One Last Trip to Alma Mater

For many students, faculty, and staff, the relationship they begin with Columbia when they first step on campus lasts a lifetime. This connection to the University influences many families to plan memorial services on campus.

When an alumnus, faculty, or staff member with particularly strong ties to Columbia dies, the University organizes a memorial service that is usually held at St. Paul's Chapel.

"This is a celebration of a life connected to Columbia," said Derek Wittner, dean of Alumni Affairs and Development for Columbia College. "The College is often very important to the deceased, and the family knows that."

According to Linda Bailey, program manager of Earl Hall, memorial services take place on campus about once a month. St. Paul's Chapel hosted 13 such services in 2006.

The majority of memorial services held on campus are for faculty or alumni, according to director of Principal Gifts for University Development and Alumni Relations Jim Mcmenamin.

"When it's alumni or faculty and they have accomplished a great deal with Columbia as a partner, there tend to be faculty and other alumni leaders who want to pay tribute to them," Mcmenamin said. "I would describe it as a final thank you."

Memorial services are also held on campus in cases when a student dies. "I think the family's able to gain some comfort that student, friends, and teachers would pay tribute to their son or daughter, as sad an event as it is," Mcmenamin said.

While campus memorial services take place on a regular basis, funerals occur far less frequently. One of the University's most notable funerals took place in 1947, for former President Nicholas Murray Butler.

According to Nicholas Miraculous, a biography of Butler, over 7,000 people visited Columbia to pay tribute to Butler, and 1,000 people crammed into St. Paul's Chapel, where the funeral was held. In a procession afterward, the casket was carried from St. Paul's to Low Library and down the South Court steps.

More recently, a funeral was held for Arthur Sederbaum, CC '65 and Law '68, on Jan. 23. According to Wittner, the University was particularly accommodating to the Sederbaum family's last-minute request for Columbia to host the event because of the alumnus' strong connections to the University.

Bailey said recalled one recent service for an alumna who met her husband on Low steps, got married in St. Paul's Chapel, and had her children baptized there.

"It's important to them because the College and chapel played an important role in their life," Bailey said. "They made it known that they wanted to be memorialized at their alma mater."