Summer 2012
Message from the Dean
Our Greatness Is in Our Community
D
ear Columbians,
At the beginning of the Fall semester, when I had just
been appointed Interim Dean of
the College, I greeted new students with,
“Welcome to the greatest College, in the greatest University, in the greatest
city in the world.” After serving nine months as dean, I am even more convinced
of that truth. It is founded in our unique and uniquely valuable curriculum, in
the world-leading scholarship and dedicated teaching of our faculty, in our
brilliant and diverse students, and in the deep commitment and intense
affection that former students have for their alma mater. But our greatness is
in our community, which is much more than the sum of our individual
accomplishments.
My challenge as the 16th Dean of the College — no, our challenge — is to make the claim “greatest College, in the greatest University, in the greatest city in the world” self-evident to all who are part of Columbia and even to all who are not. That is a tall order, but it is a goal that we can achieve.
Dean James J. Valentini (right) and President Lee C. Bollinger share a lighter moment during Class Day 2012. Eileen BarrosoTo achieve it the College must continue to admit students
who are the best in the world, and who also are best able to profit from and
contribute to the educational experience we offer. That can be accomplished
only if we recruit students without regard for their ability to pay for that
experience. And once they are here, we must ensure that we provide
opportunities to develop the talents and further the accomplishments that led
to their selection for admission.
The inimitable experience of Columbia College is largely due to the Columbia faculty members who engage and inspire students in the classroom and mentor them in research of the highest caliber. We must enable our faculty to continue as the best teachers and scholars in the world, and recruit faculty of the same distinction, year after year. This means developing endowed professorships and other supports, individual and institutional, financial and structural, to enable the most effective teaching and the most creative scholarship in the humanities, the social sciences and the natural sciences.
The centerpiece of our common intellectual experience is the Core Curriculum, ever-changing but ever-constant, linking generations of faculty and students. Building on the Core is the curriculum of 72 majors and 58 concentrations, evolving all the time, serving students’ individual intellectual interests and special abilities. That curriculum, from the Core through the most advanced courses, transforms College undergraduates from brilliant students to brilliant, thoughtful and creative thinkers.
As alumni, you serve another special role: as advisers, as role models and as inspiration for current students. Among the most important assets you can contribute to current students are the life experiences you have that show the many and varied paths of success that a Columbia College education opens.
All of your experiences are valuable ones. Because of that, we aim to know all of your stories and have all of you involved, in some way, with the College. A very, very ambitious goal, indeed, but then we have one very, very ambitious group of alumni.
I am honored to have been appointed the 16th Dean of Columbia College. I am respectful of the responsibility being dean conveys. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve the College and the University that I love.
To all our great lions, I say Roar, Lions, Roar,