VOL. 23, NO. 9	NOVEMBER 14, 1997

Alfred Lerner

lfred Lerner, chairman and chief executive of MBNA Corp. (the second largest bank lender through credit cards) and a 1955 graduate of Columbia College, will receive the 1997 Alexander Hamilton Medal, the College's highest honor. A Trustee of the University since 1995, Lerner is being honored both for his exemplary career and his longstanding loyalty to Columbia College.

  Lerner will be presented with the 1997 Hamilton Medal at a formal dinner on Thurs., Nov. 20, in Low Rotunda. The annual award, which is given to current or former Columbia faculty members as well as to graduates of the College, recognizes "distinguished service and accomplishment in any field of human endeavor." It is named for the statesman of the Revolutionary period who was an early graduate of King's College, as Columbia was then known.

  Previous recipients include University Professor Emeritus Jacques Barzun CC'27, GSAS'28 and '32 and other tenured teachers of the College's Core Curriculum; John W. Kluge CC'37 HON'88, the president and chairman of Metromedia Co.; former University and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower HON'47, and the very first Hamilton honoree, Nicholas Murray Butler CC1882 GSAS'83 and '84. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Hamilton Awards.

  In achieving his remarkable business success, Lerner has combined a commitment to customer service with a proven sense of responsibility toward his employees. At Columbia, where he formerly served on the College Board of Visitors, Lerner has given a dramatic boost to efforts to improve the quality of student life through his gift of $25 million for construction of a new student activities center. The state-of-the-art building, which is scheduled to open in the Fall of 1999, will be named Alfred Lerner Hall.

  Before coming to Morningside Heights as an undergraduate, Lerner attended New York City schools and graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School. In addition to his positions at MBNA, he is currently chairman and chief executive of the Baltimore-based Town and Country Trust and serves as a trustee of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation and Case Western Reserve University. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee to the director of the National Institutes of Health.

  Lerner and his wife, Norma, have two children: Nancy Lerner Carosielli and Randolph Lerner CC'84 L'87.

  Speakers will include President George Rupp, Columbia College Dean Austin E. Quigley and Hamilton Dinner co-chairs Robert K. Kraft CC'63 and James H. Berick CC'55.