Record numbers of alumni returned to campus for Alumni Reunion Weekend 2008. From May 29 to June 1, nearly 1,900 attendees enjoyed faculty lectures, cocktail receptions and other activities, culminating in class dinners followed by the Starlight Reception on the Low Steps.

Joel Klein ’67, Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education, delivered the keynote address at Columbia College’s 2008 Class Day on May 19, urging the graduating seniors to embrace the challenges they will face in their careers. “Hard as it may be, you’ve got to get outside your current comfort zone sooner or later, and if you want my advice, sooner is better,” Klein told members of the Class of 2008. “We are all so programmed, so eager to know what we are expected to do next, that all too often we don’t realize that we are the architects of our own destiny. Rejoice in that knowledge. It’s truly empowering.”

Dean Austin Quigley has announced his plans to step down at the end of the 2008–09 academic year, after a term of 14 years as Dean of Columbia College and Lucy G. Moses Professor.

Once again, applications to the College are up and the selectivity rate is down as the Class of 2012 continues a trend that has been going on for more than a decade. Applications rose by 5.7 percent, to 19,116, for roughly 1,050 places in the Class of 2012. The College’s overall admit rate, or selectivity, was 8.68 percent.

College students were well-represented among the winners of several national and international fellowships.

Frontiers of Science, the newest component of the College’s Core Curriculum, has been awarded a $200,000 grant from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

More than 600 alumni, students, faculty, administrators and guests filled Cipriani 42nd Street in New York City on March 5, as the College honored five of its most accomplished alumni with John Jay Awards for distinguished professional achievement: Barry Bergdoll ’77, Alexandra Wallace Creed ’88, Robert L. Friedman ’64, Jonathan S. Lavine ’88 and Ronald F. Mason Jr. ’74.

The historical profession lost a giant with the passing of John A. Garraty, the Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University. The author and editor of numerous American history books, Garraty was one of the most prolific historians of his generation. I worked as his last research assistant, and I once asked him the secret of his prolificness, as if expecting him to reveal some secret formula or regimen. In addition to his writing, he had a family, taught classes, vacationed at a Paris apartment and even ran the New York City marathon. Amidst all this activity, he still wrote copiously. “Where do you find the time?” I asked.