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AROUND THE QUADS

Professors Kitcher, Williams Honored With Trilling, Van Doren Awards

From left, Eva Gardner, co-chair of the Academic Awards Committee; committee member David Bornstein ’04; John Dewey Professor of Philosophy Philip S. Kitcher; Professor of Classics and Theodore Kahan Professor in the Humanities Gareth D. Williams; committee co-chair Telis Demos ’04; and committee member Lauren Gerber ’05. PHOTO: ALEX SACHARE '71

Philip S. Kitcher, the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, received the 29th annual Lionel Trilling Award for outstanding book by a faculty member (Mendel’s Mirror: Philosophical Reflections on Biology), and Gareth D. Williams, Professor of Classics and Theodore Kahan Professor in the Humanities, received the 43rd annual Mark Van Doren Award for “humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership” at a ceremony in Faculty House on May 6.

The awards are unique in that they are bestowed by an Academic Awards Committee of students, who met throughout the year to read and discuss books written by faculty members as well as candidates for the teaching honor. “To be honored by your students is quite an honor, indeed,” observed Dean Austin Quigley, who spoke at the ceremony.

Kitcher, who said he was “deeply honored” to receive the students’ accolade, was described by colleage David Albert ’76, professor of philosophy, as “a volcano of books and ideas … in the best tradition of this university.” Said Kitcher, “I’ve never been as academically happy as I am here at Columbia.”

In introducing Williams, committee member Lauren Gerber ’05 said that he “encourages excellence in his students by demonstrating it in himself. He breathes new life into texts more than 2,000 years old.” Williams praised his colleagues for setting high standards, saying he was “part of a collective enterprise of which I’m most proud. It is their quality that stirs the teaching in me.”

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