consultants at the firm. McKinsey had a non-fraternization policy and when we decided to get married in 1968, I left to start a career lasting almost 50 years on Wall Street."
"I met Angus in November 2019 when doing the Advanced Management Program, as part of Columbia's Executive Education curriculum. We were doing a class on 'The Power of Aligned Teams' where we met Ocean Rowing champions and had to do a rowing day on the Hudson River. I was not looking forward to it at all until we sat down for the class and Angus stepped up to speak as a guest speaker with Jason Caldwell who was teaching it. We chatted after the class about sponsorship for their next ocean row, and realised we lived quite close to each other in the UK. A month later we met up in London and have been inseparable ever since! I didn't learn much rowing that day, but it was a day that changed my life!"
"11 years ago, Luke and I were strangers from California who had both moved to New York with the desire to learn about climate science and policy. We first met at our SIPA MPA ESP program in the summer of 2010, but almost saw each other at an informational meeting at UC Berkeley in 2009, had I not arrived too late and missed the meeting. Because it was a one year program, we were constantly in intense group workshops and classes (and water gun fights, dinners, Daily Show tapings, outings and other adventures thanks to our amazing class government) with the same wonderful group of about 60 people. After missing In-N-Out for three months, I invited everyone in the class Facebook group for burgers at Toast Uptown, only to have Luke as the sole classmate to show up, and it turning into our first date. After ten years together, we finally got married and are back in California still working on climate issues and enjoying burgers!"
"Teri James and I met on College Walk, smack dab in front of Alma Mater. I was on my way to get a bagel, she was on her way to the football game. Later that week, she asked me if I’d like to have a drink at The West End. I advised that I had to study. She observed that the library closed at 10. Thankfully, she forgave my lug-headedness and asked again. We now share 2 sons and 40 years of memories."
"Dana and I met in Club Sports at Columbia in 2018. I was president of the Cycling Team and she was the Ski Team captain. Dana told me that if I wanted to see her during the winter I needed to join the ski team. So, having never skied before, I did just that. 3 day trips later, I was stretchered down Windham Mountain having torn my ACL, as Dana realised she was dating Columbia’s worst skier. Despite that, we stayed together and graduated together, but decided we’d stick to practicing our own sports."
"Daria and I met while we were both enrolled at GS in the Spring of 2016. We had a sociology class together and met during a group project. After dating for only a few months we got married at New York City Hall on September 20, 2016. After graduating from GS, Daria worked for Columbia before being accepted to GSAS as a PhD candidate in Sociology. We now have a son, Liam, who was born on August 18, 2018. We are still in the Morningside Heights neighborhood while Daria pursues her PhD. I now work for IBM and enjoy staying active in the Columbia community."
"Rich and I both graduated from CUSSW in 1989, but never met or knew each other, which is strange given the small number of males in our predominantly female student body. Fast forward 24 years that included endings of a long-term relationship and a marriage and raising of children, and we meet on a dating app based on living a mile from each other. At our first coffee date, we have the usual discussion: What do you do? I’m a Social Worker, I’m a Social Worker. Where did you go to school? Columbia. Me too! When did you graduate? 1989. Me, too! Five years to the day of that first date, Rich and I were married and we both believe that Columbia brought us together."
"My husband and I met in Fall 2018 at Columbia University. We were new graduate students on that year. We were always studying together in Butler and sharing stories with each other. On the day of graduation, he proposed to me. Thanks, Columbia! I met the one!"
"My name is Yue and this is a story about how I met my partner Kang-Li. We fell in love several years after meeting at Columbia. We were both biostatistics MS students in the fall of 2016. After the first week of classes we quickly became good friends and often studied together in Hammer Library. Besides pondering statistics problems, we shared many funny jokes, as well as engaging conversations about life, late into the night. But after the first year, Kang-Li left the program while I continued and eventually graduated in the spring of 2018. We drifted out of touch until March 2020, when COVID-19 led to extended time at home and prompted us to reconnect online and by phone. Hilariously, Kang-Li wanted to talk with me about a girl he met, which I was glad to indulge him. But after some catching up, it was apparent that what we had some real chemistry. We started talking frequently for hours on the phone, bringing back some pleasant memories from our student days. Eventually he made a visit to see me and we both agreed we would make a good couple."
"I was the Best Man at her wedding. We were 19. She married my best friend. It was 1968 and we were all at Columbia. And then we weren’t. But my phone rang 47 years later and said that my best friend had died. She was the messenger though they long ago parted ways. Two people took a blindfolded bounce around the universe starting in opposite directions and eventually landed on the same square. I’ll save you the math. We are over 70 now and joined in the most exhilarating love of our lives."
"It was Wednesday, September 22, 1965--an unseasonably hot day in New York City with temperatures in the 90s. On Morningside Heights, students at Columbia University were busy getting ready for the start of a new semester. I had come up from my apartment on West 24th Street to purchase some books and then decided to start preparing for Monday’s class by reading an assignment (No iPads or laptops; we were using books) so I decided to seat myself in one of the reading areas in the Law School Library.
Carol Kelly, who graduated in June from Notre Dame College of Staten Island, had come from her home in Brooklyn to meet with two of her professors, one in the morning and one in the middle of the afternoon. She decided to stay on campus between meetings and do some reading. It was too hot to sit outside and she knew that the business and law schools were air conditioned, so she opted to go to the Law School Library. On her way to the Law School, she came upon a copy of the Christian Science Monitor and brought it along with her. A newspaper, any newspaper, was a rare commodity at the time because there was a newspaper strike at all newspapers in the City.
Upon settling myself in one of the reading areas in the Law Library, I noticed that a classmate, Sheldon Steinbach, was reading a copy of the Christian Science Monitor. I also noticed that there was an attractive young lady sitting next to Sheldon. I inquired of him if I could read his paper when he was done with it but he said it was not his, but the girl next to him. She readily consented to my reading the paper after Sheldon and went back to reading her book. When Sheldon gave me the paper, I spent more time planning how I would approach the young lady than I did reading the newspaper. Finally, I returned the paper to her and asked if she would join me for a cup of coffee in the 'break room' on the first floor.
Our first 'date' was the following Monday evening when I met her at the Business School after her evening class there and accompanied her home to the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. She lived on 74th Street not far from the Verrazano Bridge. With the exception of the following Monday, I went with my two roommates to see Pope Paul VI who was at St Patrick’s Cathedral. It was a chilly night and we stood in a bar across the street–the street and the bar were filled with people–but we did see the Pope leave the rear of the Church and go to the Rectory. I accompanied her home from the Monday evening class for the rest of the semester.
We were engaged on March 21, 1966, and were married at Our Lady of Angels Church on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn on August 20, 1966. I graduated from the Law School on June 1, 1966, and she obtained her M.A. in History in December, 1966. Our first child was born on May 24, 1967 (she was a couple of weeks early) and we have been blessed with five children and sixteen grandchildren. On August 20, 2016, we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary."
"In the summer between my two years, I held a position as case aide at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. When a patient told me he wanted to end his life, I told the surgical resident that I had learned that one should take this seriously and get a psych consult. He wrote the order and in waltzed a very handsome psych resident. He became my first husband! Though our marriage did not last, it produced two wonderful children, including Columbia connections for one as well as for one grandchild."