More than 100 guests gathered to celebrate the induction of 49 students into the Honor Society of the School of General Studies at its 18th Annual Induction Ceremony on Tuesday, April 8, 2014 in the Presidential Ballroom of the Faculty House. The Honor Society, created in 1997 to celebrate the academic achievement of exceptional GS scholars, is open to juniors or seniors with 3.8 GPA or above who have completed at least 30 credits at Columbia University.
The ceremony opened with a welcome from Dean Peter J. Awn who shared that fewer than 5 percent of GS students are inducted into the Honor Society.
The keynote address at this year's ceremony was delivered by GS alumnus Amittai Falcon Aviram '06GS '78CC, a senior software engineer at Mathworks, Inc, who, in addition to his two undergraduate degrees from Columbia, holds two doctoral degrees, in literature and computer science, from Yale University. His speech, “A World of General Studies,” addressed the increasing degrees of specialization in our world, when what we truly need is more intellectual generality, more connections between the specializations, and that building those connections is continually needed throughout our lives.
"Honors students at Columbia University School of General Studies are in an ideal position to take on that challenge," Aviram said.
The chief aim of the Honor Society is to cultivate interaction among current students committed to intellectual discovery and the faculty who enjoy teaching them. Alumni continue to participate in Society activities after graduating.
2014 GS Honor Society Inductees
