Jacques Barzun: Celebrated on approach of his 100th birthday
There are Columbia professors, and there are Columbia institutions. Jacques Barzun is the latter. Undergraduate, provost, and everything in between, professor Barzun fundamentally redefined the Columbia experience through a half-century of dedicated service. Western, worldly, and undeniably brilliant, Barzun faithfully embodies the University’s greatness. As we approach his 100th birthday, a personal centennial, it is worth reflecting on his many accomplishments—for his is truly a Columbian life.
Born in Creteil, France and raised among Paris’ avant-garde intellectuals, Barzun gave his first lesson at just nine years old in the midst of the First World War. As fate would have it, he has yet to stop. Sent first by his father to preparatory school in the United States, Barzun entered Columbia College in the mid-1920s. Matriculating at the top of his class (’27), Barzun began to teach formally while pursuing his Ph.D. (’32). This relationship lasted until 1955 when the University promoted him first to dean and later to provost. For the 13 long years until his return as University Professor in 1968, a position he held until his retirement in 1975, Barzun remained a central figure in the Columbia administration. His intellectual pursuits and academic record proved invaluable for an administrator dealing with a university in a time of great fluctuation.
A naturally gifted writer, Barzun muses on all subjects from art and music to what might quite possibly be the most challenging of all, writing itself. But never has he failed to include his trademark charm, lucidity, and insight. As a scholar, the young Columbian broke ground as the vanguard of an emerging new discipline, cultural history. The author of well over 20 books, Barzun shaped and guided the nascent field to popular acceptance and use. In short, he is just as much an academic giant beyond Columbia’s gates as he is within....
Read entire article at Columbia Spectator
Born in Creteil, France and raised among Paris’ avant-garde intellectuals, Barzun gave his first lesson at just nine years old in the midst of the First World War. As fate would have it, he has yet to stop. Sent first by his father to preparatory school in the United States, Barzun entered Columbia College in the mid-1920s. Matriculating at the top of his class (’27), Barzun began to teach formally while pursuing his Ph.D. (’32). This relationship lasted until 1955 when the University promoted him first to dean and later to provost. For the 13 long years until his return as University Professor in 1968, a position he held until his retirement in 1975, Barzun remained a central figure in the Columbia administration. His intellectual pursuits and academic record proved invaluable for an administrator dealing with a university in a time of great fluctuation.
A naturally gifted writer, Barzun muses on all subjects from art and music to what might quite possibly be the most challenging of all, writing itself. But never has he failed to include his trademark charm, lucidity, and insight. As a scholar, the young Columbian broke ground as the vanguard of an emerging new discipline, cultural history. The author of well over 20 books, Barzun shaped and guided the nascent field to popular acceptance and use. In short, he is just as much an academic giant beyond Columbia’s gates as he is within....