By Claire Davenport

A year ago, I arrived for orientation at Columbia on a sweltering summer morning. I was a new student in the master’s in journalism program, and I’d never been to campus before. I left myself an extra 20 minutes before the start of orientation to find the building after getting off the 1 train. I wandered easily through the large iron campus gates on Broadway and West 116th Street, turned right, and in no time found my new school.

Today, drifting onto campus like that is impossible. Now, lines queue outside that 116th Street entrance, as students and faculty wait to enter a security zone, patrolled by uniformed guards, where they must scan a valid Columbia i.d. to enter campus.

Non-Columbia visitors must arrange in advance for permission to enter; a campus that used to be open to the public is now ringed with security in the aftermath of last spring’s protests galvanized by Israel’s military operation in Gaza.

The Columbia protests, which sparked similar movements on campuses nationwide, were a huge local, national – and arguably international – story. Pro-Palestinian protestors pressed their demands that Columbia divest itself of any financial ties with Israel by putting up tent encampments on campus lawns and later occupying a university building. When security and police limited access to outside media, news outlets turned to students from the journalism school, myself included, to report the story that ended with a massive police raid on April 30.

Now, as students sit and play frisbee on Butler Lawn, in front of the main Columbia library, it’s almost easy to forget that a little under four months ago that same spot was covered in tents and reverberating with protest chants.

At West 115th Street, another entrance I used to use, silver balloons welcome the new students arriving for the fall semester. But the gates there are firmly locked, and the sidewalks inside of campus are now littered with fences and barricades that form dizzying lines down main thoroughfares.

All these measures are stark reminders that, as the death and destruction in Gaza continue, the university remains wary of a new academic year of protest. On Tuesday, the official start of the fall semester, dozens of pro-Palestinian protestors gathered outside campus near one of the new security checkpoints, according to the Associated Press, while, in an apparent statement of protest on campus, someone dumped red paint on Columbia’s iconic Alma Mater statue.

The heightened security makes it difficult for this year’s journalism cohort to forget last spring.

“Things always feel new at the beginning of the school year, but this year there is extra security – fences and barricades up,” said Anna Oakes, a part-time master’s student at Columbia’s School of Journalism.

Like many of us at the j-school, Oakes, a classmate and friend, ended up reporting on the protests while juggling classes and final assignments at the end of the year; Oakes wrote for Hell Gate and Rolling Stone, while I covered the story for outlets including the BBC and West Side Rag.

Oakes says her academic year was defined by that time, and it feels strange to be back on campus with the protests being discussed in the past tense. “The tent community organized on campus feels distant, but the militarization still feels very present,” she said.

Despite the security, the university still appears to be grappling with new rules about protests. Several journalism school students told me that Columbia’s senior vice president for student affairs, Joseph Greenwell, seemed flustered by some of the questions addressed to him at an orientation session.

A slide in Greenwell’s presentation noted that “calling for genocide” is a prohibited behavior under new university policies. But when asked how Columbia defines “calls for genocide,” students told me his response was vague and ended with the observation that the policy needed further clarification.

Shortly before the start of the school year, Columbia President Nemat Shafik resigned. Campus access was adjusted to its current status, orange, meaning only Columbia affiliates with a valid ID or approved guests can enter. And according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal, before Shafik stepped down, she proposed giving the school’s security force the authority to arrest and physically handle students. Currently, campus officers are not allowed to do either except under extreme circumstances such as for self-defense.

It’s unclear whether such policies will be put in place by Shafik’s replacement, Katrina Armstrong, who was appointed interim president. After taking office, Armstrong sent a message to the Columbia community that made no mention of giving security officers new authority but stated: “Effectively managing protests and demonstrations allows us to advance our educational and research missions while enabling free speech and debate.”

All of this adds to a sense among new students that the protests might start up again and that they need to be prepared to cover them.

“It feels like this massive thing happened and the administration is trying to have a normal year,” said Eric Santomauro-Stenzel, a new master’s student at the journalism school. Santomauro-Stenzel previously covered similar protests at Hamilton College, his alma mater, for the Hamilton Monitor, and said he would cover protests at Columbia if they occur again. “Following the protests all year was also a bit of an incentive for me to come [to Columbia] – it made me realize this is a good place to tell stories accurately and with global impact,” Santomauro-Stenzel said.

A Palestinian student in the new j-school cohort, who asked to remain anonymous for safety and privacy reasons, also said the coverage by journalism school students was one of the reasons she still decided to come to Columbia, despite her criticism of the university’s stance towards Israel and treatment of pro-Palestinian protestors last spring.

“I’m not proud of this university, but I’m proud to be part of the journalism school and this student body,” she said.

For the new Palestinian student, the prospect of covering renewed protests would be a chance to cover a story she said she cares deeply about as a Palestinian journalist. “I don’t think there is such a thing as neutrality in journalism,” she said. “At the same time, I’d want to find a balance between being an activist and covering this.”

The question of whether protests will return to campus is still an open one. For now, green flags rim the area protestors once camped on, encouraging students to use the public space.

But a black sign in front of the lawn also outlines a list of prohibited activities in the outdoor spaces, including “camping, unauthorized tents or structures, and using the lawn when it is closed or has a red flag posted.”

I spoke with one security guard – hired from Allied Universal, an outside firm – who was guarding the entrance to Butler Lawn, where the encampment had previously been stationed. He told me the fencing and barriers are there to go up at night if they need to block the space off from future protestors. I asked whether he thought on-campus protests were likely this year. He shrugged.

“Look at all this,” he said, motioning to several other guards posted around the lawn area, the locked gates, and the barricades systematically arranged around Butler Lawn, ready for use at a moment’s notice. He shook his head unbelievingly: “I don’t think they’re coming back.”

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