Though Nick Birnback (LA '92) was selected to receive the annual Light on the Hill award last spring, his peacekeeping duties with the United Nations have kept him away from campus - until tonight.
Birnback is currently a media affairs officer for U.N. peacekeeping operations at U.N. headquarters in New York. His career with the United Nations has taken him around the world, but he has gotten the most recognition from his work in East Timor.
When militia groups terrorized the Indonesian province in 1999, burning homes and sending off floods of internally displaced persons (IDP), most U.N. staffers left the island for safety reasons.
Birnback helped organized a petition to the U.N. leadership to volunteer to stay, he said. He and a "skeleton staff" of U.N. workers remained Dili, the island's capital, to protect about 1,000 IDPs who had taken refuge in the U.N. compound.
"If we left, there would be a great risk to their lives and I don't think any of us really wanted to countenance that," Birnback said.
Birnback's actions won him and the entire U.N. mission in East Timor the 2000 Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award.
"Nick Birnback was chosen for this award because of his
exemplary service in the United Nations and his continued devotion to the University," then-president of the Tufts Community Union (TCU) Chike Aguh told The Tufts Daily last April when the decision was announced. "He is the ultimate embodiment of the global citizenship that Tufts values."
The award ceremony will take place tonight at 8 p.m. in Cabot Auditorium; admission is free.
The Light on the Hill award is presented to a Tufts alumnus who has "accomplished extraordinary things in his/her career and brought pride and recognition to the Tufts Community," according to an e-mail from TCU President Dave Baumwoll.
Recipients are selected annually by a TCU Senate committee.
The Senate will probably not present a second Light on the Hill award this year to make up for missing last year's, TCU President Dave Baumwoll said, citing the intensive selection and planning process.
According to Birnback, "Tufts gave me the rigorous analytic background I needed and EPIIC helped teach me how to look at problems holistically and to 'think outside of the box.'"
"EPIIC also helped expose me to the diverse problems facing the international community that one doesn't necessarily read about in the mainstream U.S. press," Birnback said.
Birnback's former professor, Director of the Institute for Global Leadership Sherman Teichman, called Birnback "one of our beloved alumni."
"Nick has a sharp inquiring mind, a great sarcastic wit, and tremendous moral integrity," Teichman said.
After leaving Tufts, Birnback got his Masters from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
He also worked on U.N. peace missions in Liberia, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
The Light on the Hill award dates to the early 1990s and is completely student run. The Department of Alumni Relations sometimes highlights high-achieving alumni, but the Senate committee on the award makes the final decision.
Past recipients of the award include the current governor of New Mexico and four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Bill Richardson (LA '70), "Simpsons" character voice and actor Hank Azaria (LA '87), U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame member Rick Hauck (LA '62) and five-time Emmy Award-winning television producer and writer Rob Burnett (LA '84).
