Columbia High School Welcomes Hall-of-Famers

Columbia High School welcomed two new members of its Hall of Fame on Tuesday morning. Dr. Megan Coffee ’94 and Lois Whitman ’44 were welcomed at their alma mater with morning assemblies and a reception.

“We are very excited,” said principal Lovie Lilly, as she introduced the assembly, which was preceded by music from the Jazz Ensemble. She noted that this was the final assembly of the 2010-11 school year, when Hall of Fame inductees are traditionally honored.

The Columbia High School Hall of Fame was first established in 1985 by then student council president, Andrew Shue, who was himself inducted in 1994 with his sister, Elizabeth Shue. The Columbia Student Council oversees the Hall of Fame and, along with a faculty committee, selects nominees. Student Council President Ben Donald introduced the committee, and offered a video retrospective of past honorees.

Richard Cohen, who taught at CHS for 23 years and whose four children attended the school, introduced Coffee, the first honoree. 

She first came to hit attention, Cohen recalled, when his son met her. Soon he came to know Coffee, who asked for his help in teaching herself sign language. He knew her then and now as a “juggler,” someone who is always busy, but eager to take on more. “My former student, friend and physician extraordinaire,” said Cohen, as a video montage of Coffee's recent work in Haiti played.

When Coffee graduated from CHS in 1994 she became a Star-Ledger Scholar, the newspaper’s program to identify and honor New Jersey’s brightest seniors. From Columbia she majored in chemistry at Harvard, and then earned her Ph.D. in mathematical modeling of epidemics from Oxford University in England. She then completed a medical degree in a joint program between Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before she finished her medical training, she had already earned an international reputation for her research on the AIDS epidemic, having published two articles in the journal AIDS that broadened the understanding of how the disease is spread. 

Coffee interrupted a fellowship on infectious diseases at the University of California at San Francisco to work in Haiti, where she has remained to work 12 hour days, seven days a week in the tuberculosis unit of Haiti’s largest hospital. Laboring under grueling conditions in tents in the hospital’s parking lot, Dr. Coffee is the only one of scores of American doctors remaining in the country in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake. “I love it here,” she says, “I want to stay indefinitely.”

Classmate and former Hall of Famer Irma Schneider introduced Lois Whitman, noting that the two were in school together at South Mountain, South Orange Junior High and then CHS.  “She was voted ‘Wittiest’ and ‘Peppiest’ in the class,” recalled Schneider. “Lois,” she said, “I salute you.”

Whitman is the founder and director of the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Division, which investigates human rights abuses of children around the world and seeks to end them. She has been associated with Human Rights Watch since 1985. Whitman has conducted human rights investigations and written reports on abuses in many countries around the world, including Turkey, Greece, Northern Ireland, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Liberia, Jamaica, Cuba, and Sri Lanka. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, Newsday, Kathimerini (Athens) and Africa Report.  She has testified before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and United States Congressional committees on several occasions. Whitman has taught Women and the Law at Hunter College, Law and Social Work at Stony Brook School of Social Work, and Children and International Human Rights at the Columbia University graduate School  of International and Public Affairs. A lawyer and a social worker, Whitman received a BA from Smith College, a Master's Degree in Social Work from Columbia University, and a law degree from Rutgers University. Whitman received a Smith College Medal in 2002 and the Dean's Medal from CUNY Law School in 2009.

In accepting the Hall of Fame nomination, Whitman noted that the last time she been on the CHS stage was in 1943, when she was dressed as Rosie the Riveter for Junior Show.

Students applauded both nominees enthusiastically, perhaps picturing themselves future Hall of Famers.