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I was asked to speak first because I'm chair
of the department, but I don't much feel like a chair on this
occasion when rank is irrelevant. In fact when Jonathan came
to Columbia more than 15 years ago, I was an untenured assistant
professor and he was a full professor and he gave me the greatest
gift a senior faculty person can give a junior: he encouraged
me in my bid for tenure. I'll never forget that.
A truly wonderful colleague, Jonathan was responsive, reliable,
generous, and judicious. When I asked him to take on another
committee responsibility, he pointed out to me that his name
already appeared sixteen times in the department's Table
of Organization. We all know that the reward for doing well
on a committee means being put on another committee, but Jonathan
appeared neither to resist such accolades nor to prevent them
by slacking off. No, within the department he threw himself
into curricular reform, invention of an entirely new category
of instruction (the "swing" course), outstanding and caring
mentoring of graduate students-of whom a bumper crop just received
their PhDs --, direction of the undergraduate and graduate theory
programs, and a term as Vice-Chair, while outside of
the department he served on the College's Committee on Instruction,
served as faculty affiliate to an undergraduate residence hall,
as well as Dean's Day lecturer, all the while keeping up an
extraordinary schedule of international speaking engagements,
performances of his music, and publications in his signature
fields, temporality and postmodernism. He did all this with
a generosity of spirit, an upbeat and smiling affect, and a
sparkling sense of humor that made being his colleague an utter
joy. "Likable, funny, and brilliant" sums up his undergraduate
students' assessments. One of his undergraduates (Tom Biegeleisen)
was moved to record what he called "one of Kramer's unforgettable
one-liners: Kramer - "Those of you who were raised believing
the fiction that there are three different minor scales will
call this a harmonic minor," Student - Well if it's fiction,
what's the reality?" Kramer - "There is no reality." His graduate
students' assessments might be more movingly rendered by this
email I just received (from Maja Cerar): "His influence on my
performing and thinking about music has been enormous, from
the very beginning of my time at Columbia. I am simply at a
loss trying to express how important he has been."
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