Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability
The Columbia Underground Listing of Professor Ability (CULPA) is a professor ratings site, where students go to praise professors they like and slag off those they do not. There lies nary a review in between. CULPA is not officially affiliated with the university.
As of April 2008, the CULPA website is no longer working. [If any CULPA admin reads this, WikiCU would be willing to take on board the CULPA content.]
Contents
History
CULPA was founded in 1997 by Alex Feerst, CC '98. After Feerst graduated, the site continued to be operated by Jonathan McCarter, CC '98. However, at some point between 1998 and 2000, CULPA suffered an untimely demise. The site would have disappeared completely, except for the fact that the Columbia University Marching Band inexplicably decided to keep a copy of CULPA backed up on their servers. In 2000, Ashran Jen, CC '00, and Ben Wheeler, SEAS '00, resurrected the site from its (figurative) ashes on the Columbia University Marching Band servers. Morris Doueck (CC '03) and Nat Lin (CC '04), took over from Ashran and Ben. Ben Falik (CC '04) and Pam Terry (BC '06) joined the team in 2002. When Nat and Ben graduated, Jonathan Wegener (CC '07) and Carly Baratt (CC '06) filled their shoes. And after Pam and Carly graduated, Michael Decker (CC '09) and Seth Berliner (CC '09) joined. Unfortunately, Michael and Seth have been extremely slow in posting new reviews. Since early in 2007, CULPA has more or less ground to a halt as a source of new information.
Purpose
It allows students to anonymously post their own reviews of their professors. It is regarded as one of the most useful tools for students looking to enroll in a class, boasting over 10,000 reviews. Because of the candid nature of the submissions, the site has occasionally been accused of harboring biased reviews and misrepresenting professors. Still, it is the main source of professor review currently available to the Columbia student body.
"Rivals"
Some students have been trying to get the administration to set up an official professor review site.
