Robert Belknap Core Faculty Fellows Fund

Though more than four decades have passed since he arrived at the College, Jay Lindsey CC’75 continues to cherish the guidance he received from his first adviser, Robert Belknap. One of the world’s foremost experts on Dostoyevsky, Belknap, who taught Lit Hum for 50 years passed away in March 2014 at 84 with the title Professor Emeritus of Russian in the Department of Slavic Languages.

Belknap dispensed advice that went beyond academics, encouraging his advisee to explore New York City and be physically active. “He added quite a bit to my academic understanding,” says Lindsey of his discussions with Belknap about Dostoyevsky, noting, “but I would say that his influence on me was more about being a complete person, rather than just being a major in some area.”

In 1980, Belknap won the Mark Van Doren Award, awarded annually since 1962 by the Academic Awards Committee of the Columbia College Student Council “in recognition of a faculty member’s humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership.” He also was presented a Society of Columbia Graduates Great Teacher Award in 2010.

Over the course of his Columbia career, Belknap held many leadership roles, including chair of the Department of Slavic Languages, director of the Russian (now Harriman) Institute, acting dean of Columbia College and chair of Literature Humanities.

When Lindsey decided to honor Belknap by creating the Robert Belknap Core Faculty Fellows Fund, he had a moment’s pause as to whether his mentor remembered him after almost 40 years – but was pleasantly surprised to find that he did.

“I realized that Bob never forgot anything; he had one of the more phenomenal memories that you can imagine– for example, he could quote spontaneously from multiple works of literature practically at any time,” says Lindsey.

He adds, “One of the gratifying things about having made this gift was that we were able to get it going while Bob was alive. To me, it was really important that Bob understood that this was being done in his name and in recognition of all his wonderful contributions to the College and to his students.”

Lindsey, who majored in architecture at the College and earned an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management in 1982, is president of Thomas International Publishing Co., a New York City-based publisher of business magazines, websites and databases internationally. He credits the Core with helping make him a well-rounded individual and is grateful to the College for giving him the opportunity to engage with classic texts.

“It is quite likely that if I had gone to a college where those great works were not a central part of the curriculum, I would have never been exposed to many of them,” he says.

Given his affinity for the Core and his fond memories of Belknap, it’s fitting that Lindsey’s $1 million gift to the College supports Core Faculty Fellowships, which help to build a cohort of gifted post-doctoral lecturers dedicated to the tradition of teaching in the Core.

The current Robert Belknap Core Faculty Fellow, Steve Baker GS’03, GSAS’13, specializes in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature and teaches two sections of Lit Hum each year.

“I trace that [literary] trajectory up to the moment in which the classics are being reborn,” says Baker of his own work, adding, “Teaching Lit Hum was an amazing opportunity to deepen that [understanding].”

For Baker, who has translated a range of texts from Italian to English, one of the most fulfilling challenges of teaching Lit Hum is developing approaches that resonate with students who have diverse academic interests. “I take pride in finding ways to get the whole group passionate about these great books and timeless ideas,” he says.

Adds Baker, “I’m very grateful that Columbia allows young academics like me to have this priceless teaching experience. I would teach Lit Hum forever if they let me.”