The Duke Ellington School of the Arts awarded University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg the first-ever Mike Malone Distinguished Service Award earlier this month.
Ellington is a local D.C public high school that specializes in performing arts. Trachtenberg received his award at a fundraising gala held at the Warner Theater May 3. Other gala guests included executives from JP Morgan Chase, EJF Capital, PNC Bank and the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts along with students from Ellington.
Trachtenberg, an alumnus of P.S. 254 in Brooklyn, N.Y., spoke of the importance of giving back to the community.
“If we are going to be a working democracy, we need to have good public schools available to people from all walks of life,” he said.
The gala included a performance by students, a dinner, the award presentation and a follow-up performance that emulated Broadway shows. Thirty students dressed in matching attire – the boys in red bow ties, red cummerbunds, black slacks and black shirts and the girls in black pants, red sweaters and pearls – as they sang and danced to renditions of “Dancing in the Street,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and other songs..
The school created the award in memory of Duke Ellington School of the Arts co-founder Mike Malone, who died in December. Malone dedicated his life to the advancement of black theater in Washington, according to a GW news release.
“He was the stuff of the school, the heart, the soul and the spirit of the school,” said Peggy Cooper Cafritz, the school’s co-founder and the award presenter. “There was no school without Malone.”
Trachtenberg said he felt what he has done as a university president is similar to Malone’s artistic accomplishments.
“I have a great love of the arts (and) Mike Malone and I were both entrepreneurs,” Trachtenberg said. “Unless there is somebody to put it all together, to create the show, you can’t have something greater than the sum of the parts.”
GW students at the ceremony praised Trachtenberg’s fundraising successes during his tenure at GW.
“Trachtenberg transformed this institution and took this city by storm,” said Student Association Senator Matthew Cohen (SoB-U). “Under him, GW has become the second-largest real estate owner (in D.C.) after the federal government. Under him, GW handed out full college scholarships to nine lucky kids who most likely wouldn’t be able to afford college (otherwise).”
In 1989, Trachtenberg launched the GW 21st Century Scholarships, renamed the Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Scholarships in 1998. Each year, Trachtenberg awards nine D.C. public high school seniors with full four-year scholarships to GW that cover tuition, room and board, books and general fees.
Since the scholarship’s inception, GW has paid for the collegiate educations of 93 former high school students. GW’s total financial commitment to the program is more than $13.5 million.
As he leaves his long-standing tenure at GW this spring, Trachtenberg says he will remain an independent contributor to the Duke Ellington School and other D.C. public schools.
