With a sake toast, an ice sculpture of Low Library, a Chinese lion dance, and a stroll through the Musée d’Orsay, some 4,400 alumni and friends in Asia and Europe joined President Lee C. Bollinger this year in celebration of Columbia 250.

“We are grateful to alumni club presidents and our other hosts who have enabled us to meet with so many outstanding Columbia alumni,” said Bollinger, who traveled to Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo in April and to London and Paris in June.

Bollinger’s travels also occasioned programs featuring Columbia faculty and prominent speakers from the host countries addressing topics of broad public interest — from the role of the press (Taipei) to affirmative action on both sides of the Atlantic (Paris). A seminar on comparative concepts of freedom held at the London Business School convened a distinguished panel that included LBS dean Laura Tyson, Columbia provost Alan Brinkley, historians Simon Schama, Eric Foner, Timothy Garton Ash, and Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz. Bollinger himself spoke on the impact of globalization on universities before audiences at Waseda University in Tokyo, Yonsei University in Seoul, and Peking University in Beijing.

Bollinger also met with government officials, including Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Korean Foreign Minister Ki-moon Ban, Vice-Minister of Education Xing-Shen Zhang in Beijing, and President Shui-bian Chen in Taipei. Furthering the Columbia presence, in June, Dean Austin Quigley led a delegation from Columbia College visiting current and prospective students, parents, alumni, educators, and government officials in Seoul, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei.

Opening up possibilities for collaboration and strengthening alumni connections on two continents, these trips were a fitting way to mark the anniversary of a University focused on its growing global mission.