Gerald Sherwin ’55, one of the College’s most active alumni and a marketing consultant, and Joe Brown ’66Gerald Sherwin '55, Interim Dean James J. Valentini and Joe Brown '66. PHOTO: REBECCA CASTILLO ’94, ’06J , a senior project consultant at Noviant Advanced Information Solutions, were honored at the annual Black Alumni Council Heritage Reception on February 21 at Columbia University Club of New York. Joining the celebration was Interim Dean and Vice President of Undergraduate Education James J. Valentini. Sherwin and Brown have mentored many alumni though the years and are credited with starting the club.

The event was co-sponsored by the Columbia Alumni Association and featured special honoree introductions by Judge Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. ’78 and Renan Pierre ’86, ’87E.

Columbia College initiated 22 seniors into Phi Beta Kappa, the national honor society, on Friday, February 17. The students were chosen by a faculty selection committee of Phi Beta Kappa members based on the breadth, depth and rigor of their academic programs, as well as recommendations from faculty members who have worked closely them.

Each year, 10 percent of the Columbia College graduating class is elected to membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Two percent (Junior Phi Beta Kappa) is elected in November and the remaining eight percent is elected in the spring. The students honored on Friday represent the Junior Phi Beta Kappa. 

The students and their guests were welcomed by Hazel May, Senior Associate Dean of Academic Affairs. Dean of Columbia College James J. Valentini spoke and the Phi Beta Kappa address was given by Associate Professor of English Marcellus Blount.

Phi Beta Kappa celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Members receive a distinctive gold key, which symbolizes the core principles of Phi Beta Kappa – freedom of inquiry and liberty of thought and expression.

The Class of 2012 Junior Phi Beta Kappa members are:

Alexander Bedrosyan
David Berke
Zachary Brill
Stephen Chan
Megan Fauci
Alexander Frouman
Mario Gabriele
Matt Getz
Amin Ghadimi
Alexa Goldson
Jonathan Huggins
Kazunari Inoki
Joon Ho Kang 
Ashley Kummerlowe
Sheldon Kwok
Zachary Levine
Elizabeth Munroe
Erik Nook
Tara Pesce
Anthony Testa
Anoushka Vaswani
Qiurui Wang  

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger has appointed John H. Coatsworth, who has served as interim University Provost since last summer, as the permanent Provost of Columbia University. 

John Coatsworth

Coatsworth is a leading scholar of Latin American economic and international history. He has served as Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs since 2008, was a visiting professor at Columbia University from 2006 to 2007, and served as Interim Dean of SIPA from 2007 to 2008. Prior to coming to Columbia, he served as the Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University from 1992 to 2007, where he was founding director of Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and chair of the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies. Coatsworth was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago from 1969 to 1992.

“During the past seven months, John has demonstrated consummate skill in leading Columbia forward on a host of complex matters critical to our future,” President Bollinger said in a letter to the University community. “I am, personally, very pleased that John will serve in this vital University role and as my colleague.”

Coatsworth is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Board of Directors of the Tinker Foundation and numerous professional associations. He is the former president of the American Historical Association and Latin American Studies Association. He has served on the editorial boards of scholarly journals including the American Historical Review, the Journal of Economic History, the Hispanic American Historical Review and other social science journals published in Britain, Chile, Germany, Mexico, Peru and Spain.

In 1986, Coatsworth was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. He has served as a Senior Fulbright Lecturer three times, with appointments in Argentina and Mexico, and has received numerous research and institutional grants from public agencies and private foundations. He has acted as a consultant for program design or review to numerous universities and foundations.

Coatsworth received his BA in History from Wesleyan University, and his MA and PhD in Economic History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author or editor of eight books and many scholarly articles, focusing on comparative economic, social, and international history of Latin America, especially Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Click here to read the President Bollinger's letter on the Appointment of John Coatsworth as Provost.

Andrew Delbanco, the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities and director of the Center for American Studies, received the 2011 National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama ’83 in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on February 13.

Delbanco was honored, according to the citation read at the ceremony, “for his insight into the American character, past and present. He has been called ‘America’s best social critic’ for his essays on current issues and higher education. As a professor in American studies, he reveals how classics by Melville and Emerson have shaped our history and contemporary life.”

President Barack Obama ’83 awards the 2011 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal to Andrew Delbanco in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 13, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) Delbanco was one of nine recipients of the National Humanities Medal; eight National Medal of Arts winners were honored at the same ceremony. One of last year’s winners of the National Humanities Medal was Jacques Barzun ’27, ’32 GSAS.

Delbanco is a past winner of Columbia’s Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates and the Lionel Trilling Award from Columbia students for his book, Melville, His World and Work. His essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books and other journals and he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Trustee of the Library of America, the Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Teagle Foundation.

His new book, College: What It Was, Is and Should Be, will be published in March by Princeton University Press. He is working on a book about abolitionism and American culture that will be published by Harvard University Press.