Deborah Eisenberg, MacArthur fellow and winner of the 2011 PEN/Faulkner for fiction for The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenber, has joined the faculty of the writing program at Columbia University. Eisenberg has been teaching, since 1994, at the University of Virginia.

In addition to Eisenberg's appointment, Phillip Lopate was named head of Columbia's MFA concentration in non-fiction, taking over from Richard Locke. And Victor LaValle will now be overseeing the fiction program, replacing assistant professor Stacey D'Erasmo. Despite the shuffling, Locke and D'Erasmo are staying at the program.