CUSP Connections

From its inception, the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program has been indebted to a number of friends from different walks of life who have been instrumental in sharing their creative vision and their contacts, enriching the Program both theoretically and practically.  It has been a pleasure to work closely with them at refining the Program’s mission and enhancing its implementation through exposure to new ideas, new people, new problems, and most excitingly, new solutions. Our dialogue has spawned not only semester-long speaker series, but internships and now even mentoring and research opportunities. 

It is our pleasure to formally recognize their contribution to the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program.

  Paola Baccaglini
  Mary Marshall Clark
  Ernest Drucker
  David Finn
  Erica Jong
  Harold O. Levy
  Owen Lewis
  Trish Malloch-Brown
  Jack McGourty
  Arlene Notoro Morgan
  Mary Kelly Persyn
  Peter Scotese
  Bill Wheaton


Paola Baccaglini

Paola Baccaglini is a neuroscientist trained at the University of California, San Diego and Harvard Medical School. She was a faculty member at Northwestern University, moved to Pittsburgh Medical School and then to Padova, Italy, where one of the world’s oldest medical schools is located. Born in Italy, Dr. Baccaglini soon discovered two great passions in life: studying and traveling. Once she moved to the United States in the 1970s, her first passion eventually found its main object in the active research of the basic mechanisms underlying the workings of our nervous system and human behavior. The second passion eventually became the driving force behind her regular commuting between the U.S. and Europe, and her exploration of other societies. Dr. Baccaglini’s particular interest in human behavior and different cultural backgrounds has promoted the acquisition of a significant network of professionals from various fields whom she involves directly in many projects, a personal involvement in a number of medically related projects on both sides of the Atlantic, and a continued support of students who like to explore unusual fields of study.


Mary Marshall Clark

Mary Marshall Clark is the Director of the Columbia University Oral History Research Office. The Office, founded by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Allan Nevins in 1948, is the first university-based organized oral history program and archive in the world. The Oral History Research Office is a leading program for teaching oral history method and theory in the United States and an international center for research and scholarship in the field of oral history. Clark teaches a graduate course on the history, methodology and applications of oral history at Columbia, and directs the annual Columbia University Summer Institute on Oral History, an international seminar. She is a distinguished lecturer for the Organization of American Historians. Clark is past president of the United States Oral History Association, and has served on the Executive Council of the International Oral History Association. With Peter Bearman, the sociologist, she founded “The September 11, 2001 Oral History Narrative and Memory Project,” a longitudinal oral history project through which over 1,000 hours of interviews were taken with eye-witnesses and immigrants and others who suffered in the aftermath of the events in New York City. An essay by Clark on the September 11, 2001 oral history project is available in History and September 11th, published by Temple University Press. Prior to her career at Columbia University, Clark was an oral historian at the New York Times and worked in documentary film. Clark holds two masters degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York City.


Ernest Drucker

Ernest Drucker is a public health researcher who is Director, Division of Public Health and Policy Research, Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, and Professor of Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, where he has directed addiction treatment programs and worked in international health research for thirty-five years. He is a licensed Clinical Psychologist active in drug law reform and human rights. His research examines HIV/AIDS, drug use, and drug policy in the U.S. and abroad. Drucker was the founding director (from 1970 to 1990) of a 1000 patient drug treatment program in the Bronx, and has been an NIH funded researcher of HIV/AIDS and drug addiction for 15 years. He is author of over 100 scientific articles and book chapters, and Editor in Chief of the international journals Addiction Research and Theory, and the new open access Harm Reduction Journal.com. Dr. Drucker also helped to found the International Harm Reduction Association and served as Chairman of Doctors of the World/USA (1993-1997). As a senior Soros Justice Fellow, he is finishing a book on a public health paradigm of mass incarceration in America. Currently, Drucker is a Visiting Professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.  Dr. Drucker is actively involved in mentoring students in the CUSP Experiential Education Program.


David Finn

David Finn has spent more than fifty years as a key executive in the field of public relations and as a widely published author. As co-founder and CEO of Ruder Finn, Inc., one of the largest independent public relations firms in the world, he has been a leader in exploring the ethical and philosophical dimensions of public relations as well as in creating innovative approaches that have enhanced his company’s effectiveness and broadened its contributions. He is also an accomplished photographer of sculpture, a painter and a writer on art, with over 90 books to his credit. Finn was formerly Chairman of the Board of Cedar Crest College, and a member of the board of directors of the Institute for the Future. He is also on the board of the Academy of American Poets; The American Forum for Global Education; The New Hope Foundation; MUSE Film and Television; and is Treasurer of the Business Committee for the Arts. He is a former Editor in Chief of Sculpture Review magazine. Finn is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was appointed by President Clinton as a member of the Advisory Council for the National Endowment for the Humanities.


Erica Jong

Erica Jong is a poet, novelist, and essayist, who is best known for her seven best-selling novels: Fear of Flying (15 million copies in print), How to Save Your Own Life, Fanny: Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones, Parachutes and Kisses, Shylock’s Daughter (formerly published as Serenissima), Any Woman’s Blues, and Inventing Memory. Her mid-life memoir, Fear of Fifty, also became a major international bestseller. Erica Jong began her literary life as a poet, publishing six award-winning collections of poetry. Her book, The Devil at Large: Erica Jong on Henry Miller appeared in 1993, and is a memoir about Jong’s friendship with the author of Tropic of Cancer and a study of his impact on contemporary literature. Known for her commitment to women’s rights, author’s rights, and free expression, Jong served as the President of The Author’s Guild of the U.S. from 1991 to 1993. In her 1997 novel, Inventing Memory: A Novel of Mothers and Daughter (Harper Collins), Jong explores the relationships between mothers and daughters (through four generations), the heritage of the Jews, and the elusive meaning of memory. Her most recent novel is Seducing the Demon: Writing for my Life.


Harold O. Levy

Harold O. Levy is Managing Director-Senior Counsel of Plainfield Asset Management. Most recently he served as Executive Vice President of Kaplan, Inc., a leading provider of career and educational services, and a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company, with approximately $2 billion in revenue and 20,000 employees Since 2003, he was member of the executive team of both Kaplan, Inc. and its higher education unit. As Chancellor and CEO of The New York City Schools from 2000 to 2002, he led the nation's largest school system, with 1.1 million students, 120,000 employees and a $13 billion budget. Levy's leadership resulted in improved reading and math scores, a significant reduction in administrative overhead, creation of critical metrics to improve accountability, and increased public and private funding. He initiated the much-emulated Teaching Fellows program for career changers as well as many innovative joint programs with local colleges.

From 1985 to 2000, Levy provided legal expertise at Citigroup, Inc. and its predecessors. He was the Associate General Counsel, reporting directly to Charles O. Prince, now the Citigroup CEO. Mr. Levy handled special assignments for Mr. Prince, including being Citigroup's Director of Global Compliance, securing state insurance regulatory approvals necessary for the Travelers Group/Citicorp merger, and as liaison to community groups, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/Push Wall Street Project. Mr. Levy has also chaired the NYC Commission on School Facilities and Maintenance Reform, a blue-ribbon panel established by Chancellor Cortines that resulted in an additional $1 billion for school capital construction. Mr. Levy is currently a member of the National Adjudicatory Council of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the Pace University Board of Trustees and the Harlem Educational Foundation board. He has served on the New York State Board of Regents and was the Assembly Speaker's Designee to the Task Force on SUNY/CUNY Tuition. He has also been an active member of the boards of Carnegie Hall, Pencil, Inc. and the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange, and as well as Chair of the Drafting Committee, Securities Industry Voluntary Initiative for State and Local Political Contributions and Chair of the Education Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of NY.

Mr. Levy received his BS in Industrial and Labor Relations and JD from Cornell University. He was a Telluride Exchange Scholar at Oxford University, where he received an MA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Bard, Baruch (City University of New York) and St. Francis Colleges.


Owen Lewis

Owen Lewis is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he teaches in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Also trained as a psychoanalyst, his current areas of professional interests include psychotherapy with children and adolescents and public systems and access to care and teaches post-graduate physicians at the medical center.  He co-directed a seven year project in Eastern Europe establishing child abuse prevention and treatment centers in eighteen countries under the auspices of The Children’s Mental Health Alliance (now known as Turnaround for Children) and the Soros Foundation. He is currently the Senior Vice President for Mental Health Initiatives at Turnaround for Children, a non profit working in over twenty-five challenged inner city schools with the aim of creating greater capacity of schools to meet the educational, behavioral, and emotional needs of its students.


Trish Malloch-Brown

Trish Malloch-Brown is the vice-chair of the Refugees International (RI) Board. She has been an active supporter since 1986, when she worked at the Sawyer Miller Group. In addition to completing several missions for RI, she is a co-founder of the Washington Circle, an outreach group targeted at women in Washington, D.C., who are interested in humanitarian affairs. Her group also has offices in New York City and Westchester. Malloch-Brown, who holds a Masters of International Affairs from Columbia University, served as a Program Officer for Eastern Europe at the Soros Foundation from 1989-92. In this capacity, she worked with a variety of technology exchange and educational programs in Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other eastern European countries. Trish Malloch-Brown has a B.A. in Political Science from Denison University. She has additional board experience with the Little Folks School, Friends of Montrose, and Dumbarton Oaks Parks. She also served on the strategic planning committee of the Beauvoir School.


Jack McGourty

Jack McGourty is the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies at The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Columbia University and faculty member teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in engineering and product design, history of science and technology, and technology management. He is also the founding Executive Director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Community Engagement, the institutional home for community based learning at Columbia. Dr. McGourty and the Center are active partners with the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program, working with administrators and students to enhance community engagement opportunities and associated experiential educational experiences for all scholars.

Dr. McGourty received his Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from Stevens Institute of Technology with a focus on the management of technology and innovation. In addition, he completed a post-doctoral specialization program in clinical psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University. He is an active member in the American Psychological Association, American Psychological Society, and the American Society for Engineering Education. He serves as a senior associate editor for the Journal of Engineering Education and as a reviewer for several other peer-review journals. He has published several articles and book chapters on education and technology management topics and is co-author of the Team Developer, a computerized multi-source assessment and skill building system published by John Wiley & Sons. Currently, Dr. McGourty is writing a book on Selfless Leadership and has developed associated training materials and a 360-degree online development process.

Prior to coming to Columbia, Dr. McGourty was a senior executive and board member of a large publicly traded company chaired by Harold Geneen, chairperson emeritus of ITT. During his tenure, he held several senior positions including vice president of human resources, executive vice president of operations, division president, and company chief operating officer.


Arlene Notoro Morgan

Arlene Notoro Morgan is the associate dean of programs and prizes at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She administers the school’s professional development program, offering a selection of workshops on various topics, ranging from Globalization, the coverage of Bioterrorism, and race, for professional journalists. She is currently designing a new Punch Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program for news managers, a succession planning tool that will be launched in January 2007. Morgan also oversees the administration of the school’s journalism prizes, with the exception of the Pulitzer Prize which reports to the university president. Morgan joined the school in the fall of 2000 to run the “Let’s Do It Better!” Workshop on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity, a program sponsored by the Ford Foundation to improve the coverage of racial and ethnic minorities. A text book, DVD, and website project, featuring 15 award-winning stories from the program, was published by Columbia University Press in May 2006. Called “The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity,” it was co-written with Keith Woods, dean of The Poynter Institute, and Alice Pifer, director of professional development at the journalism school. The “Let’s Do It Better” Workshop is now in its eighth year. Morgan joined Columbia after a 31-year career at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where she served as an assistant managing editor for readership, hiring and staff development. A recipient of the first Knight Ridder Excellence Award for Diversity in 1995, Morgan is considered an expert on the coverage of race and ethnicity and is a frequent trainer at journalism schools and organizations around the country. She is certified as a Maynard Institute diversity trainer, as well as a Zenger-Miller management trainer. In addition to her expertise on issues of covering and hiring for diversity, Morgan has worked on news credibility issues as a member of the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ (ASNE) Credibility Task Force. She is a member of the ASNE Diversity Committee, the Newspaper Association of America’s Diversity Committee, a member of the Investigative Reporters and Editors Development Committee, and the author of the ASNE Editor Profiles in the American Editor Magazine. Morgan serves on the advisory boards of the Louisiana State University Manship School of Communications in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Temple University’s School of Communications and Theater, where she was graduated in 1967. She is also a board member of Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation in Philadelphia, and the Centennial Committee of Corpus Christi Church in New York.


Mary Kelly Persyn

Mary Kelly earned a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 2007, graduating with Stone Scholar honors.  While at Columbia, she served as Editor in Chief of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review-Jailhouse Lawyers Manual; president of the Columbia student chapter of the American Constitution Society; and founder of the ACS Constance Baker Motley National Moot Court Competition in Constitutional Law.  While in law school, Mary Kelly was appointed to the Board of Advisors of the Columbia Undergraduate Scholars Program.  After law school, she was a member of the Government Enforcement Practice Group at the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP, first in Boston, then in San Francisco.  Mary Kelly is now a criminal defense attorney practicing with the law firm of Ramsey & Ehrlich LLP in Berkeley, California.  Prior to law school, Mary Kelly earned a Ph.D. in English literature with honors from the University of Washington in Seattle; she then taught Romantic poetry, the novel, and world literature at the college and high school levels.  A past volunteer for the Civil Rights Program and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Mary Kelly is a member of the Leadership San Francisco Class of 2011 and volunteers with the Emerging Leaders group of the United Way of the Bay Area, serves on the Leadership Council of the Volunteer Legal Services Program of the Bar Association of San Francisco, and is a member of the Programming Committee of the Bay Area lawyer chapter of the American Constitution Society.


Peter Scotese

Pete Scotese is the retired chief executive officer of Springs Industries, one of the nation’s larger manufacturers of finished fabrics, home furnishings products, and industrial fabrics. Scotese is the former director of Marshall and Ilsey Bank, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the former chairman of the finance and executive committees of the Board of Trustees of the American Management Association. He was also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fashion Institute of Technology for 26 years and Board Chair for 13 years. He was the founding Director and Vice-President of the Politecnico Internazionale della Moda in Florence, Italy, a college of art and design, business and technology founded by Fashion Institute of Technology. Scotese is a native of Philadelphia. He graduated from Girard College High School, a school for orphaned boys, in 1937, and from the Wharton Evening School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania in 1942. During World War II, Scotese was commissioned as an officer in anti-aircraft artillery, was transferred to the infantry, and volunteered for the parachute infantry. He served in the European theater, where he won the Bronze Star Medal and the Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. In 1981, Scotese was a recipient of the prestigious Horatio Alger Award that recognizes business leaders who have risen from humble beginnings. Scotese has a deep interest in the arts and guided a sizable expansion of Springs’ support for the arts. He was vice chairman of the Business Committee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and past member of the Photographic Committee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.


William A. Wheaton

William A. Wheaton is a physicist and astronomer on the technical staff at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He was a founder of a school for refugees in Dar es Salaam, in what is now Tanzania, where he taught science and mathematics during the academic year 1962-1963. He graduated from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego (UCSD).  He has worked in elementary particle physics, and on several space missions in X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy, and infrared astronomy at UCSD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Caltech for many years.

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