My time at Columbia was interesting and challenging, being concerned with national matters of healthcare and survival of schools and the profession of medicine. The students were wonderful at Columbia. Very smart, very committed, and full of interesting ideas. And the staff was great. The professors and the administrators were very good and thrilling and challenging. The staff was terrific. I met and worked closely with Kevin Kirby and Marian Jakubiak, who remained good friends during my next step. But there were many people like that on the faculty who I'd known throughout my career from the early days at the NIH to then. So, regardless of the agony of the financial world, there were rewards that I appreciated.

But after a period of time, I think I was then 65 or older, I decided it was time to step down as dean, as Executive Vice President. At that time, I was at a loss of what to do, and then I met Jim and Marilyn Simons. Helped them with making a decision about a particular request they had from a faculty member at Columbia, and I advised against doing it because I didn't think the faculty member was up to the job. But we became associates, Marilyn and Jim and I, and then friends.