ELAN GARONZIK ’70

Retired, Former Vice President for Program Administration at ELMA Philanthropies

AUP is... a terrific platform for an international career, both from an academic perspective and due to the array of classmates and professors from different nationalities and backgrounds with whom you study.

I began my studies at the American College in Paris in September 1968, the year of historic demonstrations in Paris. At orientation, I was offered a weekend bus trip to Mont-SaintMichel with hotel and food for just $21! It was a great way to meet classmates and get an introduction to what was coming. ACP balanced the pleasures of being in a world capital like Paris, full of cultural offerings in abundance, with serious academic fare. My art professor was always taking our group to the Louvre or the Musée de Cluny; in two semesters, we hardly bothered with slides. I took a chemistry class inside the Petit Palais, which was part of the University of Paris at the time. I got to live in one of the world’s most beautiful cities and experience one of the world’s most complex cultures. That’s something that stays with you. I formed important friendships too, some of which have lasted for life.

Demonstrations in the streets of Paris in May 1968

Back then, ACP was a two-year college, so I transferred to George Washington University to finish my BA, before continuing on to get a master’s from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. In 1991, I was lucky enough to come back to Europe when I was offered a job in Brussels, working in international philanthropy at a European level. The fact I spoke French and had already lived abroad were vital to securing that job. I was in the position to see a new, exciting Europe from a fresh perspective. My cultural and personal interests have leaned toward Europe ever since, though I moved back to the US eight years later for a job with the Mott Foundation. I must admit that in looking back on my career, I feel blessed. ACP provided a real foundation upon which to build an international career. AUP continues to do just that.

I moved to New York in 2005, around the time the President’s Alumni Advisory Council came into effect. They would hold meetings for AUP’s sizable alumni community in New York. I joined the council and began hosting events for alumni in the club room of my apartment building. That was when I started becoming more connected with AUP as a donor. Due to my work in philanthropy, it was important to me not only to give but also to encourage others to do so. I was part of a decade-based giving challenge for the classes of the ’70s, which raised money for a vertical garden in the Quai d’Orsay Learning Commons. To have a permanent place on the Quai d’Orsay, just down from where AUP was founded, is so important for AUP’s history.

Students studying in the American Church in Paris in 1966

AUP is still a fairly young university, and it needs alumni support so much more than larger, older institutions. My other alma maters have existed for well over a century – in some cases over two centuries. They have massive lists of alumni and donors, including those who have passed on and left legacies and bequests of assets in their wills. Your older alma maters don’t need your money, but AUP does. Legacy giving is an engine with which endowments can be built. It’s terribly important, on this 60th anniversary, for my fellow alumni to consider giving to AUP. I would urge all alumni from the University’s early years both to write a will and to put AUP in it. I have! The University will so benefit from the strength of a considerable endowment.