Joel Klein ’67, Chancellor of New York City’s Department of Education, delivered the keynote address at Columbia College’s 2008 Class Day on May 19, urging the graduating seniors to embrace the challenges they will face in their careers. “Hard as it may be, you’ve got to get outside your current comfort zone sooner or later, and if you want my advice, sooner is better,” Klein told members of the Class of 2008. “We are all so programmed, so eager to know what we are expected to do next, that all too often we don’t realize that we are the architects of our own destiny. Rejoice in that knowledge. It’s truly empowering.”

Once again, applications to the College are up and the selectivity rate is down as the Class of 2012 continues a trend that has been going on for more than a decade. Applications rose by 5.7 percent, to 19,116, for roughly 1,050 places in the Class of 2012. The College’s overall admit rate, or selectivity, was 8.68 percent.

Frontiers of Science, the newest component of the College’s Core Curriculum, has been awarded a $200,000 grant from The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations.

The historical profession lost a giant with the passing of John A. Garraty, the Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University. The author and editor of numerous American history books, Garraty was one of the most prolific historians of his generation. I worked as his last research assistant, and I once asked him the secret of his prolificness, as if expecting him to reveal some secret formula or regimen. In addition to his writing, he had a family, taught classes, vacationed at a Paris apartment and even ran the New York City marathon. Amidst all this activity, he still wrote copiously. “Where do you find the time?” I asked.