Alan Brinkley Appointed Provost

Alan Brinkley Appointed Provost

April 1, 2003

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger today announced the appointment of Alan Brinkley as Provost, effective July 1, 2003.

"Throughout his career, Alan Brinkley has shown an unwavering commitment to academic excellence," President Bollinger said. "He is one of the most distinguished historians in the United States and a superb teacher. I am very pleased that Columbia will have a person with so many outstanding qualities serving as Provost."

Brinkley, who has taught at Columbia since 1991, is the Allan Nevins Professor of History. An eminent scholar of twentieth-century United States history, he has chaired the Department of History since 2000.

Brinkley has been a prolific writer and published numerous works, including, "Voices of Protest: Huey Long"; "Father Coughlin and the Great Depression," which won the 1983 National Book Award; "The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People"; "The End of Reform; New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War," and "Liberalism and its Discontents." He is presently writing a biography of Henry R. Luce.

In addition, Brinkley is a frequent commentator on current events, government policy, and economic and social trends. His essays, articles and reviews have appeared in scholarly journals and periodicals such as Newsweek, The New York Times Book Review, The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement and The London Review of Books.

Before joining Columbia, Brinkley taught at M.I.T., Harvard and the City University of New York Graduate School. He has received fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the National Humanities Center, the Media Studies Center, Russell Sage Foundation and others. While at Harvard, he was the recipient of the Joseph R. Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize.

Brinkley is chairman of the board of trustees of the Century Foundation (formerly the Twentieth Century Fund), a member of the editorial board of The American Prospect, a member of the board of directors of the New York Council for the Humanities and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1998-99, he was the Harmsworth Professor of American History at Oxford University. He received his A.B. from Princeton and his Ph.D from Harvard.