Year Begins With Admin Vacancies at CC, SEAS, BC

The Columbia and Barnard undergraduate administrations received facelifts this summer with several comings and goings reshaping undergraduate life.

Two key Columbia undergraduate deans announced their departures over the summer, leaving three key administrative offices empty east of Broadway.

The resignations came from Columbia College dean Austin Quigley, who will step down at the end of this school year and continue to serve as a professor, and CC and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences dean of student affairs Costantino Colombo, who left in July to take a similar post at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition, there is no permanent dean of the SEAS for the second year in a row as the school continues to search for a new leader.

Barnard filled its highest profile vacancy with the arrival of new president Debora Spar July 1. In addition, the school installed a new dean for global programs, though it lost its director of financial aid.

The first shift came in May, when CC dean Austin Quigley, who had served in that post since 1995, e-mailed the College announcing that he would step down after the 2008-2009 academic year. He gave no specific reason for retiring other than time.
“Deciding when to move on from a position of responsibility is always a challenge,” Quigley wrote, “but wisdom is on the side of doing so when things continue to go well.”

“It’s been a really glorious time of continued improvement,” said Nicholas Dirks, the University’s vice president for arts and sciences, of Quigley’s tenure. Dirks, who said he considers Quigley a personal friend and advisor, cited the College’s increased diversity and residential character, the expansions of enrollment and student services, and the enhancement of financial aid as some of Quigley’s achievements.

Quigley will remain on Columbia’s faculty as the Brander Matthews professor of dramatic literature, and will also serve as special advisor to the president for undergraduate education. Dirks expects that in his advising role, Quigley will further help the integration of the College with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and advise the ongoing Capital Campaign. Dirks added the University would launch a national search for Quigley’s successor.

Quigley’s resignation “comes at a time when we’re thinking about a variety of forms of realignment,” Dirks said. Officials are working on creating a “single unified budget” between CC and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Meanwhile, former Harvard Business School professor Debora Spar formally began her tenure as Barnard president on July 1. When Barnard announced the selection of Spar in January, several colleagues lauded her kindness and fund-raising potential. As she succeeds former president Judith Shapiro, Spar faces challenges that include a partially-constructed Nexus building, a lagging endowment, and vacancies on Barnard’s business staff.

In mid-July, Constantino Colombo, longtime dean of student affairs for CC and SEAS, announced that he would be leaving the University for a student affairs post at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Aside from emceeing Class Day, Colombo is known for overseeing the consolidation of the admissions and advising divisions of CC and SEAS in the 1990s.

In light of Colombo’s abrupt departure, Associate Dean of Student Affairs Kevin Schollenberger will take over his post in an interim capacity while the University launches a search for a permanent replacement.

Also in July, Barnard Dean of Studies Karen Blank announced that Gretchen Young would become Barnard’s Dean for Study Abroad Advising. Young, a program specialist in the study abroad office at the University of Connecticut, replaced Hilary Link, who became Barnard’s first assistant provost and dean for international programs. Young’s credentials include directing the School for International Training’s study abroad programs in Fort Dauphin, Madagascar, Dakar, Senegal, and Durban, South Africa.
Young said Barnard was a good match for her because “the study abroad philosophy fit nicely with my own—the institution’s goal to globalize and broaden its horizons a bit."

In August, Barnard also notified students of Director of Financial Aid Alison Rabil’s mid-October departure to become Duke University’s assistant vice provost and director for financial aid. According to Dean Dorothy Denburg’s e-mail, Rabil’s leadership increased the productivity and serviceability of the financial aid office.

In the meantime, SEAS is entering its second academic year without a permanent head. When Dean Zvi Galil left to lead Tel Aviv University in 2007, Gerald Navratil became interim dean, and administrators said they would complete the search by the end of the 2007-2008 academic year. At the end of last semester, Spectator learned that the University had lined up several finalists. But this fall, according to University president Lee Bollinger, the search committee—which is composed of students, faculty, and administrators—is beginning anew.

“We will start up the search committee again,” Bollinger said. “It’s a matter of talking to the school , trying to get a sense of where we are at this point, talking about what we know as a result of a search.” Bollinger said the University would reassemble a search process to try to narrow down a group of candidates again. The search will include some entirely new candidates, and some who were considered previously.

“I think it’s just a process in feeling, do we have the right person at the right time? We were just not feeling completely ready to make that decision,” Bollinger said. “That’s for a lot of complicated reasons, that’s the essence of it—not the right candidate at the right moment. We need to step back and take a new run at it.”

joy.resmovits@columbiaspectator.com