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AROUND THE QUADS
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
COLUMBIA COLLEGE TODAY
AROUND THE QUADS
ALUMNI IN THE NEWS
n Jonathan Lavine ’88 received the 2012
Distinguished Community Service Award
from the Anti-Defamation League at a dinner
in Boston on December
5. The award is the highest
honor bestowed by the ADL
in New England. Lavine, a
University trustee who is
managing partner and chief
investment officer of Sankaty
Advisors, was honored for his
“civic leadership and influence
to affect positive change
in our community,” according
to an ADL statement.
“It is fitting that we commemorate
ADL’s centennial in New England
by honoring Jonathan Lavine, who
embodies the very principles that have
defined ADL since 1913,” said ADL National
Director Abraham H. Foxman. “He
is a champion for those who need support,
and for those who may be bullied or
discriminated against.”
n Jennifer Medbery ’06 was listed
among the winners of Marie Claire’s third
annual “Women on Top Awards” in
October, honoring “the up-and-comers
leading thought-revolutions, creating
businesses and making names for themselves
in fields from the military to the
arts,” according to the magazine. Medbery
is the founder and CEO of Kickboard,
an educational software company
that captures and analyzes students’ academic
progress, skills and weaknesses
and which was used by 150 schools in 15
states last fall. “In 2009, I was working
at a high school in New Orleans, but I
didn’t have a way of tracking students’
grades, learning habits, behavior and
family contacts, so I sat at my computer
and built Kickboard that summer,” said
Medbery. (See CCT, Summer 2012.)
n Tony Kushner ’78 was
nominated for the Academy
Award for Best Adapted
Screenplay for Lincoln, which
stars Daniel Day-Lewis and
was directed by Steven Spielberg.
Although the Oscar
went to Chris Terrio for Argo,
Kushner won the Critics’
Choice Movie Award for Best
Adapted Screenplay and was
honored by the National Society
of Film Critics and the
New York Film Critics Circle,
Jonathan Lavine ’88
Tony Kushner ’78 delivered
the 2004 Class
Day address.
PHOTO: EILEEN BARROSO
among others, for Best Screenplay. Kushner
— who co-wrote the screenplay for
Spielberg’s 2005 film Munich — won the
1993 Pulitzer Prize in Drama
for his two-part play, Angels
in America: A Gay Fantasia
on National Themes, as well
as Tony Awards in 1993 for
its first part, Millennium Approaches,
and in 1994 for its
second, Perestroika.
n Stephen Sagner ’88 has
become the co-president and
chief strategy officer of College
Summit, a college and career
readiness organization. Sagner, a longtime
nonprofit executive, formerly was
s.v.p., foundation and corporate relations,
at Local Initiatives Support Corp. College
Summit works with approximately
50,000 students
at 180 high schools across the
country to help them complete
high school and prepare
them for success in college. “I
cannot think of a better place
for me to have a positive impact
on the economic future
of our kids, their families and
communities than with this
extraordinary organization,”
said Sagner.
n Ben Jealous ’94, president
and CEO of the NAACP since 2008,
was listed on Fortune’s “2012 40 Under
40” list in November. Under Jealous, a
fifth-generation NAACP member and its
youngest president, the organization’s
revenue has grown 10 percent annually
and its donor base had grown nearly
tenfold. With black unemployment at
record highs, Jealous has expanded the
NAACP’s programs to include economic
literacy training as well as
taking education, health and
environmental justice initiatives
national.
n Frances Bodomo ’10’s
short film, Boneshaker, was
shown at the 2013 Sundance
Film Festival in Park City,
Utah, in January. Boneshaker,
which stars 2013 Academy
Award nominee Quvenzhané
Wallis, was one of
65 short films that were selected
from more than 8,000
Katori Hall ’03
PHOTO: XANTHE ELBRICK
submissions, organizers said.
Also at Sundance: Valentine Road, on
which Yana Gorskaya ’96 was consulting
editor, competed in the U.S. Documentary
category, and Daniel Radcliffe, of “Harry
Potter” fame, starred as Allen Ginsberg
’48 in Kill Your Darlings, a film about the
birth of the Beats and the killing of David
Kammerer that was directed by John
Krokidas.
n Katori Hall ’03 was a finalist for the
inaugural Edward M. Kennedy Prize for
Drama Inspired by American History
for her play Hurt Village, which was produced
by the Signature Theatre Company
in New York. The winners were Dan
O’Brien for The Body of an American and
Robert Schenkkan for All the Way.
The prize, which carries an award of
$100,000 and was announced
on February 22, is given to
a new play or musical that
“enlists theater’s power to
explore the past of the United
States, to participate meaningfully
in the great issues of
our day through the public
conversation, grounded in
historical understanding, that
is essential to the functioning
of a democracy.”
For more about the prize, go
to kennedyprize.columbia.edu.
n Jason Griffith ’92 now is the global
head of trading at Sanford C. Bernstein,
reporting to Chairman/CEO Robert van
Brugge. “As a 20-year industry veteran,
Jason brings extensive experience in global
equities and will play an integral role in
helping us to better serve our clients,” said
van Brugge. Griffith was most recently at
Jefferies & Co., where he was global head
of equities, responsible for overseeing cash
and electronic trading, equity derivatives,
convertibles and prime brokerage as well
as sales and research. Prior to Jefferies,
Griffith was the global head of the hedge
fund investors group and equity-linked
solutions at Bank of America, and later at
Societe Generale.
n Alan Press ’56, s.v.p. and past CEO
of the Wealth Advisory Group, a general
agency of the Guardian Life Insurance
Co. of America, was awarded the
Huebner Gold Medal by The American
College of Financial Services, its highest
honor. The award, presented annually
Alan Press ’56 and his wife, Hanna
since 1975, recognizes individuals whose
support of the college and its programs
and whose dedication to education and
professionalism have been of particular
meaning to the mission and progress of
the institution. Press joined Guardian in
1956 and has more than 55 years of experience
in financial services.
n Beau Willimon ’99, whose play Farragut
North was made into the 2011 movie The
Ides of March starring George Clooney and
Ryan Gosling, has written another political
drama: an American remake of the 1990
British mini-series House of Cards. Directed
by David Fincher, the series stars Kevin
Spacey as an ambitious Washington politician
who trades secrets with an equally
Barolini, Lansing Win MLA Award
Teodolinda Barolini ’78 GSAS, the
Lorenzo Da Ponte Professor of Italian
and chair of the Department of
Italian, and Richard Lansing ’65, professor
of Italian studies and comparative literature
at Brandeis, received the Modern
Language Association of America’s (MLA)
15th annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione
Publication Award for a Manuscript in
Italian Literary Studies for their work,
“Dante’s Lyrics: Poems of Youth and
the Vita Nuova.” The award is one of 15
that was presented during the association’s
annual convention in January.
Barolini is the author of Dante’s Poets:
Textuality and Truth in the ‘Comedy’, which
received the MLA’s Howard R. Marraro
Prize and the Medieval Academy of
America’s John Nicholas Brown Prize;
The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing
Dante; and Dante and the Origins of Italian
ambitious reporter, played by Kate Mara.
It’s the first major original programming
effort for Netflix, the video streaming and
DVD-by-mail giant, which broke the mold
by releasing all 13 episodes of the show’s
first season at one time, on February 1.
“It’s fully in the audience’s hands to decide
what their own experience is, the same
way that you read a novel,” Willimon said.
“You can read Anna Karenina in two days,
or you can read it over a year. And I think
that’s better because it personalizes the
experience.”
Alex Sachare ’71
DEAN’S DAY • SATURDAY, JUNE 1, 2013 • NEW YORK CITY
Columbia College and the Columbia College Alumni Association are proud to
sponsor Dean’s Day 2013. Scheduled for Saturday, June 1, the program provides the
opportunity for alumni and parents to participate in thought-provoking lectures
and discussions with some of Columbia’s finest faculty and prominent alumni.
We are proud to announce the Public Intellectual Lectures and Mini-Core
Courses will build on last year’s concept of innovation by exploring the “Wonders
of Discovery.” Presenters will discuss the latest thought-provoking research and
understandings, demonstrating how discoveries in fields both old and new have
changed our historical perspective. These stimulating discussions promise a day of
intellectual discourse, which is the cornerstone of the Columbia academic tradition.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
8:00 a.m. Registration Opens — Alfred Lerner Hall
8:30–10:15 a.m. Dean’s Continental Breakfast
with Opening Address by James J. Valentini,
Dean, Columbia College and Vice President,
Undergraduate Education
8:30 a.m. Camp Columbia, ages 3–17
10:30–11:45 a.m. Public Intellectual Lectures
Noon–1:30 p.m.
Lunch
2:00–3:30 p.m. Mini-Core Courses
3:30–5:00 p.m. Affinity Receptions
Literary Culture, which won the Premio
Flaiano di Italianistica. She is the editor of
Dante’s Rime giovanili e della ‘Vita Nuova’
and is working on the second volume of
her commentary to Dante’s lyric poems
for the Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli.
Lansing earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. from
UC Berkeley and is the editor of The Dante
Encyclopedia (a Choice Outstanding Book for
2000) and Dante: The Critical Complex; the
associate editor of Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia;
and author of From Image to Idea:
A Study of the Simile in Dante’s Commedia.
The MLA and its 30,000 members in
100 countries work to strengthen the
study and teaching of languages and literature.
Founded in 1883, the MLA provides
opportunities for its members to share
their scholarly findings and teaching experiences
with colleagues and to discuss
trends in the academy.
SPRING 2013
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REGISTER TODAY! • COLLEGE.COLUMBIA.EDU/DEANSDAY