When you love your dean so much that you’re inspired to make a cardboard cut-out of him and bring it to public events and on vacation with you, that relationship is something special.
That was how some students described their interaction with Zvi Galil, former SEAS dean, according to anecdotes shared at the Great Teachers Awards ceremony and dinner in the Low Library rotunda on Thursday night, which honored Galil and Austin Quigley, former Columbia College dean.
The Society of Columbia Graduates sponsored the awards, which also served as the organization’s centennial celebration. In commemoration of 100 years of alumni activism and 50 years of Great
Teachers Awards, 33 former recipients joined the largest turnout of guests ever at a SCG event, according to publicity director Jerry Sherwin, CC ’55.
Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams spoke first about how valuable great teaching is when traditional structures place more value on activities and research that take professors out of the classroom or the lab. “We have to work together to fight these structures, and value the teaching skills that can’t be quantified in an article or a DVD of a performance,” she said.
In an interview, Moody-Adams spoke about Quigley, saying she was honored to follow a “greatly admired, accomplished leader who set a great example for this institution.”
Quigley served as dean for 14 years, and in his speech he highlighted the achievements of his and Galil’s time as deans, including a decrease in admissions rate from 28 percent to 8.5 percent.
“It’s difficult to feel that those 14 years are over,” Quigley said. “This institution has a way of making us feel that our lives have become Columbia lives.”
Quigley added in an interview that he will be on sabbatical for one or two years and will return as a professor of theater and literature. He also wants to teach Lit Hum, but said this might be further in the future because “that requires a whole lot of reading.”
SEAS Dean Feniosky Pena-Mora also spoke, referring to Galil as someone who “has taken the faculty to new heights, laid the foundation for the future growth of our engineering school, and gave it the jump start it needed at the right time.”
Galil, who recently resigned from his position as president of Tel Aviv University after having stepped down as SEAS dean, was introduced as someone with a real sense of humor. He once had a dinner conversation with members of the Engineering Student Council while they were stuck in the elevator below his apartment.
SCG member Isaac-Daniel Astrachan, CC ’90, was interested to hear the new deans speak. “I think President Bollinger is really trying to get the word out there that we’re one of the best universities in the world, and it’s exciting to see the new dean and the people he’s brought in,” Astrachan said.
The society also inducted 34 new members and introduced its new board during the dinner.
Society President Alexandra Baranetsky, SEAS ’75, said, “This is a historic moment because these professors are the elite of the teaching profession, and for them to be gathered in one room is unprecedented, the scope of their work is so great.”
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