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AROUND THE QUADS

Witten To Receive Hamilton Medal

On Thursday, November 17, Richard E. Witten ’75, a member of the Executive Committee of the Columbia University Board of Trustees, chair of the Trustees’ Committee on Alumni Relations and Development, member of the board of the Columbia University Investment Management Company and former chair of the Columbia College Board of Visitors, will be honored in Low Rotunda as the 2005 recipient of the Alexander Hamilton Medal.

Each fall, the Columbia College Alumni Association presents the medal to an alumnus or faculty member for distinguished service and accomplishment in any field of endeavor. It is the highest honor the College bestows.

Richard Witten ’75 (right) and his wife, Lisa, with Dean Austin Quigley at the 2000 celebration of Quigley’s first five years as dean. PHOTO: EILEEN BARROSO

Witten is a co-chair of the University’s upcoming capital campaign and recently made major contributions to the renovation of Hamilton Hall, the Core Curriculum and the College’s financial aid campaign, which is focused on strengthening Columbia’s financial aid resources to ensure the continuation of a competitive, need-blind admissions policy. He also is one of several alumni who are sponsoring the Institute for Israeli and Jewish Studies at Columbia and a named professorship within that Institute.

Witten is senior managing director of The Orienta Group, an investment and advisory firm. Before forming The Orienta Group, he was a partner and managing director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. from 1990–2002, having started his career at the firm in 1981. During his tenure at Goldman Sachs, Witten headed the fixed income, currency and commodities division sales force for the Americas and ran the investment grade debt business unit. He served on the FICC Operating Committee and numerous other committees within Goldman Sachs. Prior to joining Goldman Sachs, Witten practiced corporate securities law in New York. He earned his law degree, cum laude, from Harvard in 1978.

Also a novelist, Witten authored Divided Loyalties, a historical novel based on his father-in-law’s World War II experiences. A second novel, Fillmore East, reviews the tumultuous period of 1968 through 1971 through the eyes of a College student, and is expected to be completed in 2006.

Witten is involved in several other not-for-profit organizations. He is a member of the board of directors of the National Museum of American Jewish History and Gilda’s Club of Westchester, and is a director emeritus of the Mamaroneck Schools Foundation. He and his wife, Lisa ’97 TC, live in Westchester County, N.Y., with their children.

For more information on the Hamilton Award Dinner, please contact Shelley Grunfeld, Alumni Office manager of special events: 212-870-2288 or rg329@columbia.edu.

Lisa Palladino

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