Winter 2012–13
Around the Quads
Alumni in the News
Brig. Gen. Scott F. Smith ’86 Scott F. Smith ’86 was promoted to brigadier general, U.S. Air Force, in September and is executive officer to the combatant commander, U.S. Southern Command. In this position, Smith serves as adviser and principal assistant to the commander, ensuring the success of his daily operations and personal schedule throughout the 31 nations and 15 territories and areas of special sovereignty within the U.S. Southern Command. Additionally, Smith facilitates interaction with the White House, National Security Council, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of State, Congress, ambassadors and foreign dignitaries. Smith, a history major, entered the Air Force through Officer Training School in 1987. Prior to his current posting, he was commander of the 305th Air Mobility Wing, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J. He is a veteran of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Joint Endeavor (Bosnia), Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Lisa Carnoy ’89 and Joyce Chang ’86 were among the 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance as selected in October by American Banker Magazine. “Across asset management, investment banking, capital markets and cards, these executives are helping to create a path to parity for women in a traditionally male-dominated field,” the magazine declared. Carnoy, a University trustee, is co-head of global capital markets at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, sharing responsibility with Alastair Borthwick for a staff of 750 spanning 16 countries and the full spectrum of debt, equity, foreign exchange and derivatives origination markets. Chang is managing director, head of global credit, emerging markets and index research at J.P. Morgan, where she manages a global credit research team of 170 people in 12 countries and an emerging markets group that handles all macroeconomic forecasts, sovereign debt research and coverage of 350 corporates in the emerging economies of Latin America, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
The first film adaptation of the Jack Kerouac ’44 classic On the Road, written in 1951, screened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival in May and is scheduled to open in movie theaters in the United States on December 21. The movie was directed by Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and stars Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (the Kerouac character), Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty and Kristen Stewart as Marylou. Francis Ford Coppola bought the film rights to the book in 1979 and worked with several screenwriters and directors on the project across more than three decades before its completion by Salles and screenwriter Jose Rivera.
Sheena Wright ’90, ’94L PHOTO: PR NewsFoto/United Way of New York CitySheena Wright ’90, ’94L was named president and CEO of the United Way of New York City on October 4. Wright had been the president and CEO of the Abyssinian Development Corp. (ADC), one of the nation’s premier community and economic development organizations, since 2002, and is the first woman to lead United Way of NYC in its 75-year history. “Sheena’s hiring as our first female president is historic,” said United Way of NYC board chair Robert Kueppers. “She is someone who is deeply committed to our city’s neediest residents and has demonstrated tremendous leadership and success in delivering on that commitment.” During Wright’s tenure with ADC, the corporation built 785 units of residential housing in 78 buildings and nearly a half-million square feet of community, commercial and retail space, including the first new high school building in Harlem in 50 years, creating more than 1,000 jobs in the process.
Tony Kushner ’78 wrote the screenplay for Lincoln, the biopic directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day-Lewis that opened nationwide in November. It’s Kushner’s second Spielberg film; he also co-wrote, with Eric Roth, 2005’s Munich.
Filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein ’86, ’92 Arts has made a commitment of $5 million to create a state-of-the-art screening room in the Lenfest Center for the Arts, a multi-arts facility under construction at the University’s Manhattanville campus. The venue, which will be named The Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room, will include seating for approximately 150 with advanced digital cinema technology; it is scheduled for completion in 2016. Otto-Bernstein is best known as the writer and director of the award-winning documentaries Absolute Wilson and Beautopia, and as the author of Absolute Wilson: The Biography, a memoir of theatre and opera director Robert Wilson. She received the University’s Alumni Medal of Achievement in 2009.