The 62nd Annual Quadrille Ball Celebrates Six Decades of Transatlantic Education
The 62nd Annual Quadrille Ball, a white tie charity event, remains one of the annual highlights of the New York ball season. This year’s gathering was held at 583 Park Avenue in New York City.
The annual ball serves as a fundraiser for scholarships awarded to highly qualified American and German undergraduate and graduate students, including PhD candidates. The Quadrille was founded more than sixty years ago to enhance and strengthen transatlantic relationships through education. Through its nonprofit parent organization, the Germanistic Society of America, Inc., the Quadrille supports undergraduate, master’s, and PhD students alike.
Recipients are chosen with the cooperation of three highly regarded organizations: Columbia University, the International Institute of Education, and the Fulbright Commission. Graduate students must successfully complete the Fulbright scholarship application process before being selected by the Quadrille. Over the years, the Quadrille Scholarship Fund has supported some 700 students from both the United States and Germany.
A Tradition Rooted in History
The Quadrille Ball takes its name from a dance popular in the eighteenth century called the Quadrille, a formal dance performed in square formation. Beyond the elegance of the choreography, the dance itself carries a deeper meaning for the evening, one that mirrors the mission of the organization behind it. Just as the Quadrille requires coordination, trust, and shared rhythm among its dancers, the scholarship program it supports depends on the same kind of cooperation between nations, institutions, and generations of students working toward a shared future. The dance is rehearsed and performed by young professionals who volunteer their time on the recommendation of alumni, patrons, and friends.
Each year, a highly regarded representative of the business or transatlantic community is invited to serve as Guest of Honor. This year, Dr. Steven E. Sokol, President of the American Council on Germany, followed in the footsteps of previous honorees, including Dr. Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Management Board and Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank; Bernard Meyer, Managing Partner of Meyer Werft GmbH; Dr. Brigitte Mohn, Member of the Supervisory Board of Bertelsmann AG and Member of the Executive Board of the Bertelsmann Foundation; Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Barner, Chairman of the Board of Managing Directors of Boehringer Ingelheim; Martina Hund Mejean, CFO of Mastercard; and, most recently, Uffe Ostergaard, President of Hapag Lloyd (America) LLC.
Notable attendees at the Quadrille Ball included Dr. Steven E. Sokol, Raban Freiherr von Arnim, Allison Ecung Freifrau von Arnim, the Consul General of the Republic of Germany David Gill and his wife Sheila Shrivastava, the Consul General of the Republic of Austria Helene Steinhäusl and her husband Hubert Heiss, Andrea Ostheimer, Executive Director of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation New York, and Dr. Barbara Elling, President of the Germanistic Society of America.
Among the sponsors of the Quadrille Ball were the Mejean Family Foundation, serving as Full Scholarship Sponsor, the Max Kade Foundation, Inc., the Bye Family, and Dr. William Radin as Platinum Sponsors, along with the Anna Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation and Dr. and Mrs. Andrew Shiva as Diamond Sponsors.
