Columbia's Roger Bagnall, a history and classics professor, and Eugene Rice, a professor emeritus of history, have been elected to the American Philosophical Society (APS). APS, the nation's oldest learned society, was founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743.

Bagnall, who came to Columbia in 1974, was chair of the classics department from 1994 to 2000 and was dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1989 to 1993. Bagnall's works include "Egypt in Late Antiquity" (Princeton 1993), "Reading Papyri, Writing Ancient History" (London 1995), and, co-authored with Bruce Frier, "The Demography of Roman Egypt" (Cambridge 1994). He was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.

Rice began teaching history at Columbia in 1964. He served as chairman of the department from 1970 to 1973 and chairman of the Society of Fellows in the Humanities from 1984 to 1988. Rice's works include "The Renaissance Idea of Wisdom" (Harvard 1958), "The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559" (Norton 1970) and "Saint Jerome in the Renaissance" (Johns Hopkins 1985). He also edited "The Prefatory Epistles of Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples and Related Texts" (Columbia 1972). He was executive director of the Renaissance Society of America from 1966 to 1982 and 1985 to 1988, and is currently a member of its Executive Board. Rice received Columbia's Great Teacher Award in 1984.

Forty-two members of the Columbia faculty have been elected to APS. Located in Philadelphia, APS promotes useful knowledge in the sciences and humanities through excellence in scholarly research, professional meetings, publications, library resources and community outreach.