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March-April 2005 > The Alumni
HAA Clubs Committee Awards
The HAA’s Clubs Committee presents two annual awards for contributions to Harvard clubs.
Recipients of the 2004 Outstanding Club Contribution Award are:
Luise Druke, M.P.A. ’87, IAF ’88, Of Sofia, Bulgaria. An HAA regional director for Europe, Druke cofounded the Harvard Club of Bulgaria in 2001 and served as president for two years. She energized the group with an active social calendar and events, including a lecture by Warburg professor of economics emeritus John Kenneth Galbraith, which drew more than 400 people. She has also served as a board member of the Harvard Club of Belgium (1991-1994) and, in 1998, she founded the Harvard Club of Kazakhstan.
Alexander B. Weissent ’73, of Chicago, has helped lead the Harvard Club of Chicago’s successful Adopt-A-School program, providing more than 200 alumni volunteers to meet needs at the urban Walter Payton College Prep High School. "Harvols," as they are called at the club, have helped with academic tutoring, college counseling, and athletics, among other things. Weissent is now working to expand volunteer activities city-wide, and is active in Alumni for Public Schools (a network of college and university alumni founded in 2001 that is committed to enriching the city’s educational system).
Recipients of the 2004 Club Recognition Award are:
The Harvard Club of Berlin. The club’s mission to foster excellence in academic training, professional development, and international understanding has resulted in a multitude of projects, including a program to provide travel grants to Harvard undergraduates. Club leaders have also strengthened ties to the American Academy in Berlin, the Aspen Institute in Berlin, and the Berlin office of the Harvard University Center for European Studies.
The Harvard Club of Washington, D.C. For the past two years, the club’s leaders have worked with the HAA to test a suite of on-line club database management tools that will eventually be distributed to help improve the tracking of membership, events, and communication for the more than 180 Harvard clubs operating worldwide.