Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next

Around the Quads

ALUMNI NEWS

Medalist

Gary Rachelefsky ’63, a member of the Los Angeles Alumni Representative Committee for the past 25 years and its chair for the past 12, was one of 11 distinguished University graduates who received Alumni Medals from the Columbia University Alumni Federation. Most were presented at a Commencement Day luncheon, but Rachelefsky chose to receive his medal at his 40th reunion, an event he helped organize.

Rachelefsky is clinical professor and associate director of the allergy-immunology training program at UCLA medical school and also maintains a private practice.

Stage

In June, Ethan McSweeney ’93 directed a new version of Aeschylus’ The Persians, written by Ellen McLaughlin and staged by the National Actors Theater at Pace University in New York. The Persians, written in 470 B.C.E., is the earliest surviving play in Western literature and the only existing account of the Persian Wars composed by an eyewitness — Aeschylus was an Athenian solider who fought against the Persians.

Pen

Donald Keene ’42, a distinguished professor of Japanese at Columbia, was awarded the Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation — a career achievement award — by PEN, a fellowship of writers, at the PEN Literary Awards at Lincoln Center on May 20. David Lehman ’70, an accomplished poet, author and contributor to CCT, was asked to compose the citation, which was engraved on the back of the medal. Lehman said, “Eschewing a conventional prose testimonial, I decided to use a Japanese verse form that I learned about from Professor Keene. These are linked ‘tankas,’ a form combining a haiku stanza with a two-line stanza, with strict syllabic requirements.”

To Donald Keene we
owe much of what we know of
Japan’s verse and prose.

In shadow of rising sun
stood the tree unobserved.

Then Keene could be heard:
in accents lucid and keen
he rendered the scene.

And the bare branch of winter
burst into cherry blossom.

Saltzman

Columbia’s War and Peace Institute has been renamed in honor of devoted alumnus and diplomat Arnold A. Saltzman ’36. The new Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies recognized its namesake for his achievements in international diplomacy and his family’s longtime support of Columbia. An inauguration was held on March 31. The University also announced two new professorships that are intended to reflect the institute’s renewed focus on connecting scholarship and practice. The academic holding the first chair, Richard K. Betts, the institute’s director, will be called the Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies. The second new professorship will allow practitioners to teach as visiting professors and conduct research.

The institute will continue to be based in the School of International and Public Affairs.

Saltzman has served the country under five presidents and has held and fulfilled a range of diplomatic assignments in Eastern Europe, Latin America and in the States. He served as a naval officer during World War II and received the Presidential Commendation for his work on the International Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Saltzman has served as chairman of the Columbia College Board of Overseers, the Columbia College Fund and the John Jay Associates. He is a co-founder of the Double Discovery Program, which helps New York City high school students to graduate and enter college.

Dwight D. Eisenhower established the institute more than 50 years ago when he was president of Columbia to promote a greater understanding of the “disastrous consequences of war upon man’s spiritual, intellectual and material progress.” The renamed institute will pursue a more far-reaching mandate by fostering new dialogue between academics and policy makers.

Dennehy Wins Second Tony

Brian Dennehy '60

Brian Dennehy '60 won a 2003 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as miserly actor/ patriarch James Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night. The show, which runs about four hours, looks at the Tyrone family's downward spiral from drugs, illness and dysfunction, and, according to Playbill, “explores the self-delusions and lack of communication that chain the Tyrones together and threaten to destroy them.” The Broadway version of Long Day's Journey allowed Dennehy to reprise the role he played in the show's Chicago run during 2001-02.

This is Dennehy's second Tony: In 1999, he won the award for his performance as Willy Loman in the 50th anniversary production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Dennehy, who also has had myriad roles in films and on television, was the subject of CCT's Spring 1999 cover story. He was a history major and played football while at the College.

Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next