THE COLUMBIA COLLEGE ALUMNI MAGAZINE
Letter from the President
a f f i n i t y
Happy Holidays, This issue of Affinity includes a profile of John A. Schiffman, an extraordinary man and longtime supporter of Columbia College who, sadly, passed away in August. In 2000, Mr. Schiffman, a member of our board of trustees for 10 years, gave a gift of historic proportions to Columbia College to honor of his late wife, Althea, who was a 1941 graduate of Christian College, member of the Board of Trustees from 1983 to 1987 and Distinguished Alumna ’85. In addition to more than $650,000 given towards student scholarships, he donated $1.5 million, which was the single largest contribution by a living donor in our history. This gift established an endowed chair in ethics, religious studies and philosophy, as well as the Schiffman Ethics in Society Lecture Series and the Lecture in Religious Studies Series.
as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., historian David McCullough, journalist Nina Totenberg and ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau. I’m excited to hear this year’s speaker, the well-known physicist Michio Kaku, at the Ethics in Society Lecture on March 2, 2016. Kaku believes in the possibility of parallel worlds — an infinite number of alternate universes in which everything that can happen has happened, with all possibilities branching out forever. I’m not sure whether there are parallel worlds. If there are, though, I like to think that in one of them Mr. Schiffman will be sitting in the audience with us, fascinated by the lecture. If so, we will once again thank him for all he has done for this very real, very grateful institution.
Over the years, Mr. Schiffman’s generosity has allowed us to bring to campus such luminaries
Columbia College Board of Trustees 2015-2016 Chair Daisy Willis Grossnickle ’66 Secretary Janet Carter Wright ’58
Trustees Lynne Stuver Baker ’64 Walter E. Bixby III ’82 Lex Cavanah Judy A. Cunningham ’64 Jerry D. Daugherty Joseph P. Dubinski ’96 Steve Erdel
George W. Hulett Jr. Mitchell R. Humphreys, MD June Hurdle ’83 Jolene Marra Schulz ’61 Dale Coe Simons ’65 Rev. Brad Stagg Gary Tatlow Carol Winkler ’93
CCAA Alumni Representative Bill Johnston ’82 Faculty Representatives Dr. Kenneth Felts Dr. Lia Willis