Dennis Bark ’64, 2014 Distinguished Achievement Award

Dennis Bark, Class of 1964, since leaving the Hilltop more than 50 years ago, you have become a statesman of the highest stature and left an indelible mark on U.S.- European relations. You have been recognized repeatedly for your role in foreign relations as well as your expertise on U.S.-European history.

You received your doctorate in modern European history and political science, summa cum laude, from the Free University of Berlin. You joined the Hoover Institution at Stanford University as a postdoctoral fellow in 1970, and you are now a Senior Fellow. You write and lecture on European affairs and the transatlantic relationship, with special emphasis on France and Germany, and have authored or edited nine books.

Throughout your career you have received numerous awards recognizing your outstanding professional achievement. The Republic of Germany recognized your contributions to German-American relations when, in 1997, you were awarded the Knight’s Cross of the Order of Merit, First Class. And in 2001 France presented you with the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802.

Despite your travels and the scope of your work, you remained connected to Cornell. You served as a visiting professor at Cornell during the 1996-97 academic year, and in 1997 you delivered Cornell’s Eric C. Kollman Memorial Lecture. During that era, you and Professor of History Bill Carroll helped the college establish funding from the Earhart Foundation for the Earhart-Cornell Lectures on the Liberal Arts and the Public Square, which brought significant speakers to campus, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, evolutionary biologist and popular science writer Stephen Jay Gould, and Harvard educator (and now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations) Samantha Power. You have maintained strong ties to your Delta Phi Rho brothers, regularly attending what was known as their Utah Institute for Advanced Studies.

Dennis, it gives me tremendous pleasure to award you the highest joint honor of the college and the Alumni Association. I hereby bestow upon you, Dennis Bark, the Distinguished Achievement Award.