Just days after the return of the Met Gala, it was the turn of McGill’s glitterati to descend on Midtown Manhattan for the University’s Third Century Celebration in New York on May 9. Nearly 350 alumni, donors and friends attended the event at Guastavino’s, a spectacular venue hollowed out under the Queensboro Bridge, toasting the University’s third century and raising valuable funds for McGill and the Made by McGill campaign.
The event represented the first opportunity in more than two years for U.S. alumni to come together in large numbers, to celebrate McGill’s 200 years of achievements and reflect on the many in ways in which students, researchers and alumni are playing key roles in tackling global challenges and shaping the next century of life on our planet.
In addition to guests from the New York Tri-State area, attendees travelled from as far as Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver and California.
“As the world emerges from the pandemic, we need to build forward better,” McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Suzanne Fortier, BSC’72, PhD’76, told the assembled crowd. “At gatherings such as this one, we celebrate the many accomplishments of McGillians over the past two centuries, but we are even more excited about our future.”
Among the dozen alumni honoured over the course of the evening was Noubar Afeyan, BEng’83, co-founder of Moderna, the biotech company whose development of mRNA technologies resulted in one of the most successful vaccines against COVID-19.
“McGill made me into who I became by providing me with a strong foundation in engineering and by broadly opening my mind to a lot of opportunities,” Afeyan said. “It’s where I discovered that I was interested in the frontiers of biology, and so, in many ways, my eyes were opened up for me at McGill.”
Among the other honorees in attendance were: retail entrepreneur Maggie Gilliam, BSc’59; renowned architect Moshe Safdie, BArch’61, LLD’82; Mark Hantho, BCom’81, Vice Chairman of Citigroup; Dr. Victor Dzau, BSc’68, MDCM’72, DSc’08, President of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine; Wendy Keys, BA’64, Film Curator and Director Emeritus of Human Rights Watch; The Honourable Marc Miller, LLB/BCL’01, Canada’s Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations; and Kim St-Pierre, BEd’05, former McGill Martlet hockey goaltender and three-time Olympic Gold Medalist. Watch the full tribute video here.
McGill dignitaries who accompanied Principal Fortier to New York included University Chancellor John McCall MacBain, BA’80, LLD’14, Ram Panda, MEng’71, MBA’77, Chair of the Board of Governors, Marc Weinstein, BA’85, BCL’91, LLB’91, Vice-Principal of University Advancement, as well as several Faculty Deans.
Distinguished McGill alumnus Adam Gopnik, BA’80, DLitt’13, award-winning author and essayist, served as Master of Ceremonies and delighted the crowd with stories from his own days of growing up in Montreal, first as the son of two prominent McGill professors and then as a McGill student himself. He went on to underscore the valuable role that public institutions like McGill play in helping societies navigate through turbulent times.
McGill’s Third Century Celebrations are part of a global tour designed to connect with alumni and donors across the McGill diaspora. The series kicked off with events in Dubai and London in March, and will continue this spring and summer with additional stops across Canada and beyond.
The New York event was hosted by the volunteers of McGill’s U.S. Regional Advisory Board (East Coast), and organized by its Third Century Gala Subcommittee, made up of Richard Aftanas, LLB’94, John Bargelletti, BA’95, Alison Barker Davidson, BA’02, Ariel Deckelbaum, BA’93, BCL’98, LLB’98, Jennifer (Jen) Mendelsohn, BA’96, Jackie Meretsky, BA’96, Kathleen Servidea, BA’98, and Harold J. Trischman, BSc’83.
The event was underwritten by the Friends of McGill University, Inc., an independent non-profit organization in the State of New York that facilitates charitable giving in support of the University’s mission.
All proceeds raised from the New York event support Made by McGill, the Campaign for Our Third Century, the University’s ambitious $2-billion fundraising campaign to support its bold aspirations for research, discovery and learning.
Learn more about McGill’s upcoming Third Century Celebrations.