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AROUND THE QUADSBerne To Receive Hamilton Medal
Berne (right) and Dean Austin Quigley at the 2004 Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner. Photo: Eileen Barroso 
Robert Berne ’60, former member of the Board of Visitors, former president of the Columbia College Alumni Association and former chairman of the Columbia College Fund, will be honored in Low Rotunda on Thursday, November 16, with the 2006 Alexander Hamilton Medal. Each fall, the Columbia College Alumni Association presents the medal to an alumnus or faculty member for distinguished service and accomplishment in any field of endeavor. It is the highest honor the College bestows. Berne, an active and enthusiastic alumnus, first volunteered his time with the College as a class officer and reunion organizer. From there, he became increasingly involved with alumni activities as well as development. Berne served 13 years on the Board of Visitors — four as an ex officio member — and from 1998–2000 was chairman of the Columbia College Fund. His two-year term as president of the Alumni Association ended in June. Berne earned a degree from the Business School in 1962 and has worked in the real estate industry since then. Early in his career, he worked for government housing agencies in New York City and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, becoming an expert on modular housing. In the private sector, Berne was an associate of the Milstein family, developing several thousand luxury apartments in New York City. With his family and partners, he has built apartments, shopping centers and large-scale land developments in the South and Northeast. At Columbia, Berne is a board member of the Kraft Family Center for Jewish Student Life and serves on the M.B.A. Real Estate Program Advisory Board for the Business School. He endowed the Gustave M. Berne Professorship in the Core Curriculum in honor of his late father, who was in the College Class of 1922 and the Law School Class of 1924. The chair currently is held by Professor of Philosophy Christia Mercer. In New York City, Berne is a board member of Settlement Housing Fund, which creates and maintains ethnically diverse affordable housing, and is treasurer of the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a policy research and advocacy organization. Berne and his wife of 40 years, the former Steffi Mokotoff, have a daughter and son and one grandchild. For more information on the Hamilton Award Dinner, please contact Shelley Grunfeld, alumni office manager of special events: 212-870-2743 or rg329@columbia.edu.
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