Budget & Finance
Account Structure and Chart of Accounts
All University Financial Systems are accessed through the my.Columbia.edu portal (except for FFE - see University Financial Systems and Management section). Job Aids for all types of financial transactions can be found on the Finance Gateway under “Helpful Tools/Training”.
The University has structured its chart of accounts around an 11-field Chartstring. The Arts & Sciences has established rules governing the use of chartfields when processing transactions and entering budgets in the Budget Tool. Various documents and guidance on those rules can be found in Courseworks, on the “A&S Department Collaboration Resources” site. This site is available to officers in A&S Departments, Institutes and Centers. Officers who need access to the site should contact Qamar Said in the Budget and Finance Office.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has centralized the process of creating new chartfields to ensure consistency and accuracy across Arts & Sciences departments. A chartfield create request form must be sent to Joshua Sakolsky. Joshua will e-mail you confirmation once the chartfield has been approved by the Controller’s Office. Please allow several days for completion of this process.
University Financial Systems and Management
Columbia University uses several applications to meet its financial management needs. The University’s Finance Gateway [link] provides comprehensive information on all financial applications. Following are the most commonly used applications, with appropriate links:
My.Columbia.edu – a central location for Columbia’s faculty and staff to find needed information and resources:
- ARC portal tab – entry into ARC for accounting transactions and FDS for all financial reporting
- Fin/Sys tab – entry to the Budget Tool and the Cash Module
- HR Manager Resources tab – access to Labor Accounting to manage employee account profiles, salary distribution, additional compensation (add comp) and cost transfers; Labor Accounting Reporting for suspense
DARTS – The financial reporting system for generating reports for periods prior to Fiscal Year 2012.
FFE – For processing payroll transactions related to casual employees and support staff (ZTs). The application must be downloaded from link: https://finance.columbia.edu/departments/management-budget
ECRT – Effort Certification and Reporting Technology for the annual certification by effort coordinators and Principal Investigators (PIs)
Finance Security Access
The University has various ways through which a user applies for access to a financial system, but the most common is through submission of a combined application, the Financial Systems Security Application (FSSA). This is the procedure to use for access to ARC, FDS, and other systems, such as DARTS, FinSys, FFE, and the Endowment Termsheets, and for obtaining transaction approval ability, known as DAF authority. For users that require reporting access only, the shorter Financial Inquiry Application (FIA) should be submitted. PAC also available at this same link.
(See the Finance Gateway for Financial Systems Security Application Information for access to the forms.)
All security role requests must be approved by both the requestor’s manager and the relevant Department Security Administrator (DSA). For the most senior financial manager in an Arts & Sciences department, except in the case of PAC applications, the manager is Josh Sakolsky (Director, Financial Operations and Management). For PAC applications, the manager is Tanique Dunkley Senior (Assistant Vice President, Human Resources Administration). For all other financial applications, the manager is the appropriate department supervisor, usually the Business Manager of Academic Department Administrator. The DSA is, in all cases, Arts and Sciences, which should be selected from the list of options that comes up when you click on the search option (magnifying glass next to the box on the form).
Arts and Sciences has standards for the roles and authority that should be requested by both officers and support staff personnel. (See link.)
Once the appropriate application is submitted, final approval and access to the financial systems will not be granted until the required training for each role is completed. Required Trainings by Role lays out which classes are required according to one’s ARC system roles being requested. For Endowment term sheet access, individuals must take the Endowment Compliance and Certificate Training, a classroom session offered by the CU Finance Division.
Purchasing and Travel Cards
Purchasing Card (P-Card) and Corporate Card roles are applied for on the Financial Systems Security Application (FSSA). For P-card applications, Arts and Sciences requests that a department business officer (DAAF or Business Manager) contact the A&S DPAD (Josh Sakolsky) with the approver for the cardholder, and if possible, a back-up reconciler for them as well.
Once the FSSA has been approved, and the required training completed for the card role requested (P-card and/or Corporate Card), the respective card team from Central Procurement will email the card application link to the card requester to get the specific information for that card such as monthly credit limit, single transaction limit, billing address, and Chartstrin, and any other required card attributes.Once the applicant completes the card request form, it will route to Josh Sakolsky for his review and approval as the DPAD. Upon his approval, it will then route to the appropriate card team to order the card for the applicant.
Budget & Finance People
As Special Assistant to the Dean and Executive Vice President, Ted Stiffel oversees Arts and Sciences communications and manages special projects and initiatives of the Dean. He previously served as special assistant to the Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). Before that he was a speechwriter for the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security and also led communications for several non-profit organizations and foundations. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Johns Hopkins University.
Sarah Cole specializes in British literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, with an emphasis on the modernist period. Areas of interest include war and violence, history and memory, sexuality and the body, and Irish literature of the modernist period. She is the author of three books, Inventing Tomorrow: H. G. Wells and the Twentieth Century (Columbia University Press, 2019), At the Violet Hour: Modernism and Violence in England and Ireland (Oxford University Press, 2012), and Modernism, Male Friendship, and the First World War (Cambridge University Press, 2003), and co-directs the NYNJ Modernism Seminar, a regional scholarly colloquium. She has published articles in journals such as ELH, Modern Fiction Studies, Modernism/Modernity, and PMLA, and has written essays for a variety of edited collections. Professor Cole received a B.A. in English from Williams College and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the recipient of a 2014 Guggeinheim Fellowship.
Rose Razaghian is the Dean of Academic Planning and Governance in the Arts and Sciences. Dr. Razaghian works closely with faculty and senior leadership on governance and policy developments; oversees and manages Arts and Sciences’ space and facilities planning; diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and initiatives; data, reporting, and analysis; and faculty housing. Throughout her work and the portfolio she manages, Dr. Razaghian strives to support the university’s core mission of research and teaching. She is committed to robust engagement on planning efforts with faculty, staff and senior administrators across the university; evidence-based decision-making; effective communication; and the principles of diversity and equity. Dr. Razaghian received her Ph.D. in Political Science with a concentration in Statistics from Columbia University and B.A. in Economics and Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She was on the faculty of Yale University’s Political Science Department before returning to her alma mater, where she has held several senior administrative roles in the Arts and Sciences and Columbia College. Dr. Razaghian has been teaching throughout her career, most recently in the Africana Studies Department at Barnard College.
Robert D. Mawhinney is a Professor of Physics at Columbia University and the Dean of Natural Sciences. He received his B.S. in Physics from the University of South Florida in 1980 and his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 1987. His research is in theoretical particle physics, with a particular focus on the behavior of quarks, which bind together to form protons, neutrons and a host of other "hadrons", and the theory which describes their interactions, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD).
QCD is a highly non-linear theory, giving a first principles description of the strong interactions between quarks and many of the predictions of this theory can only be made through large scale numerical simulations on the fastest supercomputers available at any time. QCD is also an ideal numerical problem, with only a handful of input parameters and a very large number of output predictions, which are vital to interpreting and assimilating the results of many particle physics experiments.
To satisfy the large computational demands of QCD, Dr. Mawhinney and his colleagues at Columbia and other institutions designed and built a number of massively parallel computers for their QCD simulations. Through numerical work on these supercomputers, Dr. Mawhinney has studied the changes in QCD at high temperatures, precision properties of QCD hadrons and the fundamental predictions of the asymmetry between the matter and anti-matter content of the universe.
Miguel Urquiola is Dean of Social Science and Professor of Economics at Columbia University. He has chaired Columbia’s Department of Economics and its Committee on the Economics of Education. He is also a member of the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
Outside Columbia, Urquiola is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and has held appointments at Cornell University, the World Bank, the Bolivian Catholic University, and the Bolivian government.
Urquiola’s research is on the Economics of Education. Its focus is on understanding how schools and universities compete, and how educational markets differ from other markets economists study. He has written numerous journal articles on these issues, and a book on why American universities excel at research: Markets, Minds, and Money.
Promotion and Tenure Committee; Faculty Reviews; Faculty Compensation; Trustees Submissions
Mia Nowotarski is the Director of Decanal Affairs in the Division of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is responsible for managing all administrative priorities, divisional communications, strategic initiatives, financial and budgetary concerns, and other projects in support of the Dean of Natural Sciences. She fosters the development of research funding proposals within the Division, while also initiating and executing programs to enhance science faculty, facilities, and funding opportunities.
Prior to joining us, Mia served as the Graduate Writing Specialist for the University of California, Santa Barbara. She holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
- An Initial reviewer in Concur system, and ARC approver for vouchers/requisitions for A&S departments.
- P-card approvals required by the Office of EVP Arts and Sciences.
- A&S Administrator for Paycard Program.
- Monitoring/Reconciling financial activities on A&S Capital Reserve Program.
- Serving as a supplemental resource for A&S department administrators and Faculty with the current University procurement policies and protocols as well as A&S EVP policies for processing of financial transactions.
Jessica Lilien is the Director of Decanal Affairs in the Division of the Humanities in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is responsible for managing all administrative priorities, divisional communications, strategic initiatives, financial and budgetary concerns, and other projects for the Dean of Humanities.
Jack Reilly is Director of Decanal Affairs for the Division of Social Science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He manages strategic initiatives, divisional communications, special projects, budgeting, and administrative programs on behalf of the Dean of Social Science.
Before joining the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Jack worked in alumni relations and development at Columbia Engineering. In this role, he managed volunteer boards and supported various alumni programming.
He holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and a bachelor's degree from Wesleyan University.
I oversee research support and IT planning for a selection of A&S departments and institutes in the social sciences, and manage cloud computing environments for ASIT. My goal is to ensure faculty and graduate students have access to the latest and best technology available in order to facilitate their research and teaching.
Bruno Bosteels is professor in the Department of Latin American and Iberian Cultures with a joint appointment in the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. He returned to Columbia in 2016, after having taught for thirteen years at Cornell University, for three years at Columbia, and for six years at Harvard University. His research covers a wide range of topics in literature, culture, and politics in modern Latin America as well as contemporary philosophy and political theory.
Bosteels is the author of Badiou o el recomienzo del materialismo dialéctico (Palinodia), Alain Badiou: une trajectoire polémique (La Fabrique, translated into German as Alain Badiou: Werdegang eines Streitbaren with Laika), Badiou and Politics (Duke, translated into Spanish as Badiou y lo político with Prometeo Libros), The Actuality of Communism (Verso, translated into German with Laika as Die Aktualität des Kommunismus, into Korean with a new preface by Galmuri as 공산주의의 현실성 : 현실성의 존재론과 실행의 정치, into Serbian with Univerzitet Singidunum as Aktuelnost Komunizma, and into Spanish with Prometeo Libros as La actualidad del comunismo, forthcoming in Japanese with Koshisha), Marx and Freud in Latin America (Verso, Spanish translation as Marx y Freud en América Latina with Akal), El marxismo en América Latina: Nuevos caminos al comunismo (Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia), El pensamiento de Oscar del Barco: De Marx a Heidegger (Ariel Pennisi), and La comuna mexicana (Akal-Mexico, 2021; second edition Akal-Spain, 2022; forthcoming in English as The Mexican Commune with Duke University Press). Between 2005 and 2011 Bosteels served as general editor of Diacritics: Review of Contemporary Thought. He is currently preparing three new books, the first a sustained polemical engagement with contemporary post-Heideggerian thought, titled Philosophies of Defeat: The Jargon of Finitude (Verso); the second, a collection of essays on the antiphilosophers Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan, and Žizek in dialogue with Badiou, titled ¿Qué es la antifilosofía? (forthcoming with Prometeo Libros); and the third, a collection of recent and previously unpublished essays forthcoming under the title The State and Insurrection: New Interventions in Latin American Marxist Theory (University of Pittsburgh Press). With Joshua Clover he co-edits the book series "Studies in Literature and Revolution" for Palgrave Macmillan; and with George Ciccariello-Maher the book series "Radical Américas" for Duke University Press. He is also the translator from French to English and/or editor of over half a dozen books by Alain Badiou, among them Theory of the Subject (Continuum/Bloomsbury), Philosophy for Militants (Verso), Rhapsody for the Theatre (Verso), Wittgenstein's Antiphilosophy (Verso), The Age of the Poets and Other Writings on Twentieth-Century Poetry and Prose (Verso), The Adventures of French Philosophy (Verso), Can Politics Be Thought? (Duke), and Badiou by Badiou (Stanford). He recently translated the Argentine philosopher León Rozitchner's Freud and the Limits of Bourgeois Individualism (Brill) and is finishing the translation of Alain Badiou's Nietzsche (Columbia University Press).