Thomas Q. Morris, M.D. spent nearly 50 years at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, beginning with his enrollment at the College of Physicians & Surgeons as a first-year medical student in 1954. Since then, he has held nearly every important position at the medical center. A Westchester native, Dr. Morris graduated from the University of Notre Dame before starting medical school. He received his M.D. in 1958, and completed his residency at the Columbia Division of Bellevue Hospital. After a tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force, he returned to Columbia for a fellowship, joining the P&S faculty in 1964. Throughout the years, he served as acting chairman of the Department of Medicine, associate dean for academic affairs, vice dean of the Faculty of Medicine, and interim dean for clinical and educational affairs. More recently, he was vice president for health sciences and vice dean of the Faculties of Health Sciences and Medicine and Alumni Professor of Clinical Medicine. He was also president and chief executive officer of Presbyterian Hospital from 1985 to 1990.

Dr. Morris treated patients, taught medical students, and collaborated with physicians and scientists. Through his diverse activities, one commitment remained constant: his dedication to medical education. His influence on medical education reached beyond the campus boundaries, through his service to the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, N.Y., American University of Beirut, and numerous non-profit foundations. He was also a visiting physician at Bellevue Hospital and Harlem Hospital and a visiting professor in Iran.

An endowment was established to support an annual symposium in Tom Morris's name to explore the future of medical education. The symposium features participants who have promoted quality medical education in significant ways.

The 2010 Thomas Q. Morris Symposium Lectures

“Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us” Claude M. Steele, Ph.D. Provost and Professor of Psychology Columbia University Wednesday, April 14, 2010 4:30pm Alumni Auditorium 650 West 168th Street, First Floor

Claude M. Steele is the twenty-first Provost of Columbia University, as well as a Professor of Psychology.

He was educated at Hiram College and at Ohio State University, where he received his Ph.D. in psychology in 1971.  He has received honorary degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, Yale University, Princeton University, and from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

He taught at the University of Utah, the University of Washington, and the University of Michigan.  Before joining the University, he was a faculty member at Stanford University, holding appointments as the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, as Director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and as the Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

He is recognized as a leader in the field of social psychology and for his commitment to the systematic application of social science to problems of major societal significance.  His research focuses on the psychological experience of the individual and, particularly, on the experience of threats to the self and the consequences of those threats.  His early work considered the self-image threat, self-affirmation and its role in self-regulation, the academic under-achievement of minority students, and the role of alcohol and drug use in self-regulation processes and social behavior.  While at Stanford University, he further developed the theory of stereotype threat, designating a common process through which people from different groups, being threatened by different stereotypes, can have quite different experiences in the same situation.  The theory has also been used to understand group differences in performance ranging from the intellectual to the athletic.

He has published articles in numerous scholarly journals, including the American Psychologist, The Journal of Applied Social Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.  A book entitled Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us is forthcoming.

He has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Education, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to the American Philosophical Society.

He is a member of the Board of the Social Science Research Council and of the John D.  and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Board of Directors.

He has received numerous fellowships and awards. He was the recipient of the Dean’s Teaching Award from Stanford University.  The American Psychological Association has bestowed on him the Senior Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest and the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award (1998).  The American Psychological Society presented him with the William James Fellow Award for Distinguished Scientific Career Contribution (2000).  The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues awarded him the Gordon Allport Prize in Social Psychology (1997) and the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award (1998).  He received the Donald Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (2001).

2008 “Self-assessment, self-direction, self-regulation and other myths: Deconstructing the fallacy of the adult learner”
Glenn Regehr, Ph.D.

2006 “Clinical Education for the 21st Century – Insights from the Carnegie Foundation National Study”
Molly Cooke, M.D., FACP

2005 “The Route to Patient Safety through Simulation in Medical Education”
David M, Gaba, M.D.

2004 “The Academy Movement: Restructuring of Medical Schools to Advance the Mission of Education”
Haile T. Debas, M.D. and Daniel Lowenstein, M.D.

2003 “What is the Future of Medical Education?”
Daniel D. Federman, M.D., and Ponald A. Arky, M.D., Jeremiah A. Barondess, M.D., June E. Osborn, M.D., Michael E. Whitcomb, M.D.