Alan Brinkley began his tenure as University Provost on July 1. Brinkley, the Allan Nevins Professor of History, replaced Jonathan Cole, who stepped down after 13 years as the University’schief academic officer to return to teaching and research.
“Alan is one of the most distinguished historians in the United States and a superb teacher,” said
President Lee Bollinger. “We are very fortunate that he is now prepared to direct his extraordinary talents to helping Columbia build its future.”
Brinkley’s published works include Voices of Protest: Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and the Great Depression, which won the 1983 National Book Award; The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People; The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War; and Liberalism and Its Discontents. He is currently writing a biography of Time magazine founder Henry R. Luce.
A member of the Columbia faculty since 1991, Brinkley has chaired the history department since 2000. He received his BA from Princeton in 1971 and his PhD from Harvard in 1979.
The Graduate School of Journalism has named Nicholas Lemann as dean, effective September 1.
His appointment followed a year of discussions by a task force created by President Lee Bollinger to assess journalism education at Columbia—a step that aroused much debate in the journalism community, resulting in widespread media coverage. Lemann replaced Tom Goldstein ’69JRN, ’71LAW who stepped down in the summer of 2002.
Drawing on the work of the task force, Bollinger issued a statement last April outlining possible improvements to the master’s program, including broadening the knowledge base by having students take more courses elsewhere in the University, placing a greater emphasis on the history of the profession, and making the program longer to accommodate possible adjustments to the curriculum.
Lemann served as one of 35 members of the task force. “Nick is a marvelous choice,” said Professor David A. Klatell, who served as the school’s acting dean during the search. “He is an extraordinarily intelligent reporter and writer of surpassing skill and insight, who is optimistic about the future of journalism and dedicated to bringing that future to fruition.”
Lemann has been the Washington correspondent for The New Yorker since 2000 and before that spent 15 years as the national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. His books include The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America, and The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy. Lemann graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where he was president of The Harvard Crimson.
Columbia alumnus William V. Campbell ’62CC has been elected to the University’s Board of Trustees, effective September 2. “This is a tremendous honor for me,” he said. “I hope that I can contribute in some small way to the well-being of our wonderful University.”Currently chairman of the board of directors of Intuit, Inc., Campbell served as the company’s president and CEO from 1994 to 1998. Before joining Intuit, Campbell was the president and CEO of GO Corporation, a pen-based computing software company. Prior to that, Campbell was the founder, president, and CEO of Claris Corporation, which was purchased by Apple Computer Inc. in 1990. Before starting Claris, he was an executive vice president at Apple. He previously held executive positions at Eastman Kodak Company and the New York advertising agency J. Walter Thompson.
Columbia’s head football coach from 1974 to 1979, Campbell was captain of the 1961 team that shared the Ivy League championship with Harvard, the only title in the team’s history. He and his wife, Roberta, have been generous to a number of Columbia programs in addition to football. Their contributions over the years include funding for the renovation of the Aldo T. “Buff” Donelli Intercollegiate Strength Room in the Dodge Physical Fitness Center and the endowment of the Roberta and William Campbell Professorship in the Humanities.
David Hirsh has been appointed executive vice president for research, effective September 1. This new position was created by President Lee Bollinger to oversee University-based research. Hirsh is responsible for cultivating external funding sources, ensuring regulatory and statutory compliance, and formulating and implementing policy on all research conducted under Columbia’s auspices.
A molecular biologist, Hirsh has been Robert Wood Johnson Jr. Professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics in the College of Physicians and Surgeons since coming to Columbia in 1990. Before that, he spent five years as executive vice president and director of research at Synergen, Inc., a biotechnology company.
