Columbia University interval President Katrina Armstrong stepped over from her place on Friday, only seven decades after the departure of President Minouche Shafik.
Previous ABC and CNN journalist Claire Shipman, who was serving as co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, will remove Armstrong successful immediately, the school said in a statement.
Armstrong may return to her past position as head of the university’s Irving Medical Center, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Shipman ( pictured ), married to former Obama administration Press Secretary Jay Carney, holds degrees from Columbia in Russian Studies and International Affairs.
According to the , Columbia Spectator, Shipman worked at CNN for a generation where she earned a Peabody Award for her protection of the USSR’s breakdown. After a short stay at NBC News, she moved to ABC in 2001 to be” Good Morning America’s” senior national editor.
Shipman was part of the Columbia force that testified before Congress last month regarding hatred on campus. When pressed by a Democratic member of the House about “other forms of bias” at the university, Shipman replied “what we see most frequently right now is political talk crossing the line into hatred and we’ve got to figure that out”.
In the school speech about her visit, Shipman said” I assume this role with a clear understanding of the major challenges before us and a steadfast commitment to act with urgency, integrity, and work with our faculty to improve our mission, apply needed reforms, protect our students, and uphold intellectual freedom and empty inquiry”.
Just prior to stepping down, Armstrong had agreed to implement changes requested by the Trump administration in hopes of restoring over$ 400 million in federal funding to Columbia.
But last weekend in a Zoom discussion with 75 Columbia faculty, Armstrong and Provost Angela Olinto “downplayed or denied that change was underway”, according to the Free Beacon.
Armstrong herself noted” no changes” had been made regarding the wearing of masks at protests, despite an announcement noting “public safety has determined that face masks or face coverings are not allowed for the purpose of concealing one’s identity in the commission of violations of University policies…”
Several faculty “described a sense of befuddlement” over the contradictions, with one saying there was” a massive disconnect” between what was said in the Zoom meeting and Armstrong’s prior announcement.
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IMAGE CAPTION &, CREDIT: Claire Shipman poses for the camera, Claire Shipman/X
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