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AROUND THE QUADS
With the College on a roll by virtually any standard of measure, members of the Columbia community gathered for a fifth anniversary celebration honoring Dean Austin Quigley on October 17, 2000, at the University Club in New York City. "I'm delighted to be here on behalf of the University to express our gratitude for all you are doing for the College and its students," President George Rupp told Quigley, who became the 14th Dean of the College on July 1, 1995. "The College can and will play a leadership role in the enhancement of the University as more than the sum of its parts. On behalf of all Columbians, I thank you, Austin, for all your great contributions to the life of the College." The dinner was hosted by 12 prominent alumni: George Ames '37, Robert Berne '60, Saul Cohen '57, Martin Kaplan '61, Philip Milstein '71, Carlos Munoz '57, Richard Rapaport '69, Eric Rose '71, Robert Rosencrans '49, Phillip Satow '61, Gerald Sherwin '55 and Richard Witten '75. Witten, chairman of the Board of Visitors, spoke eloquently of Quigley's leadership and accomplishments, and Sherwin, president of the Alumni Association, presented Quigley with a crystal lion (see pages 32-33). "In the years 1995-2000 Columbia College has moved...to being nationally recognized as one of the half dozen most selective schools in the nation," said Quigley. "If the collective responsibility of everyone in this room is to leave Columbia College in a better situation than the one it was in when we inherited responsibility for it, we can all say that during these five years, we have met the challenge, made a lasting difference and discharged our responsibility-both to those who preceded us since 1754 and to those who will succeed us in the centuries to come." During the past five years, applications to the College have risen by more than 50 percent and average SAT scores of matriculants have climbed to the 1,400 level for the Class of 2004. Quigley noted that gifts have more than doubled in the past five years, enabling an unprecedented wave of rebuilding and renovation to transform the Morningside Heights campus. He also pointed with pride to a "widespread and ambitious upgrading of student services, extensive reorganization of College management and record levels of parental and alumni involvement in College life." And he offered special praise to "the faculty of such distinction they could work almost anywhere, but choose to be at Columbia and to put undergraduate education at the top of their priorities." Quigley concluded his remarks by offering two toasts. The first was to Rupp, "who committed the University, its resources and his energies to upgrading Columbia College.and for succeeding, in less than a decade, in restoring the College to its rightful status as the leading school in the University." The second was to the College itself, which Quigley described as being "at a high point in its history." "Tonight this historic room is graced by the presence of Columbia's impressive students, successful parents, outstanding faculty, dedicated administrators and talented and generous alumni," said Quigley. "Before returning tomorrow to continue our efforts of improvement, let us take a moment of renewed pleasure in what we have done together for this historic College and also in what the College has done for us, and let us rejoice, as generations of Columbians have rejoiced before us, at the remarkable company this historic College enables us to keep."
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