Left to Right: Jonathan Fanton, Chairman of the Board, Human Rights Watch; Ted Turner, vice chairman and senior advisor of AOL Time Warner; and SIPA Dean Lisa Anderson; Senator George Mitchell

SIPA held its first annual Global Leadership Dinner at the Plaza Hotel Wednesday night, March 28, bestowing honors on CNN's Ted Turner, Senator George Mitchell and Human Rights Watch for their global public service.

"We chose these honorees, because they exemplify the character we look for in our applicants, nurture in our students and applaud in our alumni," said Dean Lisa Anderson.

NBC News correspondent Claire Shipman, CC '86, SIPA '94 gave Turner the Andrew Cordier Award for Global Leadership. Shipman, who launched her career with CNN in the late 1980s, praised Turner as "a visionary for our times."

"He's changed the nature of diplomacy and made it harder for people to turn their back on famine and disease," she said.

CNN, founded by Turner, is widely credited for contributing to globalization and opening up a greater understanding of world events. Turner talked about the importance of information and knowledge in creating an international community.

"With the Internet and global communications, there's so much more knowledge and information at our fingertips than ever before," he said.

Former New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins, professor at SIPA, presented the Schuyler C. Wallace Award for Global Leadership to former Senator George Mitchell, who was the Senate Majority Leader from 1989 until 1995 and who served as chairman of the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland.

In presenting the award, Dinkins called Mitchell a natural choice to receive an award named for Schuyler Wallace, who in 1961 became SIPA's first dean.

"Mitchell's career in public service has bridged SIPA's two main areas — public administration and international affairs," Dinkins said. "Mitchell has always been a bridge-builder and always emerged with bipartisan respect at home."

Mitchell said, "We are on a journey of peace. I know what SIPA does in communicating that sense of mission to its students all around the world."

A. Michael Hoffman, SIPA '63, chairman of the Dean's Advisory Board, presented the Harvey Picker Award for Global Leadership to Human Rights Watch, citing its work in pioneering the observation of basic human rights around the world.

"Thanks to Human Rights Watch, human rights is now basic to the assessment of the legitimacy of any government," Hoffman said.

Jonathan Fanton, chairman of the Human Rights Watch board, accepted the award.

"The modern human rights movement is barely half a century old," Fanton said. "Human rights has gone from being a sideshow to being a central part of U.S. foreign policy." Fanton said that Human Rights Watch hires more of its staff from SIPA than from any other institution.

SIPA launched the dinner for the first time this year to raise scholarship funds. The dinner was chaired by John Grammer. SIPA '63; Jeanette S. Wagner, Estee Lauder Companies Inc. and Alexander Zagoreos, SIPA '64, Lazard Freres & Co.

"Our students associate their personal interest with public spiritedness and are committed to using their skills to make the world a better place," said Anderson. "The support you've shown tonight will enable us to continue to recruit promising students."