The Columbia College Student Council’s Academic Awards Committee announced this year’s winners of the Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling awards.

The 50th annual Mark Van Doren Award, which honors a Columbia professor for his/her commitment to undergraduate instruction as well as for “humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership,” will be presented to Holger Klein, associate professor of art history and archaeology. Klein earned a Ph.D. from the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in 2000 and specializes in Late Antique, Early Medieval and Byzantine art and architecture. He edited the Kariye Camii Reconsidered and has published articles in a variety of academic journals. The award is named for Mark Van Doren ’21 GSAS, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, novelist, literary critic and longtime Columbia faculty member with a reputation for pedagogical greatness.

The 36th annual Lionel Trilling Award will be presented to James Shapiro ’77, the Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature, for his book Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? Shapiro earned a Ph.D. from Chicago in 1982 and has been teaching at Columbia since 1985. In addition to Contested Will, Shapiro is the author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, winner of The Theatre Book Prize and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize, and Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World’s Most Famous Passion Play. The Trilling Award honors a book from the past year by a Columbia professor that best exhibits the standards of intellect and scholarship found in the work of longtime Columbia faculty member Lionel Trilling ’25, ’26 GSAS, ’38 GSAS, an author and renowned literary critic.

The professors will be honored on Tuesday, May 3, from 6:30–8:00 p.m. in the Faculty Room of Low Library. All are welcome to attend. Contact Jennifer Freely, assistant director, alumni affairs with questions: jf2261@columbia.edu.