The 19th annual Korbel Dinner on Thursday, Sept. 15. featured special guest and speaker, Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. For the first time in the event’s history, the sitting Vice President was welcomed to campus with over 700 people in attendance for the dinner, along with a student watch party held in Hamilton Gymnasium.
The Korbel Dinner honors founder and first dean of DU, Josef Korbel. The Josef Korbel School of International Studies is one of the world’s leading schools for international relations studies. Each year, the dinner honors people who have created a global impact through their leadership, commitment and philanthropy.
Chancellor Rebecca Chopp and dean of the Korbel School, Christopher Hill, recognized the Korbel Dinner honorees. Former ambassador to Iraq, Hill worked with Biden and requested his presence at the dinner.
This year, Carrie and John Morgridge received the Josef Korbel School’s Humanitarian Award for their efforts with the Morgridge Family Foundation, which has benefitted arts, education, health, poverty and wellness issues on an international level. The chairman and CEO of DaVita, Kent Thiry, received the International Bridge Builders Award for his success with establishing dialysis partnerships internationally.
Biden’s speech and delivery emphasized the importance of maintaining international relations opposed to succumbing to isolation driven by fear.
“To push back the forces of isolationism, you have to first acknowledge that many of the fears and insecurities driving people are real,” Biden said. “This is the key challenge…how to build and sustain a consensus for internationalist foreign policy while managing the disruptions and legitimate dislocations that actually do stem from globalization. It sure in hell isn’t to not engage in trade. It sure in hell isn’t to reject globalization. It sure in hell isn’t to walk away from international rule-based order.”
Biden continued to address the resiliency of Americans for choosing to rise up over the economic crisis, natural disasters and terrorist attacks to reestablish the United States as a leading military, economic, industrial, and resourceful nation. The Vice President urged students and future leaders that continuing to engage internationally will sustain other leading nations’ respect towards the United States.
