In today's paper, Finn Vigeland informs us that Prezbo will garner "Columbia the distinct, if mundane, honor of having the longest-serving Ivy League university president come July 1," since the presidents of Yale and Princeton both plan to step down at the end of the academic year.
"Mundane?" Let's not be too quick with our judgments here. Even apart from Fun Runs and fireside chats, there's got to be some excitement to go along with a long tenure of presidency at Columbia. What exactly? Well, let's trace Columbia's history and look at the men (No women. Sigh.) who have paved the way for Bollinger.
- Samuel Johnson, our first great overseer, completely petrified of smallpox, sucked it up and continued to teach his class of eight "woefully unprepared" boys—that is, until his wife contracted it and he realized that smallpox was probably more powerful than Latin or Greek literature.
- Evidently, Myles Cooper, while successful in setting up the second medical college in the US, more less known for his academics and more for his bar selection and 18th-century partying.
- Barnardians (and all females on campus) owe a lot to Frederick Augustus Porter Barnard. He was the progressive BAMF who insisted that women should have access to equivalent educations as men.
- Seth Low. Yeah, that guy, that building. You got it.
