Record Turnout Celebrates 50 Years of General Studies

Benacerraf, a Nobel laureate in medicine and recipient of 13 honorary degrees, told the audience that GS was the place where he found not only intellectual freedom but his lifelong love, because he met his wife, a Barnard student, through a campus theatrical production he directed. McFadden, the renowned designer, credited her recent tribute as the "anthropologist of Seventh Avenue" to the sociology courses she took at Columbia.

Twice "booted out" of Princeton before coming to GS, R.W. Apple, the Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Times, recounted classes with John Hohenberg, Jacques Barzun, Lionel Trilling, and Richard Hofstadter, while the famed chef, Jacques Pépin, recalled how the decade he spent at GS working toward his bachelor's degree was "probably the greatest time of my life."

Finally, Boris Kobrinskiy, who was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1991 because of antisemitic threats, pledged to use his GS education in his chosen profession, medicine. Kobrinskiy finished his speech, and rounded out the evening, with a promise to "come back and report to you favorably about this at the School's 100th anniversary gala dinner."

While GS has meant a lot to the five honorees, it has meant just as much to its more than 10,000 alumni, who, as President George Rupp reminded the audience, are part of Columbia's longstanding commitment to the education of nontraditional students. In a tribute to the School, the President recalled that the origins of GS go back all the way to 1830, when President Duer created the first liberal arts course of study for nontraditional students.

Others honored during the evening's ceremonies were Professors Augustus Puleo and Deborah Steiner, who received the Philip and Ruth Hettleman awards for Junior faculty; Professor Fritz Stern, who received the Bancroft Award for the most distinguished retiring professor; Barbara Gimbel, who was thanked for her 25 years of service to the School; and Dean Gillian Lindt, who was thanked for all her labors on behalf of GS.