Columbia University Honors Gillian Metzger With Faculty Mentoring Award
Renowned public law scholar and faculty co-director of the Law School’s Center for Constitutional Governance recognized for her exceptional commitment to helping tenure-track and mid-career faculty progress as scholars and teachers.
Gillian Metzger ’96, Harlan Fiske Stone Professor of Constitutional Law, has been named one of the five inaugural recipients of the Columbia University Faculty Mentoring Award, which honors senior faculty who demonstrate extraordinary dedication to helping tenure-track and mid-career faculty as they progress in their careers. “Mentoring is critical to Columbia’s efforts to support and retain a diverse and inclusive faculty,” Vice Provost for Faculty Development Dennis A. Mitchell said in a video announcing the winners.
Metzger, a faculty co-director of the Center for Constitutional Governance, has offered advice and counsel to dozens of Law School faculty who have gone on to stellar academic careers. “Gillian is a model colleague and enriches the intellectual life of the Law School. The mentoring award is richly deserved,” said Columbia Law School Dean Gillian Lester, the Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law. “Gillian uses her center not only to incubate ideas but to amplify and provide a platform for new and emerging voices to gain a foothold as scholars.”
A leading administrative and constitutional law scholar, Metzger has served as the Law School’s vice dean for intellectual life and as chair of both the entry-level and lateral appointments committees.
“I am delighted to have won one of Columbia’s inaugural awards for mentoring. Mentoring junior colleagues on the faculty is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job,” says Metzger. “There’s simply nothing like the feeling of seeing your colleagues find their academic voice and gain recognition—and knowing that you may have helped them get there. Most of my strongest mentoring relationships have been with women early in their academic careers. This is, in part, because I know firsthand the obstacles women often face trying to make their mark in academe and thus can relate to their experiences.”
In 2014, Metzger received the Law School’s Willis L.M. Reese Prize for Teaching. Before joining the Columbia Law faculty in 2001, she worked as an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59.