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Barnard
Honors Four Retiring Professors
New York,
NY, May 14, 2003—Four retiring Barnard professors—with
over 100 years of collective service—were saluted at
the College's annual Spring Party on May 12, 2003. Associate
Provost Flora Davidson delivered remarks honoring Philip V.
Ammirato, Professor of Biology, Irene Bloom, Ann Whitney Olin
Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Culture, Elizabeth Dalton,
Professor of English, and Richard Friedberg, Professor of
Physics.
Philip V. Ammirato began at Barnard in 1974. In 1980, Ammirato
was the recipient of The Emily Gregory Award for Distinguished
Teaching and Service, and the Commendation for Excellence
in Teaching in 2002. In addition to teaching, Ammirato has
conducted significant research on plant embryonic development.
Davidson noted that "Recognition of his professional
standing in his field is clear from his leadership roles in
societies including the Torrey Botanical Club, the Botanical
Society of American and the American Society of Plant Physiologists.
His leadership skills on campus are reflected in, among other
things, the beautiful and highly functional new Arthur Ross
Greenhouse."
A colleague in the Biology department, Professor Jeanne Poindexter,
composed an ode to Ammirato entitled "Phil Emeritus,"
which is sung to the tune of "Modern Major General"
from The Pirates of Penzance. Here's a sample:
In so many of the tasks placed on our platters,
Phil's been our diachronic guide on stuff that matters
We will miss his wise and soothing contributions to our chatters.
Irene Bloom joined the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern
Cultures at Barnard in 1989, after eight years with the American
Field Service. Bloom has co-edited many books including Sources
of Chinese Tradition and Eastern Canons: Approaches to the
Asian Classics; additionally, she has served as a member
of the editorial board of the journal Philosophy East and
West, and as member and chair of the China and Inner Asia
Council of the Association for Asian Studies. Davidson commended
Bloom on her "thoughtfulness, imagination, and determination,"
and lauded her as a "stalwart supporter of the academic
standards of Barnard."
IIn addition to teaching since 1965, Elizabeth Dalton is the
author of Unconscious Structure in "The Idiot,"
a psychoanalytic study of the Dostoevsky novel. She has published
fiction and criticism in The New Yorker, Partisan Review,
Commentary, and the New York Times Book Review.
She has served as coordinator of writing prizes from 1968
to 1989, and as a judge for the Barnard College Essay Contest
"A Woman I Admire" for six of the contest’s
twelve years. Dalton became a full professor in 1992 and chair
of the English department in 1994. Davidson noted that Dalton
has been called "one of our most sought-after teachers"
and "a gifted and elegant writer" by her colleagues
in the English department. Her courses have included Modern
Drama, the 18th and 19th Century Novel, Post-modern Literature
and seminars on literature and psychoanalysis, on tragedy,
and on modernism.
Richard Friedberg has chaired the Physics Department for close
to 20 years, and pursued research in mathematical and computational
problems arising within physics. He is the author of "An
Adventurer's Guide to Number Theory," an introduction
to and an historical overview of number theory, including
the work of Pythagoras, Euclid, and others. Davidson commented
that "one of his recent personnel forms ends with his
saying "I haven't started setting the world on fire yet,
but I'm working on it." This characteristically understated
and modest statement belies the very substantial contributions
Richard has made to Barnard, Columbia and the mathematical
community."
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