In 1845 he became adjunct professor of Latin and Greek there, in 1857 was appointed to the new separate chair of Latin language and literature, and ten years later succeeded Dr. Charles Anthon as Jay Professor of Greek Language and Literature.
From 1890 to his retirement as professor emeritus in 1894, he was dean of the School of Arts, as the undergraduate division of Columbia was known at the time.
(For this reason, some scholars consider him, and not John Howard Van Amringe, to have been the first dean of Columbia College.)
His criticisms and corrections of Liddell and Scott's A Greek–English Lexicon, of which he produced American editions beginning in 1846.
The refutation relied completely on the Bible and displayed Dr. Drisler's wide range of scholarship.