Williams College to Award Annual Bicentennial Medals

Media contact: Robert H. White, Deputy Director of Communications for Alumni Relations and Development; tele: (413) 597-4144; email: [email protected]

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Aug. 22, 2011 – This year’s Williams Bicentennial Medalists will share their fascinating and diverse life stories on Friday, Sept. 9, at 4 p.m. in the MainStage of the college’s ’62 Center for Theatre and Dance. The event is free and open to the public.

Established in 1993 on the occasion of the college’s 200th anniversary, Bicentennial Medals honor members of the Williams community for distinguished achievement in any field of endeavor. The college awarded 23 Bicentennial Medals in 1993 and has added five to seven awardees in each year since.

This year’s recipients are:

Navjeet K. Bal ’84: A leading public finance lawyer and champion of domestic violence victims and of legal services for low-income residents, Bal is now commissioner of revenue for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Wilfred Chabrier ’77: General manager at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Chabrier is acclaimed for his influential support of women and minority-owned businesses and his work with nonprofits.

Bethany McLean ’92: Hailed for uncovering the Enron financial scandal and her more recent work illuminating the global financial meltdown, McLean is contributing editor to Vanity Fair.

Michael F. Roizen ’67: A distinguished physician who serves as chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic, Roizen is also an entrepreneur and best-selling author of both the “RealAge” and “YOU” series.

Frederick Rudolph ’42: One of the most celebrated historians of American higher education, Rudolph also made his mark over four decades of teaching at Williams.

Bal

In 2008, Navjeet K. Bal became the first ethnic minority and the second woman to serve as commissioner of revenue for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As commissioner, she oversees the Department of Revenue’s approximately 2,200 employees who work in tax administration, child support enforcement, and municipal finance across the state. In 2010, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts appointed her to the Access to Justice Commission, where she co-chairs the administrative justice working group. Prior to joining the Department of Revenue, Bal was a public bond lawyer in the public finance division of the Boston-based firm Mintz Levin. During her 17 years there, she co-founded the firm’s Domestic Violence Project and served on the pro bono committee. Bal served as a trustee for the Gaudino Fund at Williams from 1996 to 2002 and as chair of the board of the Legal Advocacy and Resource Center, a legal services hotline for low-income Massachusetts residents. She was honored with the 2008 Cornerstone Award from the National South Asian Bar Association. Bal graduated from Williams in 1984 and received her J.D. from Northeastern University in 1989.

Chabrier

Wilfred Chabrier has served as general manager of tunnels and bridges for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey since 2007. Since he first joined the Port Authority in 1995, he has held a variety of management portfolios and received recognition for his influential support of minority-owned businesses. He has won awards from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, New York Hispanic Legislators, and New Jersey Chamber of Commerce in recognition of his work to ensure the growth and development of Hispanic businesses in New York and New Jersey. He identified and advocated for the award of Port Authority contracts to minority-owned, women-owned, and small businesses, and ensured the promotion of opportunities for those businesses following the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Chabrier also chaired the board of trustees of the United Way of Essex and West Hudson from 2008 to 2009 and has worked with the New Jersey Smart Growth Economy Project. In addition, he has been active on several Williams alumni and admission committees, chairing the Williams Latina/o Steering Committee from 1995 to 2002. A member of the Williams Class of 1977, he received his M.P.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University in 2009.

McLean

An English and mathematics double major from the Class of 1992, Bethany McLean gained international prominence as the first journalist to question the financial dealings of Enron with her 2001 Fortune magazine article “Is Enron overpriced?” After the company’s collapse, she collaborated with Peter Elkind to write The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron, which was later made into an Academy Award-nominated documentary. She is also co-author, with Joe Nocera, of All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, which was celebrated for both its rigorous bird’s eye view of the crisis and its gripping style. Formerly an editor-at-large and columnist for Fortune, McLean moved to Vanity Fair in 2008, where she serves as contributing editor. At Vanity Fair and in her regular columns for Slate, she continues to examine financial phenomena in reader-friendly articles. McLean returned to Williams to speak at the fall Convocation in 2002 and at the opening of the inaugural Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science Mini-Conference in 2008.

Roizen

Co-founder of 12 companies, co-inventor of a drug recently approved by the FDA, and co-writer of a daily column syndicated in more than 70 newspapers, Michael Roizen is a distinguished anesthesiologist and internist. Currently chief wellness officer at the Wellness Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, Roizen’s previous positions include dean of the School of Medicine and vice president for Biomedical Sciences at SUNY Upstate, president designate at the Biotechnology Research Corp of Central New York, and professor and chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care at the University of Chicago. He has also served as an editorial voice on a number of medical publications. In addition to his extensive record of scientific papers, textbook chapters, and assorted writings, Roizen has published several books, including the YOU series and RealAge: Are You as Young as You Can Be? Many of these works became New York Times bestsellers and have been translated into more than 40 languages. Roizen’s advocacy for health and wellness includes more than 1,400 lectures to professional medical groups; regular columns and radio shows, often with colleague Mehmet Oz; numerous features in magazines such as Fortune and Glamour; and multiple television appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today Show, and Good Morning America. He also holds more than a dozen U.S. patents. A member of the Class of 1967, Roizen received his medical degree from the University of California San Francisco in 1971.

Rudolph

One of the most celebrated historians of American undergraduate education, Frederick Rudolph’s scholarly achievements and civic contributions to Williams span more than seven decades. As a member of the Class of 1942, Rudolph was a house officer, junior advisor, member of College Council and the Gargoyle Society, and editor of The Williams Record. After serving as a captain in the U.S. Army, he returned to Williams in 1951 to teach history. He continued in that role until 1982 and is currently the Mark Hopkins Professor of History Emeritus. During his tenure on the faculty, he pioneered the interdisciplinary program now known as American Studies and wrote two classic texts on higher education, The American College and University: A History and Curriculum: A History of the American Undergraduate Course of Study Since 1636. Rudolph is also author of Mark Hopkins and The Log. In addition, he has served as class president, chair of his 50th reunion, Tyng administrator, college marshal, and member of the Bicentennial Commission, the Bicentennial Committee, and the Williams College Museum of Art Visiting Committee. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University in 1953.

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Published August 22, 2011