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. 

Roone Arledge Auditorium in Alfred Lerner Hall was filled on February 2 as almost 500 scholarship donors and student recipients met and mingled at the annual Dean’s Scholarship Reception. This special event brings together donors and students in a relaxed setting so they may get to know one another.

View photos from the Dean's Scholarship Reception.

Interim Dean James J. Valentini addressed the group, holding a piece of paper and saying, “This is a ledger sheet … as of yesterday [February 1, 2012] we spent this year more than $70,000,000 on financial aid. But that’s not financial aid. Those are entries in an account statement. Financial aid is about is about people helping other people. … I personally thank all the donors for sending us these students. Without them, life at Columbia would not be nearly as rich.”

Valentini added that as the College dean, he believes there are only three stages of life: “future Columbia College student, current Columbia College student and former Columbia College student. Financial aid is largely about former Columbia College students — or their families, or their parents, or their relatives — who have made generous contributions not to the College, not to the University, but to current students. This is an intergenerational relationship that connects former students to current students.”

Valentini introduced Francisco Lopez-Balboa ’82, benefactor of the Frank and Victor Lopez-Balboa Scholarship Fund with his twin, Victor ’82. Lopez-Balboa, who immigrated to the United States from Cuba with his parents as a baby, recalled how it took 10 years to pay off his College and graduate school loans. Now in a position to be financially generous, he wants things to be easier for today’s students. “As I reflected on my Columbia experience, before, during and after Columbia,” he said, “it was apparent and really important to me to be in position to help students afford and attend a great school.”

Lopez-Balboa introduced Komal Kothari ’12, a double major in biology and economics who emigrated to the United States from India at 6 and grew up in Edison, N.J. She will attend medical school and hopes to pursue a career in public health and global development. Kothari, the recipient of the Isabel and Irving N. Tolkin Memorial Scholarship Fund as well as the Charles Halstead Cottington Scholarship Fund–Columbia College, eloquently expressed how much it meant to her to receive these scholarships. “I distinctly remember April 1, the day I received my acceptance to Columbia. As I read and reread the letter, I felt both joy and anxiety. My mind raced with the exciting possibilities awaiting me at Columbia, but I was concerned that my family might not be able to send me here.”

Kothari added how thrilled she was to learn that alumni support would allow her to attend. “From the moment I entered those gates on 116th and Broadway I have felt engaged and stimulated,” she said. “I have grown so much in these past four years. I have had access to myriad opportunities that I might not have encountered otherwise. The Core has taught me new ways of seeing the world and cultivated in me a habit of inquiry. … The connections I have built here will last me a lifetime.”