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ROY BRAEGER ‘86 Erica Woda ’04 FORUM: JOHN W. CELEBRATES Tries TO LEVel KLUGE ’37 TELLS GOOD TIMES THE FIELD STORIES TO HIS SON Page 59 Page 22 Page 24 Columbia College September/October 2010 TODAY Student Life A new spirit of community is building on Morningside Heights ’ll meet you for a I drink at the club...” Meet. Dine. Play. Take a seat at the newly renovated bar grill or fine dining room. See how membership in the Columbia Club could fit into your life. For more information or to apply, visit www.columbiaclub.org or call (212) 719-0380. The Columbia University Club of New York 15 West 43 St. New York, N Y 10036 Columbia’s SocialIntellectualCulturalRecreationalProfessional Resource in Midtown. Columbia College Today Contents 24 14 68 31 12 22 COVER STORY ALUMNI NEWS DEPARTMENTS 30 2 S TUDENT LIFE : A NEW B OOK sh E L F LETTER S TO T H E 14 Featured: David Rakoff ’86 EDITOR S PIRIT OF COMMUNITY ON defends pessimism but avoids 3 WIT H IN T H E FA MI L Y M ORNING S IDE HEIG H T S memoirism in his new collec- tion of humorous short stories, 4 AROUND T H E QU A D S Satisfaction with campus life is on the rise, and here Half Empty: WARNING!!! No 4 are some of the reasons why. Inspirational Life Lessons Will Be Homecoming 2010 Found In These Pages. 5 By David McKay Wilson Michael B. Rothfeld ’69 To Receive 32 O BITU A RIE S Hamilton Medal 34 Dr. Robert Butler ’49, FEATURES ’53 P&S 6 Athletics Hall of Fame Inductees 36 C lass NOTE S ERI ca WOD A ’04 TRIE S TO 7 Great Teachers Award A L UMNI UPD A TE S 22 EVE L T H E IE L D L F 53 Alumni Sons and 8 CC Fund Raises By harnessing the power of Columbia and its people, Daughters $15.1 Million Erica Woda ’04 founded Level the Field to help local 59 Roy Braeger ’86 9 In Memoriam: youth achieve. 68 Elizabeth Craig ’07 Jack H. Beeson 10 By Joshua Robinson ’08 72 A L UMNI CORNER 5 Minutes with … Nicholas Rudd ’64, ’67 Emlyn Hughes C O L UMBI A FORUM Business and a number of 11 Alumni in the News 24 other enthusiastic alumni John W. Kluge Jr. ’05 compiled his father John W. 12 Student Spotlight: convened Glee Club singers Dustin Martin ’11 Kluge Sr. ’37’s thoughts on life, success and lessons from 1952 to the present at learned into John Kluge: Stories. reunion 2010. 13 Campus News Web Exclusives at www.college.columbia.edu/cct FIVE MORE MINUTE S Professor Emlyn Hughes discusses the unfounded fear that the Large Hadron Collider could destroy Earth. LEVE L ING T H E FIE L D Children speak about the influence that Erica Woda ’04’s Level the Field has had on their lives. TH E BIRD S OF NEW YORK Elizabeth Craig ’07 shares a documentary and slideshow of her work with New York City’s birds. Sch O la R sh IP S 101 Discover how donations to the Columbia College Fund improve the College and help its students. FRONT AND BACK COVERS: CHAR SMULLYAN COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY Letters to the Editor Sweetest ’60 Suite sive) damn rockets, tanks and warplanes Volume 38 Number 1 Hats off to the Class of ’60 on its 50th anni- in the world — and it sure helps the GDP September/October 2010 versary reunion, and especially to Profes- look good.” At least Mr. Ritchie can enjoy EDITOR AND PUBLISHER sor Nathan Gross ’60 for his heartfelt caba- the privilege of such self-contradiction. Per- Alex Sachare ’71 ret performance, full of pith and vinegar, haps he picked up that mindless skill dur- MANAGING EDITOR ing Columbia’s declining years of the ’60s Lisa Palladino now immortalized online: and ’70s, perhaps directly from Professor ASSOCIATE EDITOR Still I’d gladly Ethan Rouen ’04J Swap a stack of Stetsons Seymour Melman himself. ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, ADVERTISING And a rack of Borsalini Columbia’s deficient sense of good cit- Taren Cowan To get back one purloined beanie izenship in banning NROTC from cam- FORUM EDITOR And start at Columbia again! pus may also find roots in the teaching of Rose Kernochan ’82 Barnard Oh, yes! Professor Melman, with Mr. Ritchie’s con- CONTRIBUTING WRITER tinuing support no doubt. It is deplorable Shira Boss ’93, ’97J, ’98 SIPA Jamie Katz ’72 NEW YORK CIT Y that Mr. Ritchie finds no value in military EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS strength to preserve his freedoms. Worse, Grace Laidlaw ’11 The author is a former editor of CCT. You can he writes, “Military production and the DESIGN CONSULTANT Jean-Claude Suarès relive Nathan Gross ’60’s reunion performance maintenance of the war economy con- ART DIRECTOR at www.college.columbia.edu/ tribute significantly to GDP Gates Sisters Studio cct/jul_aug10/webexclusives. numbers but they provide WEBMASTER nothing to either the general Thomas MacLean Freefall well-being of the population CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS It is not often that I can pick or to the real productivity of Eileen Barroso Kim Martineau ’97J up a publication and so in- the economy.” Char Smullyan stantly form a visceral reac- Ken Williamson ’54, ’55E Daniella Zalcman ’09 tion to what appears in the HAUPPAUGE , N.Y. Letters column. Perhaps that Published six times a year by the Hooping It Up Columbia College Office of may be due to the lead-off Alumni Affairs and Development. entitled Freefall, a letter from Alex Sachare ’71’s “Within the For alumni, students, faculty, parents and Dave Ritchie ’73 in the July/ Family” column (May/June) friends of Columbia College, founded in 1754, August issue. gave a balanced but gener- the undergraduate liberal arts college of Columbia University in the City of New York. I wonder if Mr. Ritchie has ally appreciative description Address all correspondence to: ever bothered to read the budget? of Coach Joe Jones’ performance as men’s Columbia College Today He might well have seen it, because he basketball coach. This, I believe, presented Columbia Alumni Center has described the portion of the budget an inaccurate picture. 622 W. 113th St., MC 4530 New York, NY 10025 going to “defense-related-expenditures” Coach Jones had fundamental defects as 212-851-7852 as “making it the single greatest economic a coach and it was predictable at an early E-mail (editorial): [email protected]; entity in the American economy.” stage that as long as he remained, the Co- (advertising): [email protected] www.college.columbia.edu/cct That utterly conceals and confounds lumbia men’s basketball program was ISSN 0572-7820 the much larger entity consisting of out- doomed to mediocrity. Coach Jones was an Opinions expressed are those of the lays for multitudes of social engineering effective recruiter, but his defects as a coach authors and do not reflect official projects of dubious effect or value. Col- caused the team consistently to underper- positions of Columbia College lectively, the expenditures of these enti- form in relationship to its potential. His de- or Columbia University. ties dwarf by comparison the military meanor and lack of ability as a strategist and © 2010 Columbia College Today All rights reserved. spending that he decries, and with no teacher were defects which were obvious productivity! from the inception, and [Athletics Director] Perhaps I missed something in those M. Dianne Murphy’s file has letters that years between my ’54–’55 and Mr. Ritchie’s evidence that many perceived this problem ’73. But is he really saying that it is because at an early stage. Measured in comparison of military spending “United States lost with the performance of Armond Hill, his the ability to compete in essential areas of immediate predecessor, coach Jones could civilian manufacturing to overseas com- be considered as a success. However, mea- CCT welcomes letters from readers about petitors?” Which other sector of the econo- sured in terms of the excellent level that articles in the magazine, but cannot print or personally respond to all letters my developed so much technical expertise Columbia should demand of its coaches, received. Letters express the views of that any could be exported at all, and in coach Jones was a failure. the writers and not CCT, the College or the University. Please keep letters to 250 doing so to bring a modicum of prosperity Mediocrity is often more pernicious words or fewer. All letters are subject to for the rest of the world to share? than outright incompetence. The truly editing for space and clarity. Please direct Mr. Ritchie concludes that “we can take fundamentally incompetent are identified letters for publication “TO T H E EDITOR .” solace in making the best (and most expen- (Continued on page 70) SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2010 2 COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY W ITHIN THE FAMILY One Last Toast E’re We Part Editor’s note: Derek Wittner ’65, ’68L our shared experience as Columbia returned to Columbia in 1993, working College undergraduates) as well as for two years in Student Affairs and then students and parents of our students. moving to the Alumni Office, where he I never fully appreciated the extent was director of the Columbia College of commitment alumni have to the Fund and then v.p. and finally dean of College and the uniformly held belief alumni affairs and development. Wittner that we were offered an unparalleled resigned effective July 31 and now is v.p. education rooted in an enduring Core. for development at the Cooper Union in It did not take much for me to tap into NYC.

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