Barnard's Annual Awards Dinner Honoring Martha
Stewart and Charles R. Lee of Verizon Communications
Raises Record $1.3 Million for College Financial
Aid Programs
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President
Judith Shapiro with 14th Annual Award Dinner
Honorees Martha Stewart, Chairman and CEO
of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.,
and Charles R.. Lee, Chairman and co-CEO,
Verizon Communications
Photo By Joseph Pineiro
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NEW
YORK, N.Y., March 30, 2001 -- Barnard College's
Annual Awards Dinner honoring Martha Stewart,
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Martha
Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. and Charles R.
Lee, Chairman and co-Chief Executive Officer of
Verizon Communications, raised a record $1.3 million
for college financial aid programs.
Dubbed
"Barnard's version of the Academy Awards," Thursday's
event drew 600 guests to the Grand Ballroom of
the Waldorf-Astoria, and was the most successful
ever in the dinner's 14-year history, beating
last year's record of $1.1 million.
"We
are very fortunate to have broad support from
the New York City corporate community in honor
of Chuck Lee and Martha Stewart," said Gayle Robinson,
Chair of Barnard's Board of Trustees. "Corporate
sponsorship is vital for building the institution's
reputation throughout the United States."
President
Judith Shapiro, in thanking the sponsors of the
dinner, noted: "Providing a first-rate liberal
arts education is a labor-intensive enterprise.
Great colleges like Barnard are the creations
and achievements of philanthropy. We are here
because of you."
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Seven
Barnard women who believe in a bright future
for the College gather at the 14th Annual
Awards Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria: (from
left to right) Gayle F. Robinson '75, Chair,
Barnard Board of Trustees; Lisa Reimer '02,
student speaker and financial aid recipient;
President Judith Shapiro; Martha Stewart
'63, this year's recipient of the Iphigene
Ochs Sulzberger Award; Helene L. Kaplan
'53, Chair Emerita of Barnard's Board of
Trustees and one of the Dinner Chairmen;
Rosa V. Alonso '82, President, Associate
Alumnae of Barnard College, and the Dinner's
emcee; and Sugeni Perez '01, student speaker
and financial aid recipient.
Photo By Joseph Pineiro
|
Martha
Stewart was introduced by Sharon Patrick, President
and Chief Operating Officer of Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia Inc., who recalled meeting Stewart
in 1993 while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro - and
said she has been climbing peaks with her ever
since. Patrick said Stewart's flair started early;
her high school year book included the line: "she
does what she please, and she does it with ease."
Juggling multiple assignments also started early,
Patrick said, noting that during her college years
Stewart worked as a model as well as being housekeeper
and cook to a family on Fifth Avenue.
Stewart,
a member of Barnard's class of 1963, received
a standing ovation as she walked to the stage
to receive from President Shapiro the etched-glass
Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger Award, named for the
alumna and civic leader. She is the first Barnard
alumna to receive the award.
Stewart
recalled a "rocky" start to the beginning of her
Barnard career. On the day of her admissions interview,
she mistakenly missed her stop, and got off at
125th and Lenox Avenue, clambering over rock cliffs
in her pleated skirt to reach the College's campus
on Morningside Heights. "I found out there were
cliffs at Barnard College," she quipped. But once
on campus, she said, "Barnard was my choice from
that moment."
"What
I try to do every single day is to learn," Stewart
said. "At Barnard, I really learned how to corral
my curiosity and direct it in many areas of study.
My motto is learn something every day, because
you can't teach if you don't learn."
Lee
received the Frederick A.P. Barnard Award, named
for the tenth president of Columbia University
and an early proponent of women's education. Lee
assumed his current post in June 2000 after the
merger of GTE Corporation and Bell Atlantic, and
previously served as chairman and chief executive
officer of GTE Corp.
He
was introduced by golf partner and friend Philip
Laskawy, Chairman and CEO of Ernst & Young LLP
and Chairman of Ernst & Young International, who
noted that Lee began his business career at the
age of 10 by selling vegetables door-to-door that
he had grown on his family's 50-acre farm in Pennsylvania.
"He is truly what America is all about - an individual
who started out on a farm and worked his way to
the top of the business world."
Lee
noted the charitable and civic contributions of
Verizon and its 260,000 employees each year: 10
million volunteer hours and millions of dollars
to charity, in addition to the $70 million a year
from the Verizon Foundation.
Lee
said his special passion was literacy, given that
40 million Americans cannot read or write. Illiteracy,
he said, cuts across the three most important
issues civic leaders say they face: crime, education,
and economic development.
Two
Barnard students affirmed the importance of financial
aid in their own lives: Sugeni Perez '01, whose
family immigrated from the Dominican Republic,
said she planned to undertake a master's degree
in educational policy with the goal of helping
close the educational gap between the affluent
and the poor; Lisa Reimer '02 told of her passion
for classical languages - and her aim of passing
that on to students of her own.
Helene
L. Kaplan, an emerita trustee who is of counsel
to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said
the dinner reminded her "how glad I am to be a
Barnard alumna" and said the scholarship funds
are responsible for "the fact that we continue
to enroll the best and the brightest students."
Rosa
Alonso '82, chair of the Associate Alumnae of
Barnard College, stepped in as master of ceremonies
after an illness in the family prevented National
Public Radio Special Correspondent Susan Stamberg
'59 from being there.
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Contact:
Lucas Held, Barnard College, 212-854-2037
Petra Tuomi, Barnard College, 212-854-7907
Penny Van Amburg, Barnard College, 212-854-2947
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