Reflections on the State of the Modern University with Lee C. Bollinger

Lee C. Bollinger, President Emeritus of Columbia University and Seth Low Professor of the University, will deliver the 2025 Sidney N. Zubrow Memorial Lecture at Reid Hall. After his presentation, President Bollinger will be in conversation with Sylvie Kauffmann, Le Monde, in an exchange about the place of the modern university in the world today.

Universities are in a period of great strife and extraordinary external criticism and assault. As they face a myriad of issues to be confronted and resolved, we need to return to first principles: we need to ask what their fundamental identity is, what purposes they are meant to fulfill and what rights and responsibilities they have. Drawing on the speaker’s many years of experience at the helm of one of the world’s leading universities, the 2024-25 Sidney N. Zubrow Lecture will suggest ways of thinking through some of these essential and urgent questions and then explore their real-world implications.