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from left Henry Graff and Jacques Barzun at a
Columbia
University event during the 1980's
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When
Ronald Reagan started his second term as president, Henry Graff
claimed, "He has a chance to make somebody move over on
Mount Rushmore. He's working for his place on the coins and the
postage stamps." Newsweek published his quote in their
January 28 issue in 1985 and Simpson's Contemporary Quotations
republished it in 1988.
Graff's
observation was one of a long history of public discourse that
recently earned him the Kaul Foundation Award of Excellence in
the field of education, an honor that includes a $100,000 prize.
A Columbia
Emeritus Professor of History, Graff, Ph.D. '49, taught this
country's first course on the history of the Presidency.
University Professor Emeritus Jacques Barzun, CC'27, MA'28, Ph.D.
'32, received the Kaul Foundation Award in 2000, when his most
recent work, "From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western
Cultural Life" (Harper Collins), was published. Graff, who
retired from Columbia's History Department in 1992, said he
plans to use the award money to support his research for a
biography on President Grover Cleveland. The book is part of a
series on American Presidents, which is being edited by
historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and published by Henry Holt
and the New York Times. Graff, who taught at Columbia for 46
years, expects the Cleveland biography to be published in 2002.
The Kaul
Foundation, based in Tampa, Fla., said Graff's career had been
one of "service to the highest ideals of scholarship as a
historian and expert on your specialty, the American presidency."
Graff has
also written "The Free and the Brave: The Story of the
American Peopl" (Rand McNally 1968) and" The
Presidents: A Reference History" (Scribner 1984). He is
currently working on a third edition of The Presidents, to be
published in 2002. In addition, Graff has co-authored "The
Modern Researcher" (Harcourt, Brace 1957) with Barzun, who
served as Columbia's dean of faculties and provost from 1958 to
1967.
Barzun's
"From Dawn to Decadence," an 800-page survey of
Western civilization, was one of five finalists for 2001
National Book Critics Circle Award's criticism category.
The Kaul
Foundation, established in 1986, awards excellence in science,
literature, fine arts, public health and safety and education.
It was reated by economist and entrepreneur Ralph Kaul for the
purpose of encouraging and rewarding excellence of national
significance in a variety of disciplines.
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