After years without a formal title, the courtyard outside Vanderbilt Hall has been named in honor of Frank Guarini, a graduate of NYU’s School of Law from the class of 1955 who has served as a New Jersey congressman and representative for the United Nations.
The renaming was celebrated at a ceremony on Sept. 23, which featured Guarini — who just turned 100 in August — alongside NYU Law Dean Troy McKenzie and Board of Trustees Chair David Tanner. McKenzie said in a statement to WSN that any namesake for the courtyard would have needed to be “a truly exceptional member of the NYU Law community.”
“Congressman Frank Guarini certainly fits that description,” McKenzie said. “Frank is an outstanding alumnus by any measure, and his example epitomizes the values we seek to instill in our students today.”
During a speech at the ceremony, Guarini’s niece recounted that he had contributed $15 — around $200 today — to building Vanderbilt Hall as a J.D. student in 1947. In 2018, Guarini donated $20 million to the law school which was used to establish its Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies, which supports NYU’s Law international law programs, as well as the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy, and Land Use Law — the school’s environmental law program.
Guarini has received honorary doctorates from six universities, as well as NYU’s Presidential Medal of Honor and Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, Italy’s highest honor. He has also funded study abroad sites, libraries and justice centers at Dartmouth College, New Jersey City University and John Cabot University.
“In recognition of his generous support of the school, his commitment to legal education, and his career spanning the public and private sectors, the courtyard was renamed in his honor,” McKenzie said.
Contact Vasily Belousov at [email protected].
