From the Columbia University Record

A Conversation with Austin Quigley
By Elizabeth Golden

As Columbia University begins the year-long celebration of its 250th anniversary, College Dean Austin Quigley reflects on how the College's unique history and academic tradition will help pave the way to its future. And as Columbia starts a new chapter in its history, the Core Curriculum too, must continue to evolve as it has since its inception.

"From the day he began as Dean, Quigley has been able to think about the history of the College and the University in a way that substantively informs and directs its future," said Kathryn Yatrakis, dean of Academic Affairs.

The secret to Columbia's success, said Quigley, is its ability to balance continuity with change, and tradition with innovation. Nowhere is this more evident than in the University's steadfast dedication to a core undergraduate curriculum. The curriculum provides all undergraduate students with a common grounding in disciplines and discoveries that have fueled great debate and social change through the ages.

Respect for the intellectual roots of contemporary thought does not, however, translate into mere acceptance of the past. From the outset in 1919, the faculty who constructed the first course in Contemporary Civilization planned that the seminar course would bring into fruitful conjunction the insistent problems of the present and the persisting voices of the past. The Core Curriculum is continually being refined. As a former professor, Dean Quigley still takes a hands-on approach. "One of the great pleasures in talking to Austin about the inexhaustible works on the core reading lists is that he has actually read them and remembered them," said Michael Seidel, Jesse and George Siegel Professor in the Humanities.

For the last two years, the Columbia faculty has been evaluating ways to better prepare undergraduate students to understand and respond to the enormous scientific advances that have been reshaping our world in recent decades.

Drawing upon the talents of some of Columbia's leading research faculty, a newly created course, "Frontiers of Science," has been offered as an optional course to one-third of the 2003-2004 incoming freshman class. A vast majority of the group elected to participate in this pilot project for a new general-education course. If it is successful, Quigley hopes that the College will offer the course next fall to the whole incoming class.

The addition of a course covering several scientific disciplines to the Core Curriculum would help non-science majors become more conversant with major scientific paradigms and with sophisticated modes of quantitative reasoning. And students who go on to major in scientific disciplines would enter their specialty with a broader understanding of how that specialization relates to other scientific disciplines and to the field of science at large.

"While it is important to have specialized knowledge to succeed in the modern world, students need to be able to move around among areas of specialization, to think across frames of reference, to adapt acquired forms of expertise to new and changing circumstances," said Quigley. "There is an old joke about a specialized scholar spending a lifetime knowing more and more about less and less, while someone committed only to general education can end up knowing less and less about more and more."

Being conversant with these related tenets of intellectual inquiry also enables students and professors to participate in the rigorous sharing of divergent points of view - the hallmark of a Columbia undergraduate education.

"The formative intellectual experience of Columbia College students today continues to be one of intellectual exchange and competing voices in small seminars," said Quigley. "People change each other's minds. Speaking up is a way of exploring different viewpoints on different topics. Students develop their own voices as instruments of inquiry. They learn how to be independent minded, to develop informed opinions, and just as important, they learn how to listen."

So how does Quigley keep his finger on the pulse of the College? "I used to think I needed to have large forums to talk to lots of people at once," said Quigley. "Now I have found the best way is to get to know people individually and in smaller groups." True to his word, Quigley readily accepts invitations to student events and hosts regular breakfasts and lunches with student groups to talk about their experience at the College.

Dean Quigley recently had lunch with students from the Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program, COOP, a student-led program for incoming first-year students to get to know each other through outdoor activities before the New Student Orientation Program begins. 

"Dean Quigley has been not only aware of, but very active in his support of the Columbia Outdoor Orientation Program," said David Keck, CC'04. "As we work to improve what we see as an indispensable aspect of student development and orientation, it is extremely gratifying to feel the administration's presence so strongly. It is not often that one has the opportunity to freely bounce ideas back and forth with someone so receptive, inquisitive, and sincerely interested in what we are trying to accomplish. Quigley's relationship with COOP is based upon a common interest: the well-being of a very dynamic student body. That is very comforting."

"As the University celebrates its 250th anniversary it is important to take stock of where the institution has been and where it is going," said Quigley. "The 250th anniversary celebration brings to mind the rich history of the institution, the recognition that this history has been one of continuity and change, and that the challenge going forward is to use history as an informative guide, but without necessarily letting it govern the future direction of the University."