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The evening included a fireside chat with Brooklyn College President Michelle J. Anderson and Patrick Gaspard, president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. The conversation focused on his career trajectory, international relations, and the building of a more equitable world by investing in democracy, healthcare equity, and social justice.
In partnership with the Martin Mendelsohn ’63 and Syma R. Mendelsohn ’64 Lectureship in International Relations.
Patrick Gaspard is the president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, a leading public policy think tank working to build an inclusive and just nation. He has been a leader in government, philanthropy, labor, and global diplomacy, with an insistent focus on equity.
Gaspard most recently served as the president of the Open Society Foundations, one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, where he confronted significant global threats to democracy and rights. He shaped the foundation’s $220 million commitment to civil rights groups in the wake of the national reckoning on race following the murder of George Floyd, and refashioned investments in global health infrastructure in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is proud to have launched the foundation’s work in culture and arts as intrinsically tied to human rights practice.
During his tenure as U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Africa, Gaspard renewed the critical bilateral cooperation on security, health outcomes, and fair trade. He led the effort to redesign U.S. HIV/AIDS funding in the region and integrate it effectively into the South African health care system. He also successfully led trade negotiations that resulted in the unprecedented 10-year renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.
Gaspard served as the national political director for Barack Obama’s historic 2008 campaign, and went on to lead in the president’s administration as the associate director of personnel for the Obama/Biden transition, and assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Political Affairs.
Gaspard has had a long career in labor and workers’ rights movements, which peaked during his service to healthcare workers as executive vice president for the Service Employees International Union / Local 1199.
Gaspard attended Columbia University and is the recipient of honorary doctorates from Columbia University and Bard College. He has also been awarded the Spingarn Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the NAACP.
Since 2016, Michelle J. Anderson has been the 10th president of Brooklyn College. Under her leadership, the campus established the Brooklyn College Cancer Center, obtained AACSB accreditation for the Murray Koppelman School of Business, initiated the “We Stand Against Hate” program, diversified the faculty and college leadership, opened the Immigrant Student Success Office, launched the Healthcare Career, enriched the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, earned top rankings for the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and opened the state-of-the-art Leonard & Claire Tow Center for the Performing Arts and the Don Buchwald Theater.
As president, Anderson prioritizes mentoring across the campus. She launched the Tow Mentoring Initiative, which allows students to engage in transformative research opportunities with faculty mentors, and which has become a signature campus program. At the same time, under her leadership, the campus Alumni Affairs and Career Services offices have coordinated efforts to develop alumni mentors to help students enter the work world.
Anderson has stewarded Brooklyn College through the COVID-19 pandemic, working hard to protect the health and safety of the community. In development, she focused on student support, raising funds for emergency grants, completion grants, internship stipends, mental health resources, the food pantry, and other critical student services.
Anderson has led Brooklyn College through a time of excellent recognition, including:
Anderson holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned the Chancellor’s Award for outstanding academic achievement. She earned a J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was notes editor of the Yale Law Journal. Following law school, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for Judge William A. Norris. Anderson has been dean of the CUNY School of Law, professor at Villanova University School of Law, and a visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center and Yale Law School.
Anderson is a leading scholar on the law of rape and sexual assault. She is the recipient of numerous honors, including the New York City Bar Association’s Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award. She has also been honored by the Feminist Press with the Susan Rosenberg Zalk Award and by the Center for Women in Government and Civil Society with a Public Service Leadership Award. In 2017, Brooklyn Legal Services gave her a Champion of Justice Award.
