Archives — 2005
October 26, 2005 $2 Million Gift to School of the Arts Funds Visual Arts Fellowships The School of the Arts has announced a $2 million gift to endow the Andrew Fisher Fellowship Fund to support distinction in the visual artsThe Fund will provide fellowships to graduate students enrolled in the school’s master of fine arts program who display excellence in their discipline. The gift from Emily Fisher Landau and Richard L. Fisher, LAW’60, commemorates Andrew Fisher, their grandson and son respectively, who died at the age of 22 in a car accident in 2003.
The Graduate School of Journalism announced the launch of a program to provide advanced management training to executives in news organizations. The new Punch Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program is named in honor of Arthur Ochs “Punch” Sulzberger, the retired publisher of The New York Times. Sulzberger’s sisters have pledged $4 million to the journalism school to endow the program, which will begin in the 2006–07 academic year.
Columbia University announced an $18 million gift from Gary Comer and the Comer Science and Education Foundation in support of research at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. The gift, which will enable construction of a state-of-the-art geochemistry research building on the Observatory’s 157-acre campus in Palisades, New York, reflects the commitment of Gary Comer, founder of the Lands End clothing-catalogue company and an avid open ocean sailor, to efforts that deepen understanding of the effect of human activity on the environment. It is one of the largest donations ever received by Lamont-Doherty, a research complex known throughout the world as the home of breakthrough discoveries in scientific understanding of the Earth, from its core to its atmosphere.
President Lee C. Bollinger has announced that Columbia Trustee Gerry Lenfest (Law ’58) has donated $12 million to the University to establish a new category of awards honoring exceptional teaching in the Arts and Sciences.
Columbia University Libraries will receive $1.1 million over three years from The Atlantic Philanthropies (AP) to create an oral history archive of the organization, a group of Bermuda-based charitable foundations. The Atlantic Philanthropies Oral History Project will give researchers and scholars the opportunity to explore and learn about the decision-making process, the outcomes of grant-funded programs, and the international philanthropic and business practices of AP and its founder, Charles F. Feeney.
President Lee C. Bollinger has announced the establishment of the Kraft Family Fund for Interfaith and Intercultural Awareness. The fund will be used to support innovative programming initiated by students and the University that fosters open debate and civil discourse on a wide range of topics, including issues of race, religion, and culture. The $1 million fund was created through a $500,000 gift from Trustee Emeritus Robert Kraft, CC’63, and his wife, Myra Kraft, and a matching contribution from the University.
Dan Baker CC’76
Executive Director of Donor Relations
dpb21@columbia.edu
475 Riverside Drive
New York, NY 10115
(212) 870-2406
