Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next

AROUND THE QUADS

John Jay Awards Honor Four Distinguished Alumni

By Lisa Palladino

On Wednesday, March 2, the College honored four of its most accomplished alumni with John Jay Awards at a black-tie celebration in the Grand Ballroom of New York City's Plaza Hotel. The 2005 honorees, selected for distinguished professional achievement, were Allison Butts ’64, Virginia W. Cornish ’91, Mark Kingdon ’71 and Fernando Ortiz Jr. ’79. These alumni represent a range of careers: travel and real estate, teaching and research, finance, and U.N. peacekeeping, respectively.

The awards, named for the first chief justice of the United States and member of King’s College Class of 1764, are presented annually. Proceeds from the dinner support the John Jay National Scholarship Program, which provides financial aid and special programming for College students.

Allison Butts ’64

Butts, a 1968 graduate of the Law School and Business School, practiced corporate and international business law in New York and Paris with the New York-based firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed. While there, he took a leave of absence to manage Allard Lowenstein’s 1972 congressional campaign. Among Butts’ clients was Marriott Corp., whom he helped acquire cruise ship companies in Greece and Italy. Butts later joined Marriott as general counsel for development and helped spearhead its international expansion. Butts left Marriott and formed a small company that for several years advised the hotel and travel industry, representing financial institutions, developers, airlines and hotel companies in major transactions. He also led partnerships that developed, owned and operated hotels. In addition, Butts has advised several start-up technology companies, primarily in travel and education. He is co-founder and chairman of Next Wave, a New York-based travel software company, and five years ago launched a Tribeca fashion studio with designer Gary Graham.

Virginia W. Cornish ’91

Cornish earned her B.A. in biochemistry summa cum laude. As a senior, she was a research assistant in the chemistry department with Professor Ronald Breslow and was inducted into junior Phi Beta Kappa. In 1996, Cornish earned her Ph.D. in bio-organic chemistry from UC Berkeley, where she was a National Science Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow. There, she worked with Professor Peter Schultz, developing a new methodology for incorporating synthetic amino acids into proteins using the protein biosynthetic machinery. Cornish then moved to M.I.T., where she was a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow. In January 1999, she joined Columbia’s chemistry department as an assistant professor; she was the first College alumna to be hired to a tenure-track faculty position. Cornish was promoted to associate professor in 2004. She won the Columbia College Women Alumna Achievement Award in 1999 and the Columbia College Young Alumni Achievement Award in 2001.

Mark Kingdon ’71

Kingdon is president of Kingdon Capital Management, the New York-based investment management firm that he founded in 1983. Kingdon previously worked for eight years at another investment firm, Century Capital Associates. He received a B.A. in economics and graduated Phi Beta Kappa; he was sports editor and features editor of Spectator. After he earned an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School in 1973, Kingdon was a pension fund administrator for American Telephone & Telegraph Co. from 1973–75. He serves on the University’s Board of Trustees and previously served on the College’s Board of Visitors. Kingdon is the 2003 recipient of the Institutional Investor/ Alternative Investment News Lifetime Achievement Award.

Fernando Ortiz Jr. ’79

Ortiz studied political science and Spanish literature at the College and was honored at his Class Day with the Charles H. Bjorkwall prize for unselfish service to the College community. He earned his master’s in Spain and attended NYU School of Law as a Root-Tilden National Merit Scholar. From 1982–84, Ortiz interned for a global think tank as a research fellow in the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and then worked for New York City in various legal department capacities. In 1999, Ortiz joined the United Nations Mission in Kosovo Department of Judicial Affairs as a judicial affairs officer. In Kosovo, he helped establish a local judicial system, including a Supreme Court, five district courts, and a municipal and commercial court. In 2000, Ortiz officially began working in the United Nations Secretariat as legal officer to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. He collaborates with senior management at headquarters and across 15 missions to develop mission-level policy and strategy and frequently travels to the mission areas of peacekeeping operations to conduct pre-deployment and induction training on military and police doctrine. Ortiz helped launch the Latino Mentor Program at the College and was the first to hold the title of v.p. of Columbia College Alumni Association-Alumni Outreach; he received Columbia’s 2004 Latino Heritage Award.

Look for photos from the John Jay Awards Dinner in the May issue of CCT.

Previous

||

This Issue

||

Next