Former student dies at popular nightspot
Radio major among 21 dead; Classmates call him quiet; say he dreamed of becoming a sportscaster

Former Columbia student Da Shand Ray of Hillside, Ill. died of injuries he suffered on Feb. 17 as a result of a disturbance at E2 a Southside nightclub. Born May 4, 1978, Ray was 24 at the time of his death.
Read more...

Spring enrollment lower than expected
Columbia now third largest undergraduate school in Illinois

Columbia’s spring enrollment increased this semester by 2 percent from a year ago, prompting college officials to call the rise a healthy, but not dramatic, shift in school attendance.
Read more...

E2 nightclub: Columbia reacts to tragedy
Some students who have been to E2 say they can see why the stampede happened

Few Columbia students and faculty seemed surprised by the stampede at the E2 nightclub on Feb. 17, but many said they would change their attitudes about partying as a result of it.
Read more...

No more bowling for Columbia’s neighbor
Long-time South Loop business tosses its last gutter ball, heads for Indiana

Universal Bowling, neighbor to Columbia’s 623 S. Wabash Ave. building for more than 30 years, officially shuttered last month. The closure, according to owner Larry Weinstein, is due in part to a sagging economy and a waning interest in the sport.
Read more...

E2 incident becomes blame game

City officials are calling the E2 stampede the largest loss of life and greatest tragedy to happen in Chicago since the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in 1979, which killed 273 people.
Read more...

Independent ‘King of New York’

During a screening of King of New York about a month ago in the Ludington Building’s third floor theater, someone shouted “the director’s in the house” just as the film’s main character and anti-hero Frank White shot and killed an old school mafioso without even blinking.
Read more...