Dr. Harmen Bussemaker Receives the Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award

Associate Professor Harmen Bussemaker is the faculty honoree from the Department of Biological Sciences for 2009-2010.

The Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award was created in 2005 when Columbia Trustee Gerry Lenfest '58LAW donated $12 million to the University to establish a new category of awards honoring exceptional teaching in the Arts and Sciences.  The awards are given annually to faculty of unusual merit across a range of professorial activities — including scholarship, University citizenship, and professional involvement — with a primary emphasis on the instruction and mentoring of undergraduate and graduate students. source

Special article from the Record.

"I feel very fortunate to be a professor at a top research university such as Columbia. It is one of the most luxurious jobs I can imagine. We can freely pursue our curiosity, surrounded by clever and hard-working people – students and colleagues alike – who share our inclination to ask nosy questions and never be fully satisfied with the answer. We selfishly guard our time; because too much distraction makes it impossible to be creative and make real progress. At the same time, we profit immensely from the institutions that educate our lab members, the agencies that fund our research, the journals that publish our findings, the conferences that keep us current, and so on. With this comes a responsibility to spend one’s time generously on teaching and mentoring, reviewing, and other service to the scientific community. I am deeply grateful to Gerry Lenfest, whose generosity has created an award that recognizes all-around scholarship in the face of these competing demands on our time – and honored to be a recipient. "