Henry C. Pinkham
Dean, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Good afternoon, President Bollinger, Provost Brinkley, Vice President Dirks, colleagues, alumni, doctoral candidates, families and friends. Welcome to the year 2006 Doctoral Convocation for the Arts and Sciences. This Convocation brings us together to acknowledge and celebrate the completion of the greatest challenge our university places before those that seek our counsel and our instruction, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. In the roughly 120 years since the founding of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, many extraordinary men and women have achieved this degree, and have launched careers of great distinction. They have contributed in countless important ways to this nation and to the world. We honor today a superb group that will tomorrow, at Commencement, join the ranks of our alumni. Finally, we honor today the families and friends of our candidates, who have endured with the candidates the grueling marathon of the PhD. Thank you for being so supportive, and so patient.
The faculty address will be offered by John Huber, Professor of Political Science, who received his PhD from the University of
Rochester. Professor Huber is currently the Director of Graduate Studies in the Political Science Department, and he will move to the chairmanship in July. His research and teaching focus on understanding the tradeoffs associated with different forms of democracy. He has written books on the institutional foundations of bureaucratic autonomy, and on constitutional arrangements in France. He is currently studying how democratic institutions affect the influence of religion on redistributive politics.
Click here to read Professor Huber's speech
The Candidate’s Remarks will be offered today by Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a degree recipient in the Religion Department. Mary-Jane Rubenstein defended her dissertation, “Wondrous Strange: The Closure of Metaphysics and the Opening of Awe,” this past March with distinction. Professor Wayne Proudfoot was her faculty sponsor and he is here today. She received the BA summa cum laude in Religion and English from Williams College in 1999, and the MPhil and Post-Graduate Diploma with Distinction in Philosophical Theology at Cambridge University’s Emmanuel College in 2001. Beginning this fall, Ms. Rubenstein will be Assistant Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University, where she will teach in the fields of contemporary Christian thought and philosophy of religion. We are pleased that she has agreed to speak on behalf of the PhD candidates in the Arts and Sciences at today’s Convocation.
Click here to read Ms. Rubenstein's remarks
I now have the pleasure of introducing Kira von Ostenfeld, a doctoral student in History and Chair of the Graduate Student Advisory Council, who will present the Faculty Mentoring Award. This award is designed to honor excellence in the mentoring of PhD students; it is being given for the third time this year. Recipients of the Faculty Mentoring Award are chosen by PhD students themselves. The selection is organized by the Graduate Student Advisory Council, so it is fitting that its leader award it. Congratulations to Professor Jean Howard.
Columbia University recognizes, through the Presidential Awards for Outstanding Teaching by faculty and graduate students, the fundamental importance of teaching in a great university. The students who will now receive Graduate Teaching Awards this year were selected, from many nominations, by a committee that included faculty and graduate students. President Lee Bollinger will present the awards.
Click below to read the citations for the Teaching Awards
Rebecca I. Grossman
Dafna V. Hochman
Marijeta Bozovic
Each year the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences confers on some its most accomplished alumni the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Achievement. Now I would like to present the Dean’s Award to Nobel laureate Dr. Leon M. Lederman. Professor Erick Weinberg, Chair of the Physics Department is here to make the presentation.
Click here to read Dr. Lederman's Citation
As you experience the next stages of your careers, we would appreciate feedback from you about what we could do even better to help you in your careers. Your continued involvement with Columbia is most welcome, especially through participation in the Alumni Association of GSAS. Laura Brown, the Graduate School’s alumni relations officer, who is here today, can help you make contact. Tomorrow, following Commencement, you are invited to 301 Philosophy to receive your diploma and to be welcomed into Columbia’s Alumni Association. Besides your diploma you will also receive a few gifts from GSAS.
A word about the symbol on the alumni gifts that you will receive tomorrow: the “Michelangelo symbol” has been in use by GSAS since the 1950s, when it was adopted by then-Dean Jacques Barzun, one of my intellectual heroes. Some of you may have recently seen his book: “From Dawn to Decadence: 500 years of Western Cultural Life.” The symbol was used by Michelangelo in his household and on many of his drawings to signify “excellence.” Hence it is an appropriate representation of the Graduate School’s motto of “excellence within,” which you know is embodied in each of the graduates present at the ceremony today. It is shown on the medal for the winner of the alumni award for distinguished achievement, and on the pin that I will hand to all the candidates as they come up.
President Bollinger, Provost Brinkley, Vice-President Dirks, would you join me in congratulating the candidates?
Before closing this ceremony, I want to express my appreciation to Beatrice Terrien, Elizabeth Doran Keromytis, and Carmen Aragon Vilardi and the staff of the Graduate School, who worked very hard to organize this event, and to thank all participants for their contributions to this joyful occasion. Please join us at an outdoor reception, immediately following this ceremony, in front of Philosophy Hall, to the left as you leave St Paul's Chapel.
Will the candidates all stand so we can give them a round of applause. Congratulations to the candidates!
