Five accomplished alumni — Andrew F.
Barth ’83, Alexander Navab ’87, Kenneth Ofori-Atta ’84, Michael Oren ’77 and
Elizabeth D. Rubin ’87 — were presented with 2011 John Jay Awards for
distinguished professional achievement on Wednesday, March 2, at the annual
John Jay Awards Dinner.
Barth, Navab and Ofori-Atta are
leaders in finance. Barth is the chairman of Capital Guardian Trust Company and
Capital International Limited; Navab is a partner and co-head of North American
Private Equity for Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.; and Ofori-Atta is the
executive chairman and co-founder of Databank Financial Services.
Oren has been the Ambassador of
Israel to the United States since 2009, having been appointed to that position
by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rubin is an award-winning
journalist and a contributing writer to The
New York Times Magazine and other publications who has served as a war
correspondent for more than 15 years, reporting from the front lines in the
Balkans, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The black-tie dinner, attended by
approximately 600 at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York, benefits the John Jay
Scholars Program, which aims to extend and enhance the academic and extracurricular
experiences for outstanding first-year College students. John Jay Scholars are
offered the opportunity to participate in special programs such as panels,
discussions and presentations by leading professors and professionals, all
designed to promote three goals: intellectual growth, leadership development
and global awareness.
There was a definite global flavor to
the event. Ofori-Atta, who is from Ghana, is the first African-born recipient
of the John Jay Award and his business is based in the capital city of Accra.
Navab was born in Iran and fled the country with his family at the start of the
Islamic revolution. Oren worked on a kibbutz in Israel as a teenager, served in
the Israel Defense Forces in the 1982 war with Lebanon and now represents Israel
in the United States. Rubin, noting that New York in the 1980s was going
through hard times, joked that when she transferred to Columbia in 1984 after
her freshman year at Michigan, she “had no idea that Morningside Heights would
turn out to be the perfect boot camp for reporting in war zones.”
Leeza Mangaldas ’11, who spoke on
behalf of the John Jay Scholars, many of whom attended the dinner, was born in
a small fishing village in the Goa, India.
“On the 16-hour plane ride to New York and Columbia, I could see my life
was going to change,” she recalled. “Though the rural, sea-salt air made for an
idyllic childhood, Columbia University in the City of New York seemed like the
glorious antithesis to everything I’d known.” She praised the “astounding eloquence
and passion” of Columbia faculty members and said, “At Columbia, the everyday
is extraordinary.” An English major with a concentration in visual arts who has
held summer internships in Hong Kong and Mumbai, she plans to return to India
after graduation and work in the film industry.
Board of Trustees Chair William V.
Campbell ’62 welcomed the guests and introduced Columbia College Alumni
Association Executive Committee member Kyra Tirana Barry ’87, who thanked those
in attendance and announced that the dinner had raised nearly $1.5 million.
Dean Michele Moody-Adams recognized two special groups in the audience, calling
the faculty “the heart of the institution,” and saying of the students, “All of
us are very proud of your accomplishments and look forward to the day you can
stand up here as recipients of this award.”
In his remarks, President Lee C.
Bollinger said Columbia was at a historical moment in its 257-year history. He
noted that the opening of the Northwest Corner interdisciplinary science building
completes the original blueprint for the Morningside Heights campus at the same
time that the courts have cleared the way for Columbia to create “a new campus
for this century” in Manhattanville. “This solves the space problem that
Columbia has had for four or five decades,” he said. He also noted that the
endowment had outpaced peer institutions by achieving a 17 percent gain last
year and that the $4 billion goal of the Columbia Campaign had been reached
more than a year early, and got a laugh when he added, “Naturally, we extended
the campaign by two years and raised the goal to $5 billion.”
The event, which concluded with
renditions of Sans Souci and Roar, Lion, Roar by the Clefhangers, is
named for founding father and first secretary of the treasury John Jay (Class
of 1764). The John Jay Awards have been presented annually since 1979.
