The Society of Senior Scholars at Columbia University is an
organization of retired professors, most but not all of them Columbia Emerita/i,
who since 1988 have been actively involved in teaching in Columbia’s old and
very famous general education program, usually referred to as The Core. There are currently roughly thirty members of
the Society. Some while ago I was
nominated for membership in the Society, and I have just received word that I
have indeed been elected. I am quite
pleased both by the honor and by the opportunity this will offer for a re-entry
into the Columbia community after some forty-six years.
My re-introduction to Columbia will be a public lecture
early next Fall, which I have tentatively titled “What Good is a Liberal
Education? A Radical Response.” After that, we shall see how things develop.
I figure this should keep me busy at least until I am
ninety, after which perhaps I will slow down a bit.
Congratulations!
ReplyDeleteWill you be actively involved in teaching the Core curriculum?
I went through the program almost 55 years ago. Some of the teachers were good, but most didn't have a broad enough cultural background to teach outside their narrow speciality as was necessary for a program in general Western (very Western) culture. I imagine that the program has changed since then. You do seem to have that broad cultural background.
Still, if one actively read the reading (and I didn't always do that), one came
away with a general idea of the ideas and works of the great thinkers and artists of Western cultural history. Even if one didn't, one still ended up with a vague map of Western culture and so in the future one could return to, say, Spinoza (which I didn't read a word of at the time) because one knew more or less where he was located.