The Academic Awards Committee of the Columbia College Student Council is responsible for selecting the winners of the following awards:

The Lionel Trilling Book Award

The Lionel Trilling Book Award is given to a member of Columbia’s faculty whose book was published in the previous year and upholds a level of excellence commensurate with the work of Lionel Trilling CC’25, GSAS’38. The award was established in 1976 in honor of Professor Trilling, a gifted and dedicated teacher who was deeply committed to undergraduate education, as well as a public intellectual known nationally for his scholarship and literary criticism, which appealed to a wide-audience.

The Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching

The Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching has been awarded each year since 1962 in recognition of a faculty member’s humanity, devotion to truth and inspiring leadership. The award was established in honor of Mark Van Doren GSAS’21, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, novelist, playwright, critic, editor and biographer, as well as a renowned scholar and legendary teacher who inspired generations of Columbia students.

The 2016 winners are:

Lionel Trilling Book Award:  Susan Pedersen, the Gouverneur Morris Professor of History, for her book The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire.

Mark Van Doren Award for Teaching: Liza Knapp GSAS’85, associate professor of Slavic languages, for “Humanity, Devotion to Truth and Inspiring Leadership.”

Read the press release here.