A Welcome Message from Laila Maher
Dean of Student and Alumni Affairs
Now more than ever it is crucial for artists to be supported as they pursue their craft. The life of an artist as well as that of a student involves much more than the classroom and the work itself, and this is where the Office of Student Affairs comes in. In addition to guiding new students through the process of transitioning to the School of the Arts, we plan the School-wide orientation, School of the Arts Convocation, and support student groups, events, and activities.
We also play a critical role in connecting School of the Arts students to the larger university and necessary services, and help students navigate many of the central offices including Health Services (which houses the Office of Disability Services, Insurance, Immunization, and Counseling and Psychological Services), Columbia Residential, Public Safety, University Life, the International Students and Scholars Office, and the Registrar's Office. Our office also helps to uphold many of the School and University-wide policies and we manage the School’s disciplinary procedures.
The Artists’ Resource Center, also part of our Office, maintains information on funding opportunities and career resources for students and alumni at the Columbia University School of the Arts, and provides consultations to students and alumni to help them look for professional development opportunities and more.
After graduation, the Office of Alumni Affairs provides more than 7000 alumni artists, creators, and leaders with opportunities to stay connected with the School of the Arts, the Columbia Alumni Association (CAA), and one another through alumni programming, benefits, a monthly newsletter, and collaborations with CAA Arts Access.
Our ultimate goal is to support our students and alums while they pursue their education as valued members of our dynamic community and as they navigate their time after graduation.
Student & Alumni News
This year’s Hampton’s International Film Festival featured two works from Columbia filmmakers: Dua Ji (short film) and Musk (documentary feature).
Visual Arts alum Heidi Howard '14 will join interactive sound art pioneer Liz Phillips for Live Processing Paint and Sound, a live performance at Roulette on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, at 8 pm.
Adjunct Assistant Professor Catherine Lacey '10 To Publish New Short Story Collection, 'My Stalkers'
My Stalkers, a new collection of short stories by Adjunct Assistant Professor Catherine Lacey '10, is set to hit shelves in January, 2027. My Stalkers (Macmillan, 2027) features a collection of nine original short stories that deal with women “becoming someone else or no one at all.”
On September 26, 2026, the Jessica Ann Peavy Gallery welcomed Visual Arts alum Aristotle Forrester '24 as a newly represented artist with a celebration to mark the opening of his first solo exhibition, Blood and Water. Works featured in the exhibition—on view until November 7, 2026—are poignant, bold, colorful, and richly layered in both medium and meaning.
In 1919, Tejano legislator José Tomás Canales had gathered evidence of the Texas Rangers’ violence against Mexican workers and small landowners. Yet when the moment came to confront two leaders, he failed to call them to the stand. In These Bones Can Speak, Writing alum Adin Dobkin '20 investigates the forces behind that decision, as well as the political system that constrained Canales’s pursuit of accountability.
Alum Liba Vaynberg’s new play The Blue Parts is set to make its world premiere as part of Roundabout Theatre’s Roundabout Underground program. The show will begin previews on February 18, 2027, in the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre.
Visual Arts students Cherina Cheng and Natalie Jacobs were recently awarded summer 2026 Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grants.
Sean Mullin '06 led production on the tribute documentary Band of Brothers: Legacy, working alongside Executive Producers Tom Hanks and Rudy Reyes and Director Chase Millsap.
The National Book Award Foundation announced its 25 finalists for the 77th National Book Award, spanning across Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. Among the list of works nominated as finalists for this prize are four books written by Columbia alumni: Paradiso 17 (Knopf, 2026) written by Hannah Lillith Assadi '13; Mother Tongue (Random House, 2026) by Sara Novic’s '14; Beginning Middle End (Knopf, 2026) by Valeria Luiselli (GSAS '15); and The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music …
In her latest solo exhibition From Here at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia MOCA), Visual Arts Alum Vivian Chiu '19 asks us to consider the vessel—an object designed both to contain and to transport.
In Masquerade, a new immersive Off-Broadway production directed by Theatre alum Diane Paulus '97, audiences get to step into the world of the Phantom of the Opera. The show is set in a haunted opera house and follows the young soprano Christine Daaé, being tutored by the titular Phantom. Audiences are split into six groups, each guided through multiple interactive rooms and floors by a different pair of actors playing the lead duo.
Jinwoo Chong '21, author of the award-winning novel Flux, will release his third novel, Club Nine Tails, with Random House in March 2027–a novel about family, reconciliation, and a cross-country adventure.