University Senate                                                                                 

Proposed: May 1, 2009

Adopted: May 1, 2009

RESOLUTION TO HONOR

PAUL DUBY FOR HIS SENATE SERVICE

WHEREAS      Paul Duby, after arriving at Columbia from Belgium as a graduate student in engineering in the Henry Krumb School of Mines in August 1958, completed his doctorate in 1962, got tenure in 1968, and fetched up in the University Senate in 1983; and

WHEREAS      he immediately joined Faculty Affairs, immersing himself in efforts to protect faculty interests by revising the Columbia patents policy and defending fringe benefits, and has stayed on that committee since, hearing more than 100 faculty grievances over the years; and

WHEREAS      in 1984, as Faculty Affairs chair, he presented the Miller Report, which had to resort to measuring administrative growth by counting heads in Columbia phonebooks; and later wrote to Trustee chairman Samuel Higginbotham requesting more communication between Senators and Trustees, an initiative that bore fruit in the 1987 agreement, signed by Secretary Marion Jemmott, that still governs Senate-Trustee ties; and

WHEREAS      Sen. Duby also joined the Senate Executive Committee a quarter-century ago, in 1984, during Michael Sovern’s presidency, and has stayed on, serving as chair for 18 years, including the last 12; appealing to the Trustees in 1990 in a letter to save the Library School, without success; and serving on the presidential search committees that found George Rupp in 1993 and Lee Bollinger in 2001; and

WHEREAS     Sen. Duby has also served on the Budget Review Committee since 1987—a mere 22 years—producing the lucid Resolution Seeking Greater Budget Transparency of December 2001, which called for a clear and separate presentation of licensing and other revenues that were untrackable in University budget documents of the time; and

WHEREAS      he steadfastly supported the work of his current Exec co-chair Sharyn O’Halloran in her pathbreaking 2002 report on the functioning and cost of Fathom.com, the University’s for-profit venture to provide internet courses online; and

WHEREAS      Sen. Duby’s temperament inclines to a kind of indirection—indeed, a sideways, digressive, sometimes even exasperating motion—in the search for answers or agreement, which he nonetheless consistently finds, then explains in a few plain words; and

WHEREAS      Sen. Duby throughout his time here has maintained the same courtly manners in debate with senators of all constituencies (whether the civility was reciprocated or not), but battled tenaciously on issues he considered fundamental;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED       that the Senate honor Paul Duby for his 26 years of Senate service, and the devotion to the University that they express.

Proponent: The University Senate