The Alumni Association's Award for Distinguished Achievement is chosen each year by the Alumni Council, on behalf of the Alumni Association, in order to honor a graduate who exemplifies distinguished achievement in his or her chosen profession or accomplishments. The first award was bestowed to a graduate of Horace Mann in 1939.

Among our award winners are Pulitzer Prize winners, artists, poets, writers, scientists, entertainers, inventors, lawyers, judges, and many more outstanding individuals. To read the bios of past winners, use the links below.

Award Year	Alumna/Alumnus	Graduation Yr
2024	David Mandel	Class of 1988
2023	Alexandra Guarnaschelli	Class of 1987
2022	Jordan Roth	Class of 1993
2019	Lee Gelernt	Class of 1980
2018	Lynn Novick	Class of 1979
2019	Renee Richards	Class of 1951
2016	Todd Haimes	Class of 1974
2015	Milton A. Tingling	Class of 1971
2014	Robert Carneiro	Class of 1945
2013	Jon Rubinstein	Class of 1974
2012	Adrian Benepe	Class of 1974
2011	William P. Barr	Class of 1967
2010	Margaret Galland Kivelson, Ph.D.	Class of 1946
2009	Simon C. Parisier, MD	Class of 1953
2008	Saul Zabar	Class of 1946
2008	Stanley Zabar	Class of 1949
2007	Alex Counts	Class of 1984
2006	Peter Athans	Class of 1975
2005	Gil Shaham	Class of 1989
2004	Eliot Spitzer	Class of 1977
2003	Alan J. Patricof	Class of 1952
2002	Donald Blinken	Class of 1943
2002	William A. Rugh	Class of 1954
2001	Barry C. Scheck	Class of 1967
2000	Alfred Bloom III, Ph.D.	Class of 1963
2000	Anthony Hecht	Class of 1940
2000	Robert S. Ledley, DDS	Class of 1943
1998-99	Hans J. Bär	Class of 1945
1997	Robert B. Shapiro	Class of 1956
1996	Alvin M. Josephy	Class of 1932
1995	Hon. Giles S. Rich	Class of 1922
1994	Arthur H. Aufses, Jr.	Class of 1942
1994	Sondra Markowitz Miller	Class of 1946
1993	Justin Kaplan	Class of 1941
1993	Richard Kluger	Class of 1952
1992	Andrew Hacker	Class of 1947
1992	Elspeth Davies Rostow	Class of 1934
1991	Dr. Edwin Goldwasser	Class of 1936
1991	Dr. Edgar Haber	Class of 1949
1990	Daniel Rose	Class of 1947
1989	Helen Lehman Buttenwieser	Class of 1923
1989	Morris E. Lasker	Class of 1934
1988	Edward B. Koren	Class of 1953
1987	I. Michael Heyman	Class of 1947

 

2024:  David Mandel '88

David Mandel ’88 graduated in 1992 from Harvard University where he concentrated in government and began writing comedy as an editor of The Harvard Lampoon. He is the two-time Emmy Award-winning show runner and executive producer of Veep. Besides Veep, where he was nominated for three writing Emmys, he also wrote for such shows as Saturday Night Live (1992-1995); Seinfeld (Seasons 7 through 9), where he wrote “The Bizarro Jerry” (aka “Man-Hands”) and “The Betrayal” (the “backwards” episode with Peter Mehlman); Curb Your Enthusiasm (Seasons 5 through 8), and even an episode of The Simpsons (“Treehouse of Horror XXIII” with Brian Kelley).

David is the co-writer of Eurotrip and The Dictator and if you press him on it The Cat in the Hat. His directing credits include Veep (Emmy-nominated for “Kissing Your Sister,” “Groundbreaking,” and the series finale), Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Comedians, Eurotrip (uncredited), and most recently the 5-part HBO limited-series White House Plumbers.

He is the co-author of Star Wars Art:  Ralph McQuarrie and is an avid collector of original comic book art, Star Wars memorabilia, and movie props if you have any to sell. He is even the co-host of “The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of” podcast all about prop-collecting. He can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @davidhmandel making as much fun of Donald Trump as possible. David lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

(Bio courtesy of David Mandel '88)

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2023:  Alexandra Guarnaschelli '87

There are few American chefs, much less female chefs, who can boast staying power in Michelin-starred restaurants. Chef Alexandra Guarnaschelli '87 can boast indeed — she embarked on a culinary journey in France and ended up working in some of the country’s top restaurants including esteemed chef Guy Savoy’s eponymous three-star kitchen.

Not surprising for the daughter of esteemed cookbook editor Maria Guarnaschelli, who spent her childhood surrounded by food. Guarnaschelli learned to eat according to whatever book her mother was working on at the time: one year was devoted to Indian with Classic Indian Cooking by Julie Sahni; another year was devoted to Italian with The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper.

"My mother was always coaxing me from my ‘Barbie land’ under the dining room table to peel potatoes, knead bread or assemble a trifle,” says Guarnaschelli, who jokingly continues, "what else could a seven-year-old have wanted from life?"

This early emphasis on her palate truly shaped her future in food. On the day of Guarnaschelli’s graduation from Barnard College in 1991, she decided to explore her culinary interests and began working under the tutelage of the acclaimed American chef and restaurateur Larry Forgione.

Forgione encouraged Guarnaschelli to travel and expand her skill set, so she obligingly moved to France to do a work-study at La Varenne Culinary School in Burgundy. After school and traveling throughout France, she moved to Paris to begin a four day stage at the Michelin three-star restaurant Guy Savoy. Four days turned into four years with Guarnaschelli rapidly being promoted to sous chef at La Butte Chaillot, another Savoy establishment. “The first three months were terrifying — imagine being a young American woman in charge of a French kitchen with 10 young, male cooks under you. Professionally, it was a life-changing experience,” she says.

After seven successful years in France, Guarnaschelli returned stateside. Though she left the country, she maintained her connection with the cuisine, joining the venerable Daniel Boulud at restaurant Daniel, where she quickly rose through the ranks to become sous chef at the Manhattan standard. Always looking to expand her culinary knowledge, Guarnaschelli moved to Los Angeles for two years to join Joachim Splichal’s Patina Group, where she worked at the acclaimed Patina restaurant in West Hollywood before moving to New York to open Splichal's first New York City venture.

In 2003, Guarnaschelli was given the opportunity to expand her repertoire and become the executive chef at Butter Restaurant, where she would create her own eclectic American and green market-inspired menu. In addition to her restaurant work, Guarnaschelli inspires budding chefs as a Chef-Instructor at New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education. Guarnaschelli also helmed the kitchen of the NYC modern dining and cabaret concept, The Darby. In the fall of 2015, Chef Guarnaschelli opened Driftwood Room at Nautilus South Beach in Miami, Florida. Also, in Fall of 2015, Guarnaschelli premiered her one-woman live comedy show, Busting My Chops at Carolines on Broadway. Alex continued her comedy career with an appearance in East Hampton at CAROLINES @ THE BEACH in August 2016. Most recently, Guarnaschelli was named the Head of Twitter’s Food Council, a group of leading culinary figures who regularly join the Twitter conversation on all things food and food culture.

She has appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers, TODAY, The View, The Kelly Clarkson Show, Good Morning America, and Live! with Kelly and Ryan. Alex has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Food & Wine, Food Network Magazine, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and People Magazine. Chef Guarnaschelli also hosts the award-winning digital series, Fix Me a Plate, and is the author of the cookbooks “Old-School Comfort Food: The Way I Learned to Cook” (2013), “The Home Cook: Recipes to Know by Heart” (2017), and most recently “Cook With Me: 150 Recipes for the Home Cook” (2020). Alex's next cookbook, “Cook It Up: Bold Moves for Family Foods: A Cookbook”, which she authored with her daughter, Ava Clark, will be released on September 5, 2023. Chef Guarnaschelli is also co-hosting Food Network’s newest show, Ciao House, an all-new culinary competition that takes place in Tuscany, Italy, premiering on Food Network in April 2023.

Alex lives in New York City with her daughter.

(Bio courtesy of Key Group Worldwide)

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2022:  Jordan Roth '93

Jordan Roth '93 is a multi-faceted creator and thought-leader across the worlds of theater and fashion. He is a six-time Tony Award-winning producer and President of Jujamcyn Theaters where he has championed some of the most influential and successful shows on Broadway including Moulin Rouge! The Musical, Hadestown, Kinky Boots, Springsteen on Broadway, and The Book of Mormon. He also produced the 2018 Tony Award-winning revival of Angels in America and the Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning Best Play Clybourne Park.

On Jordan’s style, L’Officiel writes: "His flair for avant-garde, gender-fluid fashion has landed him front-row seats at Paris couture, red carpet buzz at the Met Gala, and the admiration of no less than Dame Anna Wintour.” He has been featured on the cover of L'Officiel Italia, in American Vogue, Vogue Portugal, Vogue Italia, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and Women’s Wear Daily, among others.
  
In 2018, Jordan debuted his online cultural commentary animated comedy series, The Birds and the BS with Jordan Roth, billed as “a kid’s show for adults… because apparently we’ve forgotten everything we learned in kindergarten!” Jordan himself appeared as host of the series, addressing cultural topics with animated celebrity guests such as Alan Cumming, Ana Gasteyer, Sutton Foster, and Billy Porter.
 
After attending Horace Mann, Jordan graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton University with degrees in philosophy and theater and received his MBA from Columbia Business School. He serves on the Board of Trustees of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, The Broadway League, Times Square Alliance, and the Estée Lauder Companies Charitable Foundation. Jordan received the Human Rights Campaign Legacy Award at the organization’s 2019 Greater New York Gala. In 2016, Jordan and his husband Richie Jackson received The Trevor Project Hero Award for being leaders in the LGBTQ community.  

For his work and unique vision, Jordan has been recognized with inclusion on Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business 1000,” Crain’s “Forty Under 40,” Variety’s “50 Creatives to Watch,” the New York Daily News “50 New Yorkers to Watch,” Time Out New York’s “42 Reasons to Applaud New York Theatre,” and Out magazine’s “Out 100.”  He has also been honored for his contributions in theater by The New York Theatre Workshop and as a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. Jordan was named Town & Country’s 2019 Jewelry Champion of the Year.

 Jordan lives in NYC with his husband Richie and their two sons. 

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2019:  Lee Gelernt '80

Lee Gelernt has been a lawyer at the ACLU's national office in New York since 1992. He currently holds the positions of Deputy Director of the national Immigrants’ Rights Project and Director of the Project’s national Access to the Courts Program. Mr. Gelernt has won numerous awards for his work and is widely recognized as one of the 500 leading lawyers in the nation in any field, a list that contains only a handful of public interest attorneys. He has argued dozens of groundbreaking civil rights cases at all levels of the federal court system, including in the United States Supreme Court, and has testified as an expert before both houses of Congress.

During the past two years, Mr. Gelernt has argued some of the most high profile cases involving Trump Administration policies, including:

• The first case challenging the president’s January 2017 travel ban on individuals from certain Muslim-majority nations, even those with valid visas, which resulted in a federal court in Brooklyn issuing a nationwide Saturday night injunction against the ban, one day after the president enacted it.
• A national class action involving the Trump Administration’s unprecedented practice of separating immigrant families at the border. In June 2018, a federal court in San Diego issued an injunction holding the practice unconstitutional and requiring the Administration to reunite the approximately 3,000 separated families, which included babies and toddlers.
• A challenge to the Administration’s second asylum ban (the transit ban). In August 2019, a San Francisco federal district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the ban. The Supreme Court has allowed the ban to go into effect temporarily pending the outcome of the merits of the case. Mr. Gelernt is lead counsel and will argue the Ninth Circuit merits appeal in December 2019.
• The first challenge to the president’s first asylum ban. In December 2018, a San Francisco federal district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the ban, which barred asylum for anyone who did not enter at a port of entry. Both the Ninth Circuit and U.S. Supreme Court denied the government’s request for an emergency stay of the injunction, and the case is ongoing. Mr. Gelernt is lead counsel, and argued the case before both the district court and the Ninth Circuit.
• A case involving the fatal cross-border shooting of a Mexican teenager in Mexico by a U.S. border patrol officer firing from U.S. soil through the border fence in Nogales, Arizona, which Mr. Gelernt successfully argued in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  The appeals court ruling in favor of the boy’s  family  was  the  first  federal court decision to hold that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against the use of excessive force by law enforcement applies extraterritorially. The case is now pending in the Supreme Court.
• A major case in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals filed on behalf of cities and counties challenging Texas’s anti-sanctuary SB4 immigration law. In that case, Texas and the Trump Administration have argued that the State has the right to compel cities and localities to assist the federal government in enforcing federal immigration law.
• Cases in Detroit, Boston, Miami and Los Angeles concerning the authority of the federal courts to block the Administration’s attempt to remove large classes of long-term residents to Iraq, Indonesia, Somalia and Cambodia, most of whom face persecution and torture on account of their religion if they are deported.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Mr. Gelernt litigated several high profile national security cases and served as one of only a few human rights observers at Guantanamo Bay for the first military trial conducted by the United States since World War II. In March 2011, Mr. Gelernt argued the case of Ashcroft v. al-Kidd in the U.S. Supreme Court, which challenged the constitutionality of the government’s post-9/11 policy of using the federal material witness statute to investigate and preventively detain terrorism suspects in cases where there was no probable cause to justify a criminal arrest.

He also successfully argued one the first major 9/11 cases to reach the federal courts of appeals, Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft, where he represented the media in their lawsuit seeking to prevent the government from holding secret deportation hearings. In its decision invalidating the government’s secret hearing policy, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stated that “democracies die behind closed doors,” a phrase that became one of the most cited and well-known admonitions issued by the judiciary in the aftermath of 9/11.

He is a frequent guest speaker and has lectured at such varied places as West Point, the NAACP national convention, the American Bar Association national conference, and virtually every major law school in the country. He regularly appears in national and international print and television media. In addition to his work at the ACLU, Mr. Gelernt is an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, and for several years taught at Yale Law School as an adjunct. He received his J.D. from Columbia Law School, where he was a notes and comments editor of the Columbia Law Review. After graduation, Mr. Gelernt served as a law clerk to the late Judge Frank M. Coffin of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

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2018:  Lynn Novick '79

Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Lynn Novick '79 has been making documentary films about American history for nearly 30 years. A director and producer, she has been a principal collaborator of Ken Burns since the early 1990’s. Together they have been responsible for more than 60 hours of programming, some of the most critically acclaimed and top-rated documentary films and series that have aired on PBS.

Novick came to Florentine Films in 1989 to work on Burns's landmark 1990 series The Civil War as associate producer for post-production. She previously served as researcher and associate producer for Bill Moyers on two PBS series:  Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth and A World of Ideas with Bill Moyers.

In 1994, she produced the most-watched series in the history of public television, Burns's nine-part, 18-hour series Baseball (1994) for which she received an Emmy Award.

In 1998, Novick was director and producer (with Burns) of two-part biographical documentary Frank Lloyd Wright, for which she received a Peabody Award. The film was shown at the Sundance, Telluride, Edinburgh, and Seattle Film Festivals.

In 2001, Novick produced Burns's 10-part series Jazz, which explores in detail the culture, politics, and dreams that gave birth to jazz music and follows this most American of art forms from its origins in blues and ragtime through swing, bebop and fusion. Jazz was nominated for five Emmy Awards.

In 2007, she was director and producer (with Burns) of The War, an epic seven-part series that told the story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of nearly 40 men and women from four American towns. The series explored the most intimate human dimensions of the greatest cataclysm in history and demonstrated that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives. The War received three Emmy Awards as well as the Television Critics Association award for best news and information program of 2007.

In 2010, Novick was director and producer (with Burns) and writer (with Burns and David McMahon) of The Tenth Inning, a four-hour update of the 1994 series Baseball, which brought the tumultuous story of our national pastime up to the present day.

In 2011, Novick directed and produced (with Burns) Prohibition, a three-part, five-and-a-half-hour series that was viewed by 22 million people in its premiere broadcast, and received three Emmy nominations. The film tells the story of the rise, reign, and fall of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and all of its consequences, intended and otherwise. Prohibition raises vital questions that are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago -- about means and ends, individual rights and responsibilities, the proper role of government, and who is -- and who is not -- a real American.

The fall of 2017 marked the release of The Vietnam War, a 10-part, 18-hour epic directed and produced by Novick (with Burns) that aired on PBS. The immersive series chronicled the war and featured the soldiers, protesters, politicians, and families who lived it.

Novick’s newest project, tentatively titled College Behind Bars, is slated for release in 2019. The project is a four-part documentary series about the men and women who participate in the Bard Prison Initiative, a rigorous program for incarcerated people in New York to earn a college education.[i] She is also working with Ken Burns on Ernest Hemingway, a two-part biography of the writer slated for completion in 2020, and a multi-part series on Lyndon Johnson.

In total, she has won or been nominated for more than 12 Emmy Awards, and her work has been viewed by a Nielsen-estimated more than 1 billion aggregate viewers.

She is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale with honors in American Studies, and lives in New York City.

2017:  Renee Richards '51

Born in 1934 as Richard Raskind, Dr. Renée Richards grew up in New York City as the son of Jewish immigrants. His father was an orthopedic surgeon and his mother was a psychiatrist who practiced out of their home in Forest Hills, Queens. Raskind attended Horace Mann School and was a top-notch student who excelled on the football, baseball, tennis, and swim teams. His baseball skills even led to an invitation to join the New York Yankees, but he opted to focus on tennis.[1] After graduating from Horace Mann in 1951, Raskind went to Yale and then the University of Rochester Medical Center, where he specialized in ophthalmology. He earned his medical degree in 1959. After completing an internship at Lenox Hill Hospital, he helped to train hundreds of students as a resident at Manhattan Eye, Ear, and Throat Hospital and as a post-graduate fellowship at the Eye Muscle Clinic. He then joined the U.S. Navy as a lieutenant to further his medical training.

By 1973, as Raskind was becoming a prominent ophthalmologist, he reached a No. 6 ranking in the men’s 35-and-over bracket. Despite his success, his life was overshadowed by an agonizing struggle with gender dysphoria:  he felt that his true self was a woman, trapped in the body of a man. After attempting hormone therapy, he fell in love, married, and became a father. With the exception of the time spent with his son, he was deeply unhappy. In 1975 at the age of 41, to relieve his suffering and fully embrace his female alter ego, Raskind underwent sex reassignment surgery, becoming Renée Richards.

After the surgery, Richards resumed playing tennis professionally. In 1976, she applied to play in the U.S. Open and was denied. She sued the United States Tennis Association (USTA) and won, receiving injunctive relief against a policy requiring players to undergo a Barr body chromosome test. She argued that the test requirement was discriminatory, violated the New York State Human Rights Law and the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and was an arbitrary and capricious method to prove one’s sex.[1] As the first to address the legal rights of transsexuals, the case still resonates today.

Richards’ victory against the USTA – and the eventual acceptance and respect she received after playing on the women’s professional tennis tour for five years – gave hope to countless sexually disenfranchised and transgender people who were fighting for equality. Her human rights achievements were recognized by Senior Advocacy for Gay and Lesbian Elders (SAGE), which honored her with its Lifetime Achievement Award, and with the Athlete Ally Action Award from Athlete Ally, which combats transphobia and homophobia in sports.

In sports, Richards’ accomplishments include captain of the Yale and U.S. Navy tennis teams, two-time All-Navy Champion, and U.S. tennis team captain in the 1973 Maccabiah Games. She was a U.S. Open doubles finalist in 1977 and won the 35-and-over singles title in 1979. At the height of her tennis career, Dr. Richards ranked 19th in the nation. She played professionally until 1981, then coached Martina Navratilova to singles titles in all four Grand Slam Championships. In 2000, the USTA inducted her into its Hall of Fame. Although she is known for her success as a player, what she is most proud of is her career as a coach and teacher -- not just of Navratilova – but of junior players for decades.

In 1982, Richards left professional tennis to return to the practice of ophthalmology. She re-established her medical practice, and since then – in a career spanning 55+ years -- has taught generations of residents in ophthalmology. In 2001, she was the honoree of Helen Keller Services for the Blind for her achievements in ophthalmology, as one of the most respected ophthalmic surgeons in the country. She is the Head of the Strabismus Department and Surgeon Director at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, and holds the position of Professor of Ophthalmology at NYU Medical School.

Richards is the author of one medical textbook, many medical journal articles, two autobiographies, and one collection of personal stories. She still sees patients and performs surgery in both New York City and in Carmel, NY, close by her son and her loyal friends.

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2016: Todd Haimes '74

Since 1983, Todd Haimes ’74 has transformed Roundabout Theatre Company from a small off-Broadway theatre into one of the leading cultural institutions in New York City. Mr. Haimes has been Artistic Director/CEO of the Roundabout Theatre Company since July 1, 1990. From 1983 to 1990, Mr. Haimes served as the theatre’s Executive Director, overseeing the company’s finances, marketing, and fundraising. During the extraordinary years that followed, he also oversaw the biggest period of growth in the company’s history. Today, Roundabout is the largest not-for-profit theatre in the country, producing award-winning revivals, musicals, and new works on five stages both on and off Broadway.

Under Haimes’ leadership, Roundabout opened the doors of its first Broadway home at the Criterion Center with Harold Pinter's The Homecoming in October 1991. By 1993, Roundabout was enjoying tremendous artistic success with critically acclaimed productions, including Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit and Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, gracing the Roundabout stage.

In 1994, Haimes jumped at the chance to transform the cabaret space next to its mainstage into an intimate off-Broadway theatre. With the extraordinary support of Laura Pels and Cory and Bob Donnalley, the 399-seat Laura Pels Theatre opened in 1995 with the American premiere of Harold Pinter's Moonlight, the first production in Roundabout’s newly established New Play Initiative.

When Roundabout was evicted from the Criterion Center in 1999, Haimes led the search for the company’s new Broadway and Off-Broadway homes. Roundabout embarked on a $24 million capital campaign to renovate Broadway’s Selwyn Theatre into the renamed and restored American Airlines Theatre, which opened in 2000. In 2002, Haimes signed a long-term lease on the former American Place Theatre, the future home of the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre and the Laura Pels Theatre. After an extensive renovation, the Pels opened with Lynne Nottage’s Intimate Apparel in 2004. In 2007, Roundabout completed a new Black Box Theatre for readings, workshops, and the acclaimed Roundabout Underground program, which opened with Stephen Karam’s Speech & Debate.

In 2003, Roundabout purchased Studio 54, the unique theatre then featuring their award-winning, long-running production of Cabaret. In 2009, Roundabout opened the newly restored and LEED certified Henry Miller’s Theatre, renamed The Stephen Sondheim Theatre in 2010.

In addition to settling Roundabout into five permanent homes, Haimes has continued its acclaimed artistic legacy. Since 1990, under Haimes’ artistic leadership, Roundabout has been nominated for 36 Tony Awards, 50 Drama Desk Awards, 59 Outer Critics’ Circle Awards, and 11 Obie Awards.

Mr. Haimes has a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the Yale School of Organization and Management.

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2015: Milton A. Tingling '71

The Honorable Milton A. Tingling was born in New York City and grew up in Harlem and Washington Heights. He is a second generation judge and attorney, and is part of three generations of family lawyers.

His father, Milton F. Tingling, was an attorney with a private general law practice on 125th Street in Manhattan, and was elected to the New York City Civil Court in 1982. His mother, Eunice Tingling, received a Master of Arts in Teaching degree from Columbia University in 1950 and was a New York City public school teacher at PS 125 and PS 36. The Tinglings’ family life centered around education, community activity, and church.

Justice Tingling attended public school in Harlem in the 1960's, first to PS 192 from kindergarten through third grade, and then to a gifted program at PS 129. He attended high school at Horace Mann School and was a member of the Class of 1971. Justice Tingling then matriculated at Brown University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in American History. He later received his Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the North Carolina Central University School of Law in Durham, North Carolina.

Justice Tingling was admitted to practice before the New York State Courts, First Department, in 1983. He was elected to the Civil Court, City of New York, in 1996 from the 7th Municipal District, which includes Columbia University, West Harlem, and Washington Heights, and was assigned and served in both the criminal and civil courts. In November 2000, he was elected to the Supreme Court, State of New York, from New York County.

He received national media attention for his decisions that banned a statewide policy of shackling youths during transfer from juvenile facilities to family court, and his decision that found Mayor Bloomberg's so-called "soda ban" unconstitutional.

On November 4, 2014, Justice Tingling was re-elected to a second 14-year term as Justice of the Supreme Court. On January 1, 2015, he accepted an appointment to become the County Clerk of New York County, Commissioner of Jurors and Clerk of Supreme Court, Civil and Criminal Divisions. By accepting this appointment, Justice Tingling became the first black County Clerk in the history of New York State.

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2014: Robert Carneiro '45

Dr. Robert Carneiro ’45 has been called “one of the most important social evolutionists of the present.” Since 1957, he has been a curator of South American Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History, where he was a colleague of world-renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead.

Long established as an authority on lowland groups in South America, his ethnographic field research has focused on the culture of contemporary Indian tribes in Amazonia, including the Kuikuru of central Brazil, the Amahuaca of eastern Peru, and the Yanomamö of southern Venezuela. His work there and his study of chiefdoms of highland Colombia led to influential articles on the role of warfare in the evolution of chiefdoms and states. His theoretical interests are in cultural evolution in general, and in political evolution in particular.

Although his list of academic publications is extensive, including the highly acclaimed books Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology: A Critical History (Westview Press, 2003) and The Muse of History and the Science of Culture (Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2000), Carneiro is most identified with a classic article that changed the way anthropologists look at human society. In “A Theory of the Origin of the State” (1970), he proposed what has been called “The Circumscription Theory,” which challenged prevailing theories of political evolution.

His “Circumscription Theory” opened up a dialogue on political evolution that has had far-ranging effects, most notably the reintroduction of state formation as a significant concern for cultural anthropologists and archaeologists. As Carneiro stated, “the circumscription theory…explains why states arose where they did, and why they failed to arise elsewhere. It shows the state to be a predictable response to certain specific cultural, demographic, and ecological conditions. Thus, it helps to elucidate what was undoubtedly the most important single step ever taken in the political evolution of mankind.”

Carneiro is listed in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering, Who’s Who in the East, and Who’s Who in the World, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999. In 2012, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Currently an adjunct professor of anthropology at Columbia University and Professor Emeritus at the Richard Gilder Graduate School, he has also taught at the University of Wisconsin, the University of California at Los Angeles, Pennsylvania State University, Fordham University, Hunter College and the University of Victoria in British Columbia. Dr. Carneiro, who was born in New York City, earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in anthropology, as well as a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science, from the University of Michigan. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Manhattan and have a son, Brett.

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2013 : Jonathan Rubinstein '74

Jon Rubinstein, a.k.a. “The Podfather,” is among the tech industry’s most accomplished and well-respected leaders. Over the course of his 30-year career, Jon has made multiple contributions to the conception and creation of some of the world’s most iconic products, including the iMac and iPod lines, and countless other Apple innovations.

During his nine-year tenure at Apple, first as senior vice president of Hardware Engineering, then as senior vice president of the iPod division, Jon’s product vision and leadership helped fuel one of the most dramatic company turnarounds in history. At Apple, Jon overhauled its engineering teams, product roadmaps and manufacturing processes, and led the rapid development of Apple’s first iMac. The first iPod was conceived and then launched within a year under Jon’s watch. In addition to spearheading the roadmap for every iPod and Mac hardware line until his departure, he built the vast iPod ecosystem that has since become a multi-billion dollar industry.

Jon then joined Palm, first as Executive Chairman and then as CEO, leading the beleaguered company out of a multi-year slump. The introduction of Palm’s webOS software, with its forward-looking cloud synchronization and multi-tasking software, shocked Palm doubters and is still considered industry leading today.

Upon Palm’s acquisition by Hewlett-Packard in 2009, Jon served as senior vice president and general manager of the Palm Global Business Unit, then as senior vice president of Product Innovation, and presided over the development and launch of HP’s TouchPad tablet.

Prior to Apple, Jon held leadership positions in Stardent Computer and NeXT, which was founded by Steve Jobs and later acquired by Apple. Jon also founded and sold his own company, Firepower Systems.

Jon now advises tech startups, serves on the boards of Amazon and Qualcomm, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a senior member of the IEEE. A 1974 graduate of Horace Mann School, Jon earned bachelors and masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and a masters degree in Computer Science from Colorado State University. He and his wife, Karen Richardson, live in San Francisco and Mexico with their Nano beagle, Pixi.

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2012 : Adrian Benepe ' 74

Adrian Benepe, a 1974 graduate of Horace Mann School, has worked for more than 30 years protecting and enhancing New York City's parks, gardens and historic resources, most recently as the Commissioner of Parks & Recreation. He continues this effort but now on a national level, as Senior Vice President for City Park Development for the Trust for Public Land, starting in that position in September 2012.

After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont, he became a member of the first corps of Parks & Recreation’s Urban Park Rangers in 1979. He then served in several positions including Director of Public Information, Operations Coordinator, Director of Natural Resources & Horticulture, and Director of Art & Antiquities (in charge of the City's conservation and interpretation of 1,300 statues and monuments and 23 historic house museums). From 1990 to 1993, Mr. Benepe was the Director of the Annual Fund & Major Gifts for the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. At the Garden, he co-founded the “Holiday Garden Railway” exhibition. From 1994 to 1996 he served as Vice President for Issues & Public Affairs for the Municipal Art Society, working on planning, historic preservation, and other civic programs and he co-curated “Kid City,” an exhibition for children on NYC’s built environment.

In 1996 he returned to NYC Parks & Recreation as the Manhattan Borough Commissioner, where he managed Manhattan’s green infrastructure of more than 300 parks, playgrounds, and malls, and helped found the Fort Tryon Park Trust. He served in that position until he was appointed Commissioner of Parks & Recreation in January, 2002 by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. where he oversaw the operation of over 29,000 acres of public park land, encompassing nearly 5,000 properties including over 1,000 playgrounds, 600 ball fields, 600 tennis courts, 63 swimming pools, 35 recreation centers, 14 miles of beach, and over 2.5 million street and park trees, with an annual expense and capital budget of over $800 million. During his tenure, the NYC park system grew by more than 800 acres, including major new parks such as Hudson River Park, Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the Highline, and new standards for sustainable design were introduced to guide all landscape architecture and architecture projects. He also served on 76 non-profit boards and helped to manage and develop significant public-private partnerships that contributed over one million annual volunteer hours and raised more than $165 million annually in private contributions.

In addition to his B.A. in English Literature from Middlebury College, Adrian Benepe earned a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Fellowship. He lives with his wife and two sons on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he grew up. He likes to run, walk, bicycle, and cross–country ski in Central and Riverside Parks and throughout the City's park system.

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2011 : William P. Barr '67

William P. Barr served as the 77th Attorney General of the United States from 1991 to 1993 under President George H.W. Bush and, prior to that, as the Deputy Attorney General and as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel.

Mr. Barr graduated from Horace Mann School in 1967 then attended Columbia University where he received his B.A. in government in 1971 and his M.A. in government and Chinese studies in 1973. He served in the CIA from 1973 to 1977 and while at the Agency, attended night law school at George Washington University. He received his JD with highest honors in 1977 and then served as law clerk to Judge Malcom Wilkey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

After his clerkship, Mr. Barr embarked on a career as a Washington lawyer at the firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge going back and forth between private practice and stints in public service. From 1982 to 1983, he served on the White House Domestic Policy Staff under President Reagan. Beginning in 1989, Mr. Barr served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel and as Deputy Attorney General under President George H. W. Bush. In 1991 he was nominated and confirmed as Attorney General of the United States where he served until 1993.

As Deputy, he was responsible for the day-to-day management of the Department. He also coordinated the country’s counter-terrorism activities during the First Gulf War and led the Department’s response to the S & L crisis, receiving wide bipartisan praise for his professional running of the Department. As Attorney General, Mr. Barr established innovative programs to combat violent crime and set significant new enforcement policies in a wide range of areas, including financial institutions, civil rights, and antitrust merger guidelines.

Following his service at the Department of Justice, Mr. Barr has served in senior positions at corporations that include GTE Corporation and Verizon. Among many accomplishments, he played a lead role in obtaining deregulation of telecommunications companies and paving the way for the wide-scale deployment of broadband.

Mr. Barr married Christine Moynihan in 1973, and they have three daughters. All are lawyers – two Federal prosecutors, and one Majority counsel on a House Congressional Committee.

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2010: Margaret Galland Kivelson, Ph.D. '46

Dr. Margaret Galland Kivelson '46 is a Distinguished Professor of Space Physics at UCLA and a highly honored national figure for her career in solar-terrestrial physics, planetary science, and planetary magnetism.

Dr. Kivelson was a member of the Horace Mann School for Girls final graduating class. She went on to university studies at Radcliffe where she received a bachelor's and master's degree in physics, and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. Dr. Kivelson moved to California in 1955 with her husband and young family where she started her career as a physics consultant for the RAND Corporation.

In 1967 Dr Kivelson joined the faculty of UCLA's Department of Earth and Space Sciences. She served on the first Chancellor's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, later becoming its Chair, was President of the Association of Academic Women at UCLA, and helped initiate the Women's Studies Program at UCLA. She has served as a mentor and role model, especially to young women scientists.

Dr. Kivelson's honors are many, and include two NASA Group Achievement Awards for her work as a member of the Project Galileo Team and the Galileo Ida Encounter/Dactyl Discovery Team. In addition, she was honored with Harvard University's 350th Anniversary Alumni Medal. In 2005, Dr. Kivelson received the prestigious Fleming Award of the American Geophysical Union, which recognizes outstanding contribution to the description and understanding of electricity and magnetism of the earth and its atmosphere and of the Alfvén Medal of the European Geophysical Union for her pioneering work on Jupiter and its moons. Kivelson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society, an organization founded by Benjamin Franklin.

Dr. Kivelson's two children have followed her path into education and are both professors today. She currently lives in Pacific Palisades, California and continues to serve on the faculty of UCLA.

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2009: Simon C. Parisier, MD '53

Dr. Parisier is the co-founder and medical director of The Children’s Hearing Institute, a not-for-profit agency established to support otologic research and educational programs. He is a 1953 graduate of Horace Mann School. Dr. Parisier is also a graduate of Columbia College and received his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center where he became Clinical Professor and Chief of Otology-Neurotology. He is Professor of Otolaryngology at New York Medical College. While Chairman of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery at Manhattan Eye Ear Throat Hospital, Dr. Parisier spearheaded an innovative Conjoint Ear, Nose and Throat Residency Training Program sponsoring residents at four New York medical centers. This program was cited by U.S. News &World Report as one of the top 20 in the country.

A gifted surgeon, Dr. Parisier ranks among the pioneers in the development of cochlear implants and related operative techniques that effectively restore hearing to infants, children and adults afflicted with profound neuro-sensory deafness. He is also a leader in the field of chronic middle ear infections and ear diseases, and is world renowned for his research on the cellular biology of cholesteatoma which has led to a better basic understanding of this destructive ear disorder. Author of more than 120 publications and a member of numerous professional societies, Dr. Parisier has been recognized by the American Academy of Otolaryngology (Award of Merit) and the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (Distinguished Service Award).

Dr. Parisier lives in New York City with his wife, Elaine, with whom he co-founded The Children’s Hearing Institute. They are the parents of three Horace Mann School graduates, David Parisier ’83, Nicole Parisier ’85, and Lauren Parisier Weiss ’87 and the aunt and uncle of Charles Stam ’08 and Elisabeth Stam ’12.

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2008: Saul Zabar '46 and Stanley Zabar '49

Saul Zabar is the President and co-owner of Zabar’s and Co., Inc. Unlike most honorees, Saul Zabar never finished college. However, it is said by those who know him that he has a degree in the “coffee business” with a minor in “choosing smoked fish.” In 1934, Louis Zabar opened a stall in a Daitch Market. In 1950, while at the University of Kansas, Saul Zabar was unexpectedly called home to run the family business when his father passed away. He inherited a small store on Broadway and 80th Street and spent the next 60 years building Zabar’s into the New York institution it is today.

Saul regards Zabar’s as his life’s work and has no plans to retire. He meets with several of his Horace Mann classmates every few months and they relive their happy days at their alma mater. He is married to Carole, his wife of 40 years, and they have three wonderful children, Ann, Rachel and Aaron, and four fabulous grandchildren.

Stanley Zabar currently serves as Vice-President, CFO, house counsel and co-owner of Zabar’s and Co., Inc. After graduating Horace Mann School, he attended the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and New York University. He is also a graduate of Brooklyn Law School and holds a Masters of Law degree from NYU. During his career, Stanley worked as a partner in the law firm of Rubin, Baum, Levin, Constant and Friedman and was house counsel for Rapid American Corporation.

Stanley is a board member of C-Cap (Careers in Culinary Arts Program) and a member of the President’s Council of the New York Public Library. He is married to the former Judith Segal and they have three children, Lori, Sondra and David and eight grandchildren, all West Siders.

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2007: Alex Counts '84

Alex Counts is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a dynamic, nonprofit, Washington D.C.-based organization that has grown to a global network of 52 microfinance partners in 22 countries. Counts became Grameen Foundation’s first Executive Director in 1997, after several years honing his skills and vision in microfinance and poverty reduction. A 1988 Cornell University graduate, with a degree in economics, Counts’ commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar witnessing dire poverty as well as innovative solutions in Bangladesh. He then trained to be a catalyst for change under Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of the Grameen Bank.

Through much of the 1990’s, Counts worked in Bangladesh establishing Grameen Bank’s flagship publication Grameen Dialogue, and working as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh, CARE's largest mission worldwide. In between stints in Bangladesh, Count’s served as the legislative director of RESULTS, an international grassroots citizen's lobbying group working to create the political will to end hunger and that has played a leading role in advocating for increased funding and better targeting of resources to support global health, education and microfinance initiatives.

Counts founded Grameen Foundation in 1997 with a mere $6,000 in seed capital and a charge from Dr. Yunus. This new organization was to play the role of catalyst, channeling human, financial and technological resources in the United States to support the growth of the poverty-focused microfinance movement.

Today, under Counts’ leadership, Grameen Foundation impacts an estimated eleven million lives in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Arab World. Grameen Foundation’s annual budget has grown in each year of its existence, from $100,000 in 1997 to over $11 million in 2005, and its breakthrough impact has been chronicled in the Economist and elsewhere.

Counts has propelled Grameen Foundation’s philosophy and approach through numerous articles on poverty and microcredit for the poor and has authored a book entitled Give Us Credit: How Muhammad Yunus' Microlending Revolution is Empowering Women from Bangladesh to Chicago, which was published by Random House in 1996. The Indian edition of his book was the inspiration behind the establishment of Grameen Koota, a microfinance institution in Bangalore, India that served 14,000 women as of March 2005. He has been published in the Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Miami Herald, the Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere.

Counts serves on the Board of Directors of two microfinance institutions. He chairs the board of Project Enterprise in New York City, and is a board member of Fonkoze USA that supports microfinance in Haiti, and the PLAN Fund, a microfinance institution serving low-income people in Dallas, Texas. He is also a member of the Board of Advisors of the Katalysis Bootstrap Fund and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Grameen Dialogue.

Counts speaks fluent Bengali and lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife Emily and cat, Seymour.

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2006: Peter Athans '75

Perhaps the most successful and modest American Everest Climber ever, Peter Athans is known in some circles simply as "Mr. Everest". Since 1985, he has led 16 expeditions, attempted five different routes from the Tibetan and Nepalese sides of the mountain and on seven occasions has attained the summit, more than any other climber of non-Sherpa ethnicity.

Everest looms from Peter's resume, but his accomplishments on other peaks are equally impressive. Over a twenty-year period, Peter has been active on each continent, climbing, guiding and exploring. He has led expeditions to Lhotse, Nuptse, Makalu, Manaslu, K2 and has succeeded in forging a new line up the rarely climbed south face and ridge of Annapurna's South Peak. Peter’s rapid ascents of Cho Oyu, Ama Dablam and Pumori have been remarkable in their lightweight efficiency and speed.

In December of 1997, Peter was granted the David A. Sowles award for his dramatic rescue efforts high on Everest in 1996, assisting two frostbitten and exhausted climbers from Everest's south col. The Sowles medal is the highest award conferred by the American Alpine Club, given rarely and only to climbers who have distinguished themselves through assuming great personal risk, sacrificing their own objectives and going to the assistance of those in need. In 2005, he was awarded The Explorers Club Tenzing Norgay Award.

During his frequent visits to Nepal, Peter has taken a particular interest in the Sherpa people, an indigenous population of western Tibetan descent who reside in the southern foothills of Everest. To honor their contribution to Himalayan mountaineering and Everest history, Peter organized the Sherpa Everest Expedition and documented the event for ESPN and National Geographic Magazine. Peter is also a board member of the Himalayan Cataract Project, which brings eye care to those suffering from cataract blindness in the Himalaya.

In addition to being a member of The North Face Design and Development team, Athans is deeply involved in the creative elements of filming his sport. He is a high-altitude camera operator whose work has been featured in productions for Nova, National Geographic Television & Film, ABC Sports, NBC Sports, and on the big screen in Mandalay Productions’ feature film Seven Years in Tibet. He has collaborated on more than a half dozen climbing films, writing, narrating, editing, and shooting. Other film credits include Everest: Into the Death Zone, Everest: The Mountain at the Millennium, Explorer on Ice, The High Route to Tibet, Surviving Everest: 50 Years of Exploration, and Sight Unseen, an episode of National Geographic’s Ultimate Explorer series which documents the Himalayan Cataract Project. Peter is currently working on an autobiographical project entitled Nearly Sherpa: Seven Summits of Everes".

Peter is the son of former HM faculty member George Athans and a graduate of The University of Colorado. He currently lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington with his wife, Liz Athans, and their children.

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2005: Gil Shaham '89

Violinist Gil Shaham is internationally recognized by audiences and many noted critics as one of today’s most virtuosic and engaging classical artists. He is sought after throughout the world for concerto appearances with celebrated orchestras as well as for recital and ensemble appearances on the great concert stages and at the most prestigious festivals.

Mr. Shaham was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, in 1971. In 1973 he moved with his parents to Israel, where at the age of 7 he began violin studies with Samuel Bernstein of the Rubin Academy of Music and was immediately granted annual scholarships by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. In 1981, while studying with Haim Taub in Jerusalem, he made debuts with the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic. That same year he began his studies with Dorothy DeLay and Jens Ellerman at Aspen. In 1982, after taking first prize in Israel’s Claremont Competition, he became a scholarship student at Juilliard, where he has worked with Ms. DeLay and Hyo Kang. After graduating from Horace Mann, he studied at Columbia University.

During his senior year in 1989, Shaham was called out of class to step in at short notice for Itzhak Perlman in a concert with the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas and gave an outstanding performance of Bruch and Sibelius concertos. Since then, he never looked back.

Gil Shaham won a Grammy Award for his 1998 recital album “American Scenes” with André Previn at the piano. Other recent releases include a Bartok disc (the Violin Concerto No. 2 and the two Rhapsodies for Violin and Orchestra) with Pierre Boulez and the Chicago Symphony, which earned two Grammy nominations; and an Arvo Pärt recording, on which Mr. Shaham performed “Tabula Rasa” and “Fratres III.” His most recent releases are “Schubert for Two” with guitarist Göran Söllscher; a Brahms disc with Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic; John Williams’ “Treesong” with the Boston Symphony; Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” with Myung-Whun Chung, Mischa Maisky and Paul Meyer; and “Devil’s Dance,” a disc of showpieces with pianist Jonathan Feldman.

Gil Shaham has recorded concertos by Mendelssohn, Bruch, Paganini, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius with Giuseppe Sinopoli leading the Philharmonia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic; Wieniawski’s Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 and Sarasate’s “Zigeunerweisen” with Lawrence Foster and the London Symphony; and solo discs devoted to music by Schumann, Richard Strauss, Elgar, Ravel, Franck, Kreisler, Paganini, Saint-Saëns and Sarasate (for Deutsche Grammophon). Other recordings include two collaborations with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” and “Romances for Violin and Orchestra”; “Paganini for Two” with guitarist Göran Söllscher; “Dvorak for Two” with his sister, Orli Robertson ’93; “The Fiddler of the Opera,” transcriptions of opera arias; two concerto discs with Andre Previn and the London Symphony, the Barber and Korngold concertos and the Prokofiev concertos, both nominated for Grammy Awards; and “Meeting in Moscow,” a pairing of the Kabalevsky and Glazunov concertos, with Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra.

Gil Shaham was awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1990. He plays the 1699 "Countess Polignac" Stradivarius and lives in New York City with his wife, the violinist Adele Anthony, and son, Elijah.

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2004: Eliot Spitzer '77

Eliot Spitzer became the state’s 63rd Attorney General on January 1, 1999. Since that time, he has advanced initiatives to make New York a national leader in investor protection, environmental stewardship, labor rights, personal privacy, public safety and criminal law enforcement.

Spitzer’s investigations of conflicts of interest on Wall Street have been the catalyst for dramatic reform in the nation’s financial services industry. His lawsuits against Midwest and Mid-Atlantic power plants will help reduce air pollution responsible for acid rain and smog in the Northeast. His efforts to curtail abuses in the green grocery industry have been hailed as landmark labor rights cases. His investigations of internet companies and direct marketers have resulted in new privacy protections for consumers throughout the nation. His "code of conduct" was the foundation for a settlement that reformed the way the nation’s largest gun manufacturer designs and distributes handguns. His prosecutions of sophisticated white collar crimes have resulted in some of the nation’s largest fraud recoveries. Through these and other initiatives, Spitzer is building the reputation of the Attorney General as "the People’s Lawyer."

Spitzer brings considerable experience to the office. He was a clerk to United State District Court Judge Robert W. Sweet and, later, an associate at Paul Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton, and Garrison. He served as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan from 1986-1992, rising to become Chief of the Labor Racketeering Unit, where he successfully prosecuted organized crime and political corruption cases. He also worked at the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, and was a partner at Constantine & Partners.

Spitzer has contributed great time and energy to community service, serving on the boards of various not-for-profit organizations.

Spitzer is a 1981 graduate of Princeton University and a 1984 graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. Spitzer and his wife, Silda, also a Harvard Law School graduate, live in Manhattan with their three daughters.

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2003: Alan J. Patricof '52

Alan J. Patricof ‘52, Vice Chairman of Apax Partners, Inc., is the Distinguished Alumni Award recipient for 2003. As the leader of one of the world’s leading venture capital firms with operations in eight countries and over $12 billion under management, Mr. Patricof has participated in the financing and development of a large number of companies, including the initial stages of firms such as Apple Computers, America-On-Line, Cadence Systems and Office Depot. To honor his contribution to the development of private equity, Mr. Patricof was inducted into the Private Equity Hall of Fame in 1996.

To complement his distinguished record in the world of finance, Mr. Patricof served for over 10 years as the Treasurer and as a Member of the Board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences. He served as Chairman of the Investment Committee and Member of the Board of the New York State Science & Technology Foundation and the Capital Formation Subcommittee of the Competitiveness Policy Council. In 1995, he served as Chairman of the White House Conference on Small Business Commission.

Mr. Patricof is currently a member of several corporate boards, including Boston Properties, Inc. (NYSE) and ATX Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ), and such private companies as Johnny Rockets, Inc. Zinio Systems, Inc., Upoc, Inc. and 7thOnLine, Inc. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of Columbia University Graduate School of Business, TechnoServe, the Trickle Up Program and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the UNDP Commission on Private Sector & Development. In addition, he is vice chairman of the Commission on Financing Capital Flows to Africa, and he is chairman of the Private Equity Group of the Global Corporate Governance Forum.

Mr. Patricof is a graduate of Ohio State University and Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

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2002: Ambassadors Donald Blinken '43 and William A. Rugh '54

 

The Horace Mann Alumni Association presented the 2002 Award for Distinguished Achievement to former Ambassadors Donald M. Blinken ’43 and William A. Rugh ’54 at a dinner on September 25, 2002.

The two ambassadors were recognized for their years of outstanding service in government, as well as their continuing service in international organizations. The award evening, held at ‘21’ in New York City, offered those gathered to hear the Ambassadors address the critical questions of today’s international affairs, including the debate over Iraq and the Middle East conflict. Gideon Rose ’81, managing director of Foreign Affairs, moderated the discussion and question and answer period.

Introducing the two distinguished awardees, Alumni Association President Allison Baron ’89 described their careers. Ambassador Blinken has had a diverse career blending leadership roles in investment banking, education, arts patronage and government service. He has served as Co-founder of E.M. Warburg Pincus and Co., a world-renowned venture capital firm; Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York; President of the Brooklyn Academy of Music; President of the Mark Rothko Foundation; and Ambassador to the Republic of Hungary. He received the U.S. Department of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service for his work enabling logistical support for U.S. military operations in Bosnia. In September, 2000 Ambassador Blinken was named Secretary-General of the World Federation of the United Nations Association.

Ambassador William A. Rugh ’54 has devoted the majority of his career to government and diplomatic service in or concerning the Near East. He has served as Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen and as Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. He is the recipient of there Presidential Awards for Meritorious Service as well as the Distinguished Honor Award from USIA. Since July 1995, Ambassador Rugh has been President and Chief Executive Officer of America-Mideast Educational and Training Service, Inc., a private, non-profit organization that promotes understanding and cooperation among Americans and the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa. His articles have been published in scholarly journals and newspapers throughout the world.

In welcoming the honorees and guests Head of School Dr. Eileen Mullady described the Horace Mann of the 1940s and 1950s, during the years the two attended the School. Though much has changed, the pursuit of excellence continues, and students continue to pursue roles in public service.

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2001: Barry C. Scheck '67

 

Distinguished Alumni Award recipient for 2001 and a member of the Class of 1967, Barry Scheck is Professor of Law, Director of Clinical Legal Education and Co-Director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University in New York City.

Professor Scheck always has been a vigorous advocate. As an undergraduate at Yale, he was a vociferous protestor against the Vietnam War; after graduation from the University of California Boalt Hall School of Law at Berkeley, he spent five years working for The Legal Aid Society in the Bronx. Barry Scheck today is one of the most celebrated defense attorneys in the country. Many of his clients have had high profiles, and he has employed his knowledge of technologically sophisticated proof to defend them, along with a theatrical and dramatic style befitting a lawyer who also writes screenplays. But many of Professor Scheck’s clients have been unknown individuals, condemned to prison or death for crimes they did not commit. As the co-founder of the Innocence Project, a unique pro bono effort, and the co-author of Actual Innocence, he has led the effort to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates in states across the nation using DNA evidence. These efforts have had a major impact on the legal process and have helped trigger a national re-examination of safeguards surrounding the death penalty which is continuing to be the subject of debate and discussion in the courts, the Congress, state legislatures and executive branches.

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2000: Alfred Bloom III, Ph.D. '63, Anthony Hecht '40, and Robert S. Ledley, DDS '43

A leader in national and international education for the past 25 years, Dr. Bloom has held positions of leadership at a number of prestigious colleges and universities, including the president of Swarthmore College for the past nine years. Trained in the study of European civilization, psychology, and linguistics, he has written widely on Chinese culture and language. His contributions to the field of higher education have been honored by a Knight Foundation grant for creative leadership with regard to Swarthmore's honor program.

A distinguished poet, critic, essayist, and educator, Anthony Hecht is the winner of numerous prizes and awards for an extraordinary lifetime of literary and educational achievement. Among the many accolades he has received are the Pulitzer Prize, the Prixe de Rome, the Robert Frost Medal, and Guggenheim, Ford and Rockefeller Fellowships. His poetry, published in seven volumes, speaks in a voice suffused with wit, subtlety of thought, and clarity of mind. As an educator he has devoted more than half a century to higher formal education. Mr. Hecht is among a select group of ten Horace Mann Pulitzer Prize winners.

Recognized as one of America's most brilliant medical pioneers, Dr. Ledley is best known for developing the first whole-body computerized tomography (CT or CAT) machine and for developing chromosomal analysis to permit prenatal diagnosis of birth defects. His work revolutionized diagnostic medicine. As well as holding more than sixty patents, Dr. Ledley is president and research director of the National Biomedical Research Foundation, and editor-in-chief of four reviewed scientific journals. In 1990, he was inducted into the National Inventor's Hall of Fame, and in 1997 he was honored with the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor for technological achievement. The award was presented to him by the president of the United States.

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1998-1999: Hans J. Bär '45

When Hans J. Bär first came to Horace Mann School in 1941, he and his mother, the second and third generations of a family that owned the only significant Zurich bank founded by Jews, were fleeing the threat of a Nazi invasion of their native country. He returned to the school on March 15, 1999 to accept the 1998-1999 Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Achievement after an outstanding career for which he is globally recognized in the banking and finance communities. On this side of the Atlantic he may be most recognized for his role in bringing about an investigation and ultimate settlement of Holocaust claims against Swiss banks. Mr. Bär helped draft the 1996 agreement between the Swiss Bankers Association and the World Jewish Congress, which established a commission to oversee an audit of Holocaust-related accounts at Swiss banks. Many credit him with leading the Swiss banking community to deal with this issue. As Israel Singer, director-general of the World Jewish Congress, said, "I was doing the heating up, and he was doing the resolving." In addition to his work as a member of the Volcker Commission, more formally known as the Independent Committee of Eminent Persons (ICEP), which is overseeing the audit, Mr. Bär holds the title of Honorary Chairman of Bank Julius Bär Holding.

Bank Julius Bär Holding is regarded as one of the most prestigious of the private Swiss banks. It spans the globe, with offices in London, Geneva, Hong Kong, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, Munich, Montreal, and Los Angeles. It has a federally chartered branch in New York, which was the first foreign bank branch to be granted fiduciary powers by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, allowing it to perform both banking and securities-related functions. During a special reception and dinner, Mr. Bär received the Award for Distinguished Achievement after several remarks and recollections by classmates, Robert Carneiro '45 and Bruce Dohrenwend '45, as well as Pulitzer Prize winner and former recipient of the Award for Distinguished Achievement in 1964, Anthony Lewis '44. David Jacoby '72, vice president of the Alumni Council, made remarks to a crowd of over 120 guests including three other past Award for Distinguished Achievement recipients: Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. '42, Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. '32, and S. William (Bill) Green '46. "I read many words that various writers have used to try to describe Hans Bär: statesmanlike, diplomatic, influential, driving force. But I think the single characteristic which perhaps most distinguishes Hans Bär is what John Tagliabue of The New York Times described as his ability in the last few years to put a human face on the response to a tragic period in modern history," said Mr. Jacoby.

After receiving the award, Mr. Bär said, "It's a great honor to receive the Award for Distinguished Achievement, especially as the first foreign recipient. Thank you for the honor to come back after many years." He went on to discuss recent difficulties in dealings between the United States and Switzerland and ended with an appeal for fair and good citizenship on the part of all world citizens.

Mr. Bär's visit to Horace Mann comes after a twenty year absence. "It feels great to be back at Horace Mann," said Mr. Bär during a short interview at the Alumni House and Development Office. "I knew very little English when I came to Horace Mann. For me, the years here were my formative ones. I learned everything here — I played the cello in the orchestra, played tennis, and swam for the swim team, which I continued in college." One of his most memorable teachers was Mr. William Nagle, who taught Latin. "We had to buy green neck ties from him because he was Irish. He was awe-inspiring and tough. The other great personality, of course, was Mr. Tillinghast. Why he let me in to Horace Mann, I do not know. As I mentioned, I knew very little English at the time," recounts Mr. Bär.

After graduating from Horace Mann, Mr. Bär received a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from Lehigh University, a Master of Arts in Economics from New York University, and Visiting Fellowships at Oxford University and at Harvard Center for International Affairs. In 1951, he wrote a book on the banking system of Switzerland (Schulthess Polygraphischer Verlag AG, Zurich) that went through five editions. In 1997, Lehigh University conferred upon him an honorary Doctor of Laws. Over the years, Mr. Bär has held numerous leadership positions in banking industry associations as well as in Swiss-American organizations.

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1997: Robert B. Shapiro '56

Robert B. Shapiro, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Monsanto Company, received the 1997 Distinguished Alumnus Award.

In an illustrious career, Shapiro rose to the top ranks of American business leaders, putting aside plans when he was at Horace Mann to become a writer. "As it turned out that would not have been a very good idea," he told a group of alumni and friends at the award ceremony last November. "It turned out that while I liked the idea of being a writer, I didn't much like writing. In addition, I had absolutely nothing to say other than that all the people whom I resented and was angry at were just terrible. To have written that probably would have limited interest to anyone else." Instead, he went on to law school and several prestigious positions in business before joining Monsanto in 1990.

At the ceremony, Alumni Council President Suzanne Sloan '77 and Head of School Dr. Eileen Mullady extended greetings to the guests. Classmate Michael Katz introduced Shapiro. "Together we span the Class of '56, " Katz said. "Bob was graduated at the top of the class; I, close to the bottom.

"I have only one class memory of him," Katz continued. "Bob was asked to present a paper to our class on the romantic poets. He dissected each poet carefully, left not one out, talked about a few that none of us had ever heard of, probably made up a few, quoted poems at length, recited several, and finally sat down. Most of the class had fallen asleep or were peering at some interesting cracks in the ceiling...Mr. Baruth, however, was perfectly attentive and seemed quite interested. Mr. Baruth told Bob that his work was encyclopedic, exhaustive and totally comprehensive, but, Mr. Baruth said, 'Bob, you forgot one thing...' Baruth paused a beat, and the growled, 'Brevity!'"

Katz went on to describe Shapiro's considerable accomplishments which, at Monsanto, include the establishment of an exciting goal: "to reach a zero state of negative impact on the environment. If only all chief executives had this foresight." Shapiro was an executive at Searle and then NutraSweet, now both subsidiaries of Monsanto, from 1979 until 1990. During his career, he was also vice president and general counsel for General Instrument Corporation, a professor of law and an attorney. He served the government as a special assistant to the general counsel and to the undersecretary of the Department of Transportation. He has been a consultant to state and local governments, and is a member of the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee.

Following are excerpts from Shapiro's remarks:

"One of the pleasures of an occasion such as this is to juxtapose the self that I was and the expectations that I had so long ago with what life has in fact turned out to be like. The two have very little in common. When I hear Mike Katz describe his impression of me when I was in school with him, I suspect that the inside experience and the appearance are really quite different, and it wouldn't be fully honest or appropriate for me not to note that the years of my adolescence, as is the case with many other people, were very difficult and very painful...I must say Horace Mann during those years supported me and allowed me to experience all the issues of adolescence without too much danger, keeping me within reasonable limits and giving me the chance to grow from there.

"One of the great sins, I think, and one which I have been uniformly guilty of, is failure to thank one's teachers. There are so many people who made a huge difference in my life. I want to mention two tonight. One was Walter Metcalf and the other was Willard Hurst. Metcalf tried to teach me Latin, and Hurst tried to teach me physics and chemistry. What they had in common was that neither of those subjects came very easily to me; I had to struggle with them. [Metcalf and Hurst] were extremely patient with me, kind, considerate and absolutely merciless in their insistence that I was going to do this. There were times when I really doubted that I could. And so what I learned from them was less of Latin and physics or chemistry than it was that in fact I could do, more or less, things that didn't come easily to me. And that, I think, was probably more valuable than the subjects they were teaching.

"...But the real discovery of my life and one which I never would have anticipated was the discovery of business. If anyone had asked me while I was at Horace Mann what I thought of business and businessmen I would have reacted fairly contemptuously. Babbitt was, I guess, kind of the model of that. It turned out that when I finally got a job in the business world, I discovered I loved it. I absolutely loved it. It turned out to be the thing I was meant to do. I first loved it for incomplete reasons, if not the wrong reasons: because it was the best game I had seen, and called for the exercise of more muscles than I had previously been called on to use. It was only over the years that I realized that the real value of this is not in the game; business is a fundamental human activity that affects the lives of an awful lot of people. And done well, it can affect those lives in a very positive way."

On a personal note, Shapiro spoke of his family: "I have two older kids, both of whom are rock musicians - which is what happens when you send a son to Yale to study English and a daughter to Tufts to study art history...Late in life I've begun another family. I have now a two-year-old son, and another baby on the way in April, which tends to make me very conscious of these issues of work and family. In all of this I feel incredibly lucky, and very grateful to all those people and institutions that helped me get though some of the hard times and emerge more or less intact...I want to conclude by thanking my friends, my classmates, and my teachers at Horace Mann.

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1996: Alvin M. Josephy '32

Mr. Josephy was introduced by faculty member Barry Bienstock, who holds the Daniel Rose Chair in History and who is, like the honoree, an avid student of American History. Following are Mr. Bienstock's remarks which sum up admirably the measure of this extraordinary man.

"It's not often that one is given the opportunity to offer words of praise for someone who has meant a great deal to him. As we convene here I am reminded that all across the country thousands of anxious high school seniors and maybe even one or two Horace Mann seniors are busy trying to finish up their early acceptance applications to college. Probably, one of the essays asked them to write about an individual, or event, that made a significant impact on their lives. I am standing before you tonight as an American history teacher and a historian of the American Indian because of Alvin Josephy.

"Nearly thirty years ago, Mr. Josephy published The Indian Heritage of America, easily the most authoritative survey of the Indians of the Americas. What was an interest in American Indian culture and history for me now became a passion. I moved on to Mr. Josephy's The Patriot Chiefs and the Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest. Here were books that blended with deep sensitivity the worlds of academic scholarship and popular narrative and that made me realize what possibilities there were in the writing and teaching of American Indian history.

"And that, of course, is Alvin Josephy's gift. For more than fifty years through numerous magazine articles and more than a dozen books he has managed to join the past to the present in ways that delight, sadden, enrage, excite, and always instruct. He is, as David McCullough has said, 'one of our very best historians.'

"Whatever lessons Mr. Josephy learned about writing surely began at Horace Mann. This literary gift was continued at Harvard College and honed by years at the New York Herald Tribune, Time magazine, and American Heritage. Perhaps little appreciated now, but of great significance was his service during World War II. Serving with the Marine Corps as a combat correspondent in the Pacific theater and earning a Bronze Star, Mr. Josephy considers Iwo Jima 'one of the most important, if not the most important, experience' in his life.

"Mr. Josephy is a craftsman; in a very old and honored tradition, his prose has brought the world of Native Americans, the American West, and the American political tradition to countless readers. His scholarship has been praised for its originality and what is most remarkable about his writing and his historical interest is that he remains on the cutting edge of historical inquiry. He wrote with great sensitivity about Indians years before a new generation of historians followed his lead. He wrote what may be considered 'new' western history before Patricia Limerick made the term fashionable. There is hardly a television documentary that doesn't feature Mr. Josephy as historical consultant. Kevin Costner's '500 Nations', TBS's 'The Native-Americans', and Ken Burns's 'The West' all relied upon his sage counsel. Four years ago, as the nation celebrated the Columbus Quincentenary, Mr. Josephy, in consultation with the Newberry Library's D'Arcy McNickle Center for the History of the American Indian, edited America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of Columbus. In a year that saw hundreds of books published on that topic, his book was often cited as the one indispensable publication.

"Mr. Josephy's efforts to create what Wallace Stegner called a plausible past for generations of Americans have been tireless. He is the founding Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. In his presidential address to the Western History Association, he summed up what the historian contributes to the American experience: 'The historian can join with the poet and the novelist in inspiring among the Westerners of today and tomorrow a feeling of this wondrous region of the United States and for their place within it so strong as to border on the scared.'...Alvin Josephy is a historian and a poet of the West and its people, an artist who, like Remington or Russell, has painted huge canvases that generations of Americans will go to learn about their past and their present.

"Let me conclude with Mr. Josephy's own words, comments he made ten years ago about his Iwo Jima experience: 'I recognized at Iwo, even more than at Guam, how abruptly and completely a life can be extinguished, taking with it all the hopes, promises and possibilities of that life. Because I was spared, I have regarded every year given me since Iwo as a bonus. But with gratitude, I look on the bonus as one that carries with it obligations to those who did not make it off the island: to try never consciously to hurt anyone else; to respect and help anyone who needs assistance; and to contribute what little I can to help make the world a better place before I, too, depart.'"

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1995: Hon. Giles S. Rich '22

The Harmonie Club of New York was the setting for a reception attended by over 120 Horace Mann graduates in honor of Judge Giles Sutherland Rich. He received the Alumni Association's award in recognition of his achievements as an outstanding jurist and of his work as "Founding Father" of modern US Patent law. At age 92, he is the oldest sitting judge in the United States.

A graduate of Harvard and Columbia Law School, he began his practice in 1929. During his career, he served as lecturer on patent law at Columbia and at Georgetown University Law Center. He was nominated to the US Court of Customs and Patent Appeals by President Eisenhower in 1956. In 1982 he became Judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal circuit. He is the author of numerous articles on patent law, and is a member of the American Bar Association the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the American Patent Law Association.

The following is an abridged text of his remarks on the evening of the presentation:

"As you can all understand, it has taken me quite some time to attain my allegedly distinguished achievement status and I stand before you at a considerably advanced age. Therefore, you can hardly expect anything from me other than reminiscences.

"However, le me orient you a little further on how far back I go.

"When I came to New York and Horace Mann to start my second year of what in my home town was know as High School, I had just finished my freshman year during the course of which, on the 11th hour of the 11th month, the very first of what used to be called Armistice Day had occurred, ending World War I, the War to end Wars...since then there have been some additional wars to produce more veterans with a need to celebrate and take a holiday and close the government so they could go shopping on the 10th day of the 11th month.

"One other bit of orientation: on picking up the morning paper just one week ago...I was shocked to read of the assassination of yet another man of peace, Yitzhak Rabin...what caught my eye was 1922, the year of Rabin's birth and the year I graduated from Horace Mann, plus the statement that Rabin was 73 years old. That should orient you fairly well with respect of my class, from which you don't hear much in the alumni news anymore.

"The world was then a very different place. Radio was about to emerge. No TV of course. The source of home music and entertainment was the Victrola and some people I knew even had Edison phonographs with 1/4 inch thick records. To those we boys and girls of Horace Mann sometimes danced in each other's homes. But the boys and girls were then in different schools. The Parent-Teachers Association got us together for occasional dances with, for me, the distinct advantage of finding my first wife of 22 years. But not right away. Not until I got out of law school.

"As a newcomer to New York, my family had no friends here and my partner at school dances was my younger sister who went to the Girls' School. One fine day I drove my sister down to Barnard College during my first year at Columbia Law School and as we passed one of the classroom buildings I saw this attractive girl and said to my sister, "That girl looks familiar. Who is she?" My sister said, "Oh, you know her! That's Gertrude Braun. You met her at the Horace Mann dance." One way or another I got to meet her again, after which meetings became more frequent. I met with the approval of her family and, after we both had jobs and though we could swing it, we got married in the second year of the greatest depression this country has ever know. Gertrude eventually became a professor in the Barnard philosophy department and , in effect, I had the status of faculty wife.

"We had many Horace Mann friends...I would like to mention one of them in particular because it is a small part of HM history which I think has become mostly forgotten.

"Gertrude's closest friend was a girl named Pauline Pierce. She was a direct descendent of the 14th President of the United States, Franklin Pierce (Lincoln was the 16th in case you don't remember Pierce). She married a man named John Mulholland. Let me read you what the 12950 Columbia Encyclopedia says about him: Born in 1898. American magician. While still a schoolboy, he established a reputation for his skill in magical tricks, and he came to be one of the most celebrated of stage performers of magic. He also wrote with simplicity and charm on the subject and on spiritualism.

"That's who he was. But what you are not told is that back in the early 20's when I was at HM, John Mulholland was the manual training teacher...In other words, we had our resident magician and he delighted in practicing his skill at the school. He was always collecting little crowds in the locker room and pretending to pick ping-pong balls out of some boy's mouth. He had marvelous large hands and was the ambidextrous prestidigitator par excellence, sometimes letting us in on some of the magician's secrets, or possibly pretending to while tricking us further. John was a frequent performer at school assemblies, one of his favorite displays of manual dexterity being to tear the pages of an entire Manhattan telephone book in two.

"I mention one other friend of Gertrude's who went to Horace Mann, just to emphasize a big change since 1922. She was Helen Robinson, the first woman to be admitted to Columbia Law School. The number of women in that school is now around 50 percent.

"In looking at a list of these to whom you have given this award, I noticed that in 1954 the awardee was my friend Kenneth Bainbridge of the class of 1921, an M.I.T. Professor, which reminded me of a couple of things. The first was a little adventure we had together and the second was why I did not go to M.I.T. I'll tell you about the latter first.

"When my father put me in HM, he told the Headmaster, Mr. Prettyman, that I would go to M.I.T. and to prepare me for that. I accepted his judgement but had always understood it was a very hard school...I lived with these assumptions until my father came home from a business trip to Boston. My father was a patent lawyer and had been talking to an inventor friend. This inventor said to him, "What are you going to do with your boy?" My father said, "I'm going to send him to M.I.T." The inventor said, "Why?" My father said, "It's a good engineering school, isn't it?" and the reply was, "Yes, but engineers nowadays are a dime a dozen. Why don't you get him an education? Did you ever think of sending him to Harvard?" My father had to say "no" because he didn't know much about Harvard so his friend took him to Cambridge and must have given him a pretty good sales talk because when he came home he interrupted me at my homework with the surprising question, "How would you like to go to Harvard?" I knew nothing of the place either, but my immediate response was "It's O.K. with me." such are the odd ways in which our lives are formed! Horace Mann was told of the change and did a good job of seeing to it that I met Harvard's entrance requirements.

"Now, I will tell you about the adventure I had with Ken Bainbridge, which touches on the history of electronics...Ken and I had a common interest in what we then knew as "wireless." He was a very advanced wireless amateur and had gotten into the latest development, the wireless telephone. Lee deForest had a liking for these amateurs and liked to communicate with them about technical matters. At this time, WWI had recently ended and the Atlantic Fleet was parked in the Hudson River. Many of the ships were equipped with wireless telephones made by Western Electric. the Navy operators were having a picnic with these new toys. They would talk to each other, tell jokes and converse with the amateurs, to whom the Navy equipment was of great interest. You had only to go down to a dock and get a free ride in a Navy launch to any ship you wanted to visit.

"DeForest, too, was interested in the equipment and he wanted to acquire some of the vacuum tubes the Navy had. Evidently he couldn't get these tubes from the hone company so he made deals with the amateurs to buy them from the Navy operators...One day Ken invited me to go along to buy a couple of spare tubes, which we took out to the lab where we watched deForest himself test them. And that is how I got to meet the famous inventor. A strictly illegal transaction but the Statute of Limitations ahs run...

"I remember one other related event in a HM assembly when other classmates set up a wireless telephone demonstration. One group set up transmitting equipment in an apartment in Manhattan and another set up receiving equipment in the school. After much fiddling around and buildup of anxiety we finally heard the feeble sounds of a voice we all knew coming from several miles away - without wires! Thus were we boys introduced to the possibilities of what came to be known as broadcasting.

"I came to Horace Mann under its first headmaster, Prettyman. The second headmaster, Tillinghast, arrived the following year. The third was Mitchell Gratwick and I also became well acquainted with him. After my first wife died in 1953, I married a girl whose father was headmaster of Milton Academy...She had a classmate named Barbara Burnett who married Mitch Gratwick. One of their daughters has been a friend of ours in Washington ever since we have lived there. I called her up a few days ago to ask her some questions about her father's career - and told her about tonight's affair. She lost her husband a year ago and I learned that she is living alone. I told her I was too. "I'll call you up when you get back from New York," she said. "We can get together."

"The HM connection continues! It has been a pleasure being with you."

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1994: Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. '42 and Sondra Markowitz Miller '46

Arthur H. Aufses, Jr. is Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Mr. Sinai Hospital in New York, and Franz W. Sichel Professor of Surgery and Chairman of the Department at Mt. Sinai Medical School. He received his M.D. from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Upon completing his residency at Mt. Sinai, he was appointed to increasingly responsible roles in the surgical department there, culminating in his present position. In 1988 he was a member of the transplant team when Mt. Sinai became the first hospital in New York State to perform a liver transplant. He is a member of numerous medical societies and author of many scientific articles. His major clinical and research interests are in Crohn's Disease and Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Three generations of his family have attended Horace Mann. His son, Arthur III, was graduated in 1968, and grandchildren Kate and Arthur are in the classes of '04 and '08, respectively. His daughter, Carolyn, is a lawyer.

Sondra Markowitz Miller was appointed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court by Governor Cuomo in 1990. She previously served as a New York State Supreme Court Judge of the 9th JD and as Family Court Judge in Westchester. Among Justice Miller's "firsts" are her law degree from Harvard (in its first class to admit women), and her election to the Supreme Court in 1986 (the first woman in the 9th JD to be so recognized and its highest ranking female jurist).

Her decisions are frequently cited especially for their impact on family law and children's rights. She serves on the New York State Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children and the Governor's Commissions for the Study of Youth Crime and Violence and Reform of the Juvenile Justice System.

Judge Miller is a 1946 graduate of the Horace Mann School for Girls. Her children, Seth Rubin Miller '74 and Miriam Rubin Reback '77 are Horace Mann graduates, as is her daughter-in-law, Amanda Neubardt Miller '83.

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1993: Justin Kaplan '41 and Richard Kluger '52

Justin Kaplan '41 is the author of Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain, which won both the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the National Book Award in Arts and Letters. His biography, Walt Whitman: A Life, received the American Book Award, and other books include Lincoln Steffen, a Biography, and Mark Twain and His World. He has served as editor of many works, most recently of the 16th Edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. He is professor of contemporary letters at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and lives in Cambridge with his wife, the novelist Anne Bernays.

Richard Kluger '52, former book-publishing executive and prize-winning journalist, has written on a variety of subjects. Simple Justice, published in 1976, was hailed as the definitive account of the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation. It was singled out in the New York Law Journal as number one amongst the "The Best Law Books." His book, The Paper, a history of the New York Herald Tribune, received the George Polk Award, and he has written several novels. He is currently at work on The Weed, a history of the tobacco industry. Dick and Phyllis Kluger live in Ringoes, New Jersey.

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1992: Andrew Hacker '47 and Elspeth Davies Rostow '34

Andrew Hacker '47 is recognized as one of the leading political scientists in the country. He has taught at many leading universities, for the last twenty years as Professor of Government at Queens College. He is the author of seven books in the fields of political theory and American government, and is a frequent contributor to such publications at Time, Newsweek, and the Atlantic Monthly. His most recent and widely acclaimed book, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile and Unequal, explores the widening chasm between black and white races in America.

Elspeth Davies Rostow '34, a distinguished educator, author, and social scientist, is former Dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and is currently the Stiles Professor of American Studies there. Under the auspices of the USIA, she lectured for the Department of State in Europe and conducted a series of "Seminars for Diplomats." As past Director of the Lyndon Johnson Foundation and trustee of the College Entrance Examination Board Commission for the National Agenda for the Eighties, Ms. Rostow has exercised considerable influence on national education issues.

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1991: Dr. Edwin Goldwasser '36 and Dr. Edgar Haber '49

Last October 30, over 125 guests, including members of the Presidents Circle and classmates of the honorees, gathered to pay tribute to the recipients of the Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Achievement.

The always-festive reception and dinner was again hosted by former trustee Peter A. Brown '53, and brought back to Horace Mann many alumni who hadn't seen the school in over 50 years. There was much nostalgia and good feeling as graduates from several generations got re-acquainted.

The Class of 1936, boasting a third award winner from amongst its ranks, was well represented by both the boys school and girls school. Economist Robert Heilbroner '36, an earlier honoree, presented the award to his classmate and spoke of the life-long friendship begun at Horace Mann with Dr. Goldwasser and two other classmates, Peter Bernstein and John H. Loeb, affectionately remembering good times shared at Horace Mann and at Harvard.

The 1991 winners certainly don't lack for awards and honors, but Horace Mann takes pride in singling them out from amongst its own graduates for their outstanding scientific achievements.

Edwin Goldwasser (known as Ned), did his undergraduate work at Harvard and received a PhD in Physics at Berkeley. Most of his career has been devoted to teaching and research at the University of Illinois, but he has also held many prestigious posts elsewhere.

He served as Chairman of the Division of Physical Sciences of the National Research Council and the Commission on Particles and Fields of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics. He was a member of the General Advisory Committee of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the National Academy of Science's committee for the evaluation of the sites for a 200-GeV accelerator laboratory. In 1967, Dr. Goldwasser joined the newly organized Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory as Deputy Director, taking an extended leave of absence from the University of Illinois. He returned in 1978 as Vice Chancellor of the Urbana-Champaign campus, leaving in 1986 to join the Central Design Group of the Superconducting Super Collider. In 1988 he returned to the University once again as Acting Director of the Office of International Programs and Studies.

Cardiologist Edgar Haber received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Columbia, and took further medical and scientific training at Massachusetts General Hospital, the National Heart Institute in the Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and the Cardiac Department at St. George's Hospital in London.

Dr. Haber has held a series of positions of increasing importance at both Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General. During two decades he built a world-renowned cardiology department with a staff of approximately 300. He is known worldwide for invention of the assays for digoxin and renin, for his early elucidation of the renin-angiotensin system, and as a pioneer in biotechnology. Currently he is Elkan Blout Professor of Health Science and Director of the Division of Biological Sciences at the Harvard School of Public Health, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also served for several years as President of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Research Institute. In 1987 Dr. Haber came to Horace Mann for its Centennial, speaking on "Monoclonal Antibodies," a technique for fighting blood clots developed in his lab at Massachusetts General.

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1990: Daniel Rose '47

The annual President's Circle reception held on May 16th was the occasion of a tribute to Daniel Rose, recipient of the 1990 Alumni Association Award for Distinguished Achievement. President R. Inslee Clark introduced Mr. Rose with the following remarks:

"First-rate institutions do not happen by luck but rather by having people in their midst with vision, sensitivity, and true leadership ability. This institution has been virtually singularly blessed by such people - no one of whom is more notable than the man we honor tonight. Dan Rose is a giant within this community as is his marvelous and unique family. They are special to us in a way that only a few families could possibly be. In honoring Dan this evening as Alumnus of the Year, we honor this school and all it stands for.

"A distinguished graduate of Horace Mann, Dan went on to a distinguished career at Yale, the University of Paris, and the Russian Language Program at Syracuse University. Following military service as an Intelligence Analyst and Russian Language specialist with the United States Air Force, Dan's professional career has been extraordinarily diverse, productive, and impressive. He has served as an Expert Advisor to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and to the Commissioner of Education. He has been a member of the Governor's Task Force on Housing, the Task Force on Taxation for the Municipal Assistance Corporation, and a Director of the New York Council for the Humanities.

"He is President and Chief Executive Officer of Rose Associates, a major force in the real estate and development world with projects and undertakings up and down the Eastern Seaboard. His educational interests and talents have called him to such a broad range of activities that it would take me an entire evening to begin to cover the list.

"Closer to home and even more important to me has been his work as a Trustee and Chairman of the Board of our school. From 1971 to 1974, Dan's inspired leadership as Chairman was a joy for all of us to behold. I probably worked closest with him at that time, and together we saw the school move through an exciting merger with Barnard to a totally co-educational institution Pre-K though twelve. I personally felt Dan's support, trust, and great friendship during that period and ever since. No school could be more blessed than ours in having Dan as its friend and supporter. He is truly a man amongst men and a leader in this community and in the world. What an honor for us to honor Dan Rose!"

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1989: Helen Lehman Buttenwieser '23 and Morris E. Lasker '34

Two eminent jurists were chosen this year as co-recipients of the annual Award for Distinguished Achievement by the Alumni Association. Attorney Helen Lehman

Buttenwieser and the Honorable Morris Lasker received their awards at the

President's Circle dinner on May 4 1989.

Like many of her fellow graduates of the Horace Mann School for Girls, Helen Lehman Buttenwieser was a trailblazer - both as a lawyer and as a fighter for human rights. The City Bar Association has called her a "Pioneer" - and that indeed is what she is.

Mrs. Buttenwieser was the first woman to chair the Legal Aid Society in its 107-year-old history, the first to chair a standing committee of the New York Bar Association, ad first to serve as trustee of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company. She has been a director of the New York Civil Liberties Union since 1951, and is active in the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. She was honored by the City Bar Association, and received from the Legal Aid Society its "Servant of Justice" award.

The Horace Mann - Barnard Alumni Association Award, presented by Franklin Speyer '65, reads as follows: In recognition of her achievements as a distinguished lawyer and human rights activist, who has pioneered the causes of women, children, and minorities throughout her long and dedicated career; whose silent generosity has benefitted countless others; and whose accomplishments are a source of pride and inspiration tot he Horace Mann - Barnard family.

Judge Morris Lasker has been heralded by American Lawyer magazine as the best of the 59 trial judges in the judicial circuit comprising New York, Connecticut and Vermont." The New York Times has called him one of New York's most distinguished jurists, who has "acted with courage, compassion and patience in directing litigation over conditions in the city jails."

He worked for the Senate Committee for National Preparedness after completing Yale Law School, serving in the Air Force during World War II. He joined the law firm of Battle, Fowler in New York, ran as Democratic candidate for Congress in 1950 and, in 1968, was appointed to the Federal Bench by President Johnson.

Judge Lasker, who has recently taken senior status on the court, was presented with the Alumni Association Award with this citation: In recognition of the achievements of a distinguished lawyer and jurist, who has served his community and his country with dedication; who with courage and compassion has championed the cause of prisoners' rights and of all human rights; the Horace Mann - Barnard School honors itself by conferring upon you this award.

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1988: Edward B. Koren '53

At the annual President's Circle Dinner, held on May 4, two graduates were honored by the Alumni Associates. Edward Koren, cartoonist whose work is regularly featured in the New Yorker, was named 1988 Distinguished Alumnus.

Horace Mann and Columbia College were both privileged to have cartoons from the "early Koren" period. After studying print-making in Paris, Mr. Koren returned to the US to study for a Master in Fine Art from Pratt Institute. He later taught at Brown University, where those famous "furry creatures" were born. HM classmate and New Yorker colleague Gerald Jonas wrote the following citation for Mr. Koren's award: Through the legerdemain of reverse evolution, you bring out the fuzzy creature in all of us. Digging beneath the age-old fur, you tickle us - and when we are done laughing, we not only feel better, we know ourselves better. In gratitude, your fellow alumni take pleasure in conferring upon you this award for distinguished achievement."

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1987: I. Michael Heyman '47

Since 1980, I. Michael Heyman has been Chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley. After his graduation from Horace Mann in 1947, Mr. Heyman went on to Dartmouth and the Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the Yale Law Journal. His distinguished career in law has included a clerkship to Chief Justice Earl Warren and teaching positions at Yale, Stanford, and Berkeley Law Schools.