“I did not want Columbia to feel as if it was moving away from its community,” he says.
Bollinger’s next task is to assist the New York City Department of Education with the construction of a public high school in Upper Manhattan that would focus on math, science and engineering. He wants to draw a significant number of the school’s students from Harlem.
Despite his accomplishments, he has been the subject of criticism, particularly from some faculty members, who claim that his leadership style is very much top-down. Bollinger also faced fierce resistance from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism after he suspended the search for a new dean in 2003. He instead formed a committee to re-evaluate the school’s core mission, which many had derided for being too centered on craft at the expense of theory. Following an uprising by students, alumni and faculty, an overhaul of the program was dropped and a new master of arts program was created. Nicholas Lehmann, a former writer for the New Yorker, was named dean in 2004.
Although his name has been floated as a candidate for the Harvard University presidency, Bollinger says he still has much work to do at Columbia and in the surrounding community.
“I love it here,” he says. “Columbia has to be an advocate for the surrounding area and an asset for the community.”
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
