While you were at home for the break, watching Portlandia, glancing at the stack of novels you intended to read “for pleasure” and wearing the clothes you’ve deliberately left at home year after year, the world kept slowly turning here at NYU. Here is some of what you missed while you were gone:

-A union of 22,000 building workers, including NYU’s building cleaners, threatened to strike on January 1 over wages and benefits. The strike was narrowly averted on New Year’s eve, with a new contract that raises wages by 5.6% over four years and will distribute $1,100 bonuses to the workers.

-Violet, the beloved hawk we livestreamed in delight, passed away last month following surgery to amputate her injured foot. A new female hawk swooped in two days later. 

-NYU officially submitted its 2031 plan for approval this month, and Community Board 2 is beginning a 2-month review of its proposal to change zoning laws for the 2 “superblocks“ just south of Washington Square. We’ll have more on that shortly.

-The girl with the dragon tattoo went to Gallatin.

-Prof. Lisa Duggan talked about the Occupy Wall Street class she’ll be teaching at NYU this semester.

-”First-year students who are enrolled at New York University’s School of Medicine are working with an online 3D cadaver known as the BioDigital Human.” NBD.

-NYU professor Gary Marcus found that it is never too late to learn to play guitar, plays in band with 11-year-olds.

-NYU-Poly opened up new space in the MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn. It’s still yet to be seen if the graduate urban studies campus NYU has planned for right next door will actually happen, but we’ll keep you updated.