Administrative resignations and hires became a recurring feature of the 2008-2009 academic year, signaling a substantial turnover of Columbia’s leadership. By September, the University will see fresh faces in many administrative posts. Eight years after becoming president, Lee Bollinger has set himself up to lead an institution run by deans he has appointed—most deans are selected after a search committee presents several finalists to Bollinger. After previous hires in the Medical Center, the School of International and Public Affairs, the School of the Arts, the Columbia Journalism School, and others, the selection of this year’s newcomers capped off a series of key appointments. In fact, Bollinger joked in a recent interview, “I think we’ll come to a point here where I will not have any more appointments to make.” But that will only apply once he announces who the new provost will be.
OUTGOING
Austin Quigley
After 14 years as dean of Columbia College, Austin Quigley is preparing to say goodbye to his Hamilton Hall office suite. After the academic year, the Harold Pinter scholar will continue teaching in the English and Comparative Literature department and advise University President Lee Bollinger on undergraduate education. Though this generation of Columbia students knows Quigley as a champion fundraiser and an eloquent speaker—albeit one known for little personal contact with them—alumni with an institutional memory that stretches beyond the last four years will recall a thornier moment in his tenure. In August 1997, University President George Rupp asked for Quigley’s resignation due to a scuffle with David Cohen, who was then vice president for arts and sciences. The scandal’s reach extended beyond Morningside Heights, as shown by the New York Times’ interest in its coverage. After alumni stormed Rupp’s office, Quigley was ultimately reinstated. Quigley will leave a legacy that includes the College’s Annual Fund, senior dinner, dean’s tea, strong alumni connections, a tighter relationship between the College and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences—and the British throne the 115th Varsity Show used to portray him.
Alan Brinkley
University Provost Alan Brinkley is leaving his administrative post to return to teaching in the history department full time. Brinkley, often seen strolling along 116th street in hats, has been Low Library’s link to the faculty in his role as provost, or chief academic officer, over six years. Brinkley was asked to take the post after University President Lee Bollinger rejected the findings of an advisory search committee, and proposed to him over a Chinese dinner. Under Brinkley’s leadership, the University has revamped its faculty housing system, re-evaluated the Core Curriculum, continued its precedent for ROTC, oversaw the unionization of graduate students, facilitated the opening of Columbia’s middle school, created the office of the vice provost for diversity initiatives, and helped plan the Manhattanville expansion. Brinkley guided the faculty as the University weathered intense scrutiny throughout the Minuteman incident, controversy brought on by the David Project’s protesting the practices of some professors in the Middle East and South Asian languages and cultures department, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech, the hunger strike, and many contentious tenure cases.
Mary O’Neil Mundinger
Mary O'Neil Mundinger, dean of the School of Nursing, is stepping down this year. Mundinger took the post when the school was at a crossroads with a modest $3 million endowment, University President Lee Bollinger and executive vice president for health and biomedical sciences and dean Lee Goldman wrote in a March e-mail announcing her departure. “Dr. Mundinger, appointed acting dean in 1986 and then dean in 1988, righted the School. Her requirement that all nursing faculty establish either a faculty practice or a research program attracted skilled clinicians and researchers, whose experiences informed their teaching," Bollinger and Goldman wrote. Mundinger is leaving the school with an endowment greater than $100 million.
INCOMING
Michele Moody-Adams
Philosopher Michele Moody-Adams, who serves as vice provost for undergraduate education and professor at Cornell University, will be Columbia College’s next dean, becoming the first woman and first African American to hold the post. Moody-Adams will also take on an additional title, vice president for undergraduate education, and will hold an appointment in the philosophy department, where she eventually hopes to teach. Members of the committee that chose her in February stressed that she bridges the worlds of academia and student affairs administration. Her Cornell colleagues cited the facilitation of a summer reading program among her accomplishments there, noting that she once assigned Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe—a move considered controversial in Cornell. That Moody-Adams shook things up at Cornell may speak to her openness with regard to the Core Curriculum.
Feniosky Peña-Mora
After two years on the hunt, the search committee and University President Lee Bollinger appointed Feniosky Peña-Mora—whom Bollinger calls “Fenny”—to the position of dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in April. Currently the associate provost at the University of Illinois, Peña-Mora is known for his work in the field of disaster recovery. Hailing originally from the Dominican Republic, Peña-Mora’s tenure will signify a return to his roots, as he spent some time in Washington Heights while he was growing up—he learned English at Teachers College. He said in an interview that he will bring a fresh approach to the long-term “Vision 2020,” a plan formulated in 2007 during the tenure of former SEAS dean Zvi Galil to bolster the school’s reputation. He added that he will emphasize interdisciplinarity, the role of engineers as leaders, and the importance of the Core in ensuring the “synergy of various parts of the University. It’s not a notion of us vs. them, engineering vs. the humanities.” He is also noted for waving to students—even those he doesn’t know—while on campus.
Daniel Barkowitz
Daniel Barkowitz, director of student financial aid and employment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will become the next dean of financial aid and associate dean of student affairs for Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Science on June 1. Since the May 2007 firing of former dean of financial aid David Charlow for being found guilty of promoting loan companies that he benefited from, Nanette DiLauro served as director of the financial aid office. Barkowitz will be the first dean of financial aid since DiLauro’s October departure to Barnard’s financial aid office. According to his MIT blog, Barkowitz has a “budding career” as a “poet, philosopher, tarot card enthusiast, musical theater performer, and religious school instructor.” Barkowitz maintains a separate poetry blog, and has written a book of poems called Talking to Myself: Poetry From Now and Then.