News & Stories

Annual SIPA Awards Honor Global Leadership

Posted Apr 16 2013

Each year, SIPA's Global Leadership Awards recognize individuals who, through their work in public policy and administration, have made innovative or otherwise extraordinary contributions to the global public good. Honorees also embody the values and qualities that SIPA strives to instill in its students.

On April 18, SIPA will honor Judy Cheng-Hopkins MIA ’78 and Richard N. Gardner, two leading diplomats who exemplify the important connection between the study and practice of policymaking.

“We are proud to honor these two extraordinary public servants, who continue to make lasting contributions in addressing some of the world’s most challenging problems,” said Interim Dean Robert C. Lieberman.

The annual Global Leadership Awards Dinner, now in its 13th year, will take place at New York City’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel (80 Columbus Circle at 60th Street). The proceeds will provide critical fellowship support for SIPA's 1,200 students — half of whom hail from outside the United States — who represent the next generation of global citizens and public policy leaders.

Asta Bareisaite MIA ’13 and Pushkar Sharma MPA ’13, two students chosen as representatives of SIPA's values, will be among the speakers at this year's event. 

About the honorees:

Judy Cheng-Hopkins MIA ’78 was appointed assistant secretary-general for peacebuilding support on April 17, 2009, by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Her long and successful UN career has spanned more than 30 years, and included a 10-year stint in the field in Africa as part of her development and humanitarian work focused there and Asia. She was the UN’s assistant high commissioner for refugees from 2006 to 2009, during which time she helped develop UNHCR’s policies on IDPs as well as refugee/IDP return and reintegration.

Cheng-Hopkins served as the director of the World Food Programme’s Asia and Eastern Europe Bureau from 1997 to 2000, where she supervised some of WFP’s largest and most significant operations of that period, in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Kosovo, and conceptualized and managed a smooth and innovative exit from China.

Cheng-Hopkins received a master of international affairs degree from Columbia University. She has also received diplomas from Université d’Haute Bretagne in Rennes, France, and Harvard Business School.

Watch the GLAD tribute video for Judy Cheng-Hopkins

Richard N. Gardner is professor emeritus of law and international organization at Columbia University. His seminar in Legal Aspects of U.S. Foreign Economic Policy, which he began teaching in 1955, was the longest-running seminar at the school. Over the years he has taught the basic International Law course and also seminars in Defense Policy and Arms Control, International Organization and the Human Environment, and International Organization for Peace and Security.

Gardner served as U.S. ambassador to Italy from 1977 to 1981 and as U.S. ambassador to Spain from 1993 to 1997. From 1961 to 1965 he served as deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs. A former member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN), he is currently a member of the State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy (ACIEP).

In 2000, Gardner served as a public delegate to the 55th Millennium United Nations General Assembly. He served as special adviser to the United Nations at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, as he did in 1972 to the UN Conference on the Human Environment.

Gardner holds a BA in economics from Harvard College, a doctor of jurisprudence from Yale Law School, and a doctor of philosophy degree in economics from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. His Oxford thesis, published by Oxford University Press as Sterling-Dollar Diplomacy, has been described as the classic study of Anglo-American economic collaboration in the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions and GATT.

He is the author of several other books on international affairs, including In Pursuit of World Order: U.S. Foreign Policy and International Organization. His latest book, Mission Italy: On the Front Lines of the Cold War, was published in Italian in September 2004 by Mondadori and in English in September 2005 by Rowman & Littlefield.

Watch the GLAD tribute video for Richard Gardner