Fall 2013
Around the Quads
2013 Alexander Hamilton Medal To Be Presented to Klein
Joel I. Klein ’67 will be presented the 2013 Alexander Hamilton Medal on Thursday, November 14, at the Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner, an annual black-tie event in Low Rotunda. The medal, the highest honor paid to a member of the Columbia College community, is awarded by the Columbia College Alumni Association to an alumnus/a or faculty member for distinguished service to the College and accomplishment in any field of endeavor.
Klein became Amplify’s CEO and News Corp.’s EVP in January 2011. Prior to that, he was chancellor of the New York City Department of Education, where he oversaw a system of more than 1,600 schools with 1.1 million students, 136,000 employees and a $22 billion budget. In 2002, as chancellor, Klein launched Children First, a comprehensive reform strategy that has brought coherence and capacity to the system and resulted in significant increases in student performance.
A former chairman and CEO of the U.S. arm of Bertelsmann, a global media company, Klein was Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from October 1996–September 2000 and was Deputy White House Counsel to President Clinton from 1993–95. He entered the Clinton administration after 20 years of public and private legal work in Washington, D.C. (See feature, Fall 2012 CCT.)
Klein graduated magna cum laude from the College and earned a J.D. from Harvard Law in 1971, also magna cum laude. He has received honorary degrees from Amherst, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Fordham Law, Georgetown Law Center, Macaulay Honors College at CUNY, Manhattanville, New York Law, Pace and St. John’s School of Education. He was selected by Time Magazine as one of “Ten People Who Mattered” in 1999, by U.S. News & World Report as “One of America’s 20 Best Leaders” in 2006, and was given the prestigious NYU Lewis Rudin Award in 2009 and the Manhattan Institute’s Alexander Hamilton Award in 2011.
Klein has been and remains active in Columbia University affairs. While chancellor of NYC’s public schools, working with President Lee C. Bollinger, he opened a new secondary school in Harlem that Columbia is supporting. He also served on the University’s Manhattanville Ad-Hoc Planning Committee and is currently helping to develop the Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
He is married to Nicole Seligman, EVP/GC of Sony Corp. and president of Sony Corp. of America, and has a daughter, Julia, who is pursuing her doctorate in philosophy.
For more information on the dinner, contact Robin V. Del Giorno, associate director, College events and programs: robinv@columbia.edu or 212-851-7399.