CU Home Contact Alumni Relations  |  Site Index  |  Help
Columbia Connection - The site for all alumni of Columbia University
My Columbia
Story Form  |  Collected Stories  |  Search Stories
Beauty on Campus
Richard Yaker, Alum
School of Engineering and Applied Science 1990


I was on campus from Aug 1986-May 1990. I spent most of time on the steps overlooking the beautiful quad. Every day (weather permitting) for four years, I'd spend multiple hours on the steps just to the right of Alma (if you are facing Low, which I wasn't since I was sitting on the steps facing Butler). My senior year--that would be spring 1990--we even had a BBQ on the steps (which we probably weren't allowed to do). All security did was to tell us to put our beer in bags. I was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu, and the pledges began calling me Steps Yaker since that is where they could find me on a daily basis.

Senior year I lived on 11 Shapiro, which was only a year old at the time, and met Caryn Shalita CC' 90, who also lived on 11 Shapiro. Soon into the school year we became close friends, and one of the things we shared was sunbathing on those Low steps. For a while we even put up a "Low Beach - weather advisory" sign telling the tanning conditions for the day. We'd attach it to alma.

In January 1991, about 7 months after our graduation, my relationship with Caryn blossomed from a close friendship into a romantic relationship. We were married in August of 1993, and were married for 12 glorious years, before Caryn passed away of complications due to an undetermined illness in November of 2005. Those steps are very special to me, as not only were they part of my daily life for four of the most fun years of my life while I was at Columbia, but the most important relationship of my life began there.

I was recently in New York, and one of the things I had to do on a really beautiful sunny day while I was in Manhattan was get a slab at Coronet, and have lunch on my spot next to Alma.

http://www.caryn.com/

© Columbia University 2005  |  Webmaster