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AROUND THE QUADS

Alumni News

DUPONT

Ric Burns ’78 won a Silver Baton in the 2003 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for his work as writer, director and producer of Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film. The University announced the 14 winners, which were selected from nearly 600 submissions, in January, and the awards were presented during a ceremony in Low Library, with Burns receiving his from Claire Shipman ’86. Burns’ 90-minute biography about the great American nature photographer was a collaboration among PBS’ American Experience, Steeplechase Films, Sierra Club Productions and WGBH.

The awards, the television and radio equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, honor overall excellence in broadcast journalism and were established in 1942 by the late Jessie Ball duPont in memory of her husband. Since 1968, they have been administered by the Journalism School, bringing the best in television and radio journalism to professional and public attention and honoring those who produce it. The 13 Silver Batons and the Gold Baton were presented by NBC’s Tim Russert, moderator and managing editor of Meet the Press, and Shipman, senior national correspondent for ABC News.

IN TRANSIT

Two alumni played prominent and visible roles in the December negotiations that led to a new contract between New York City and its Transit Workers Union. Long-time labor lawyer Arthur Schwartz ’74 serves as general counsel for the TWU, while among those on the other side of the bargaining table was Gary Dellaverson ’75, a veteran labor negotiator and the chief negotiator for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Both could be seen during television coverage of the negotiations, which averted a strike and produced a new three-year agreement. CCT thanks class correspondent Fred Bremer ’74 for bringing this Columbia connection to our attention, and now yours.

LERNER

University of Delaware President David P. Roselle announced on December 12 that The MBNA Foundation and the company’s executive committee have endowed UD’s College of Business and Economics with $20 million in memory of former MBNA chairman and CEO Alfred Lerner ’55, who died on October 23. In recognition of the endowment, UD has named the college the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. A vice chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees and member emeritus of the College’s Board of Visitors, Lerner was the principal benefactor of Columbia’s student center, Alfred Lerner Hall, which opened in 1998.

BROWNE

Chris Browne ’88 has been named associate vice president of advocacy for Planned Parenthood of New York City. For the past four years, Browne coordinated technical assistance to non-profit housing developers at Seedco and, more recently, financed housing and day care centers at the Low Income Housing Fund. Prior to his work in community development, Browne held positions in New York City municipal government within the Department of Consumer Affairs as well as at the Manhattan Borough President’s Office. Browne, who graduated from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, also has been active in Democratic politics in Brooklyn, where he lives.

BRYNJOLFSSON

John Brynjolfsson ’86 was the subject of an interview in the January 6 edition of Barron’s as the portfolio manager of the top-performing bond fund of 2002. Brynjolfsson has worked at Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pacific Management Co. since 1989, and began running the firm’s Pimco Real Return Bond Fund when it was conceived in 1997. The fund has some $60 billion in assets. Barron’s picked Brynjolfsson’s brain about how the firm persuades investors to stick with inflation-indexed bonds in the current economic climate. Says Brynjolfsson, “You have capital gains, yields and inflation accrual adding up for huge returns.” Brynjolfsson received his bachelor’s degree in physics and math and holds an M.B.A. from MIT.

SALTZMAN

Arnold A. Saltzman ’36, industrialist and diplomatic envoy under five presidents, is the recipient of the Order of Honor from Georgia, one of the nations formed in 1990 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Ambassador Tedo Japaridze, the national security adviser to Georgia’s President Eduard Shevardnadze, was joined by Georgia’s U.N. ambassador, Revaz Adamia, in presenting Saltzman with the Order of Honor “in recognition of his notable personal contribution to the implementation of international aid programs, his active support of Georgia’s interest and generous charity work.” Saltzman has been an adviser to Shevardnadze since Georgia gained its independence, and his diplomatic contact with the Soviet Union dates to 1967. Formerly the CEO of Vista Resources, he now is chairman of the Windsor Production Corp. in New York.

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