The Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice at The City University of New York will relocate to a new home at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College, effective June 10, enabling the center to expand its work by targeting students across more disciplines and degree tracks. The center also named a new executive director, Hillary Schrenell, who brings decades of experience in higher education and government and most recently served as a senior adviser at the U.S. Agency for International Development.
CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez and Hunter President Nancy Cantor made the announcements at Roosevelt House on Wednesday. They were joined by Gillian Sorensen, the former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General, who established the center in 2014 in memory of her late husband, Ted Sorensen (1928–2010), a leading lawyer, writer, and key adviser to President John F. Kennedy.
Originally established at CUNY School of Law to train public-interest lawyers, the Sorensen Center is expanding its work to target students in public policy, human rights, urban studies, international studies, and pre-law. The new home at Hunter College will enable the center to collaborate with a broader range of undergraduate students and those pursuing master’s degrees in fields dedicated to peace and public service.
The Sorensen Center fosters Ted Sorensen’s legacy by nurturing students dedicated to public service, equipping tomorrow’s leaders to preserve and enhance the ideals of peace and justice. Over the last decade, the Center’s fellowship program, speaker series and art exhibitions, among other initiatives, have enabled students to gain first-hand experience addressing issues of peace and justice, learn from leading figures from around the world, and engage in creative and strategic thinking on the most pressing issues of our time.
Schrenell, whose appointment as executive director is effective immediately, joins the center with extensive experience in higher education and government. Most recently, she served as a senior adviser to the Chief Operating Officer at USAID. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, Schrenell has developed innovative programs to address global challenges, improve access to justice, and leverage global institutions as resources for local communities. She previously served as New York City’s deputy commissioner for international affairs, as director of project development at Columbia University's World Projects, and as an adviser to former U.S. permanent representatives to the United Nations, Samantha Power and Susan Rice.
Schrenell succeeds Camille Massey, the Sorensen Center’s founding executive director.
“The work of the Sorensen Center is needed now more than ever as students search for ways to address conflict in the world,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez. “Ted Sorensen understood the importance of bringing divergent voices together to tackle pressing problems, and his legacy lives on at CUNY. I’m grateful to his family for expanding his work and their relationship with our community.”
“The Sorensen Center embodies Ted Sorensen’s legacy of leadership intensely focused on the public good and its realization by assuring equal opportunity through equal rights and social justice,” said Hunter President Nancy Cantor. “That is what makes the Sorensen Center such an exquisite match for Hunter, with our identity so profoundly grounded in those principles. We’re beyond eager to work with Hillary Schrenell, Gillian Sorensen, and the Center to cultivate new generations of leaders who reflect the Sorensen values, especially through civic engagement with leading practitioners in law, urban affairs, public policy, human rights, and beyond.”
“I am thrilled that the Sorensen Center has found a new home at Roosevelt House and look forward to working with the center’s new Executive Director, Hillary Schrenell, Roosevelt House Director Harold Holzer, and students, said Gillian Sorensen, who serves as honorary chair of the Sorensen Center. “The Center’s work will continue to honor my late husband Ted’s legacy of supporting aspirations for work in public service and politics and encouraging young people’s use of both the written and spoken word. We thank Camille Massey for her inspired leadership of the Sorensen Center over more than a decade since its inception.”
“I am so excited to return to New York City to join the vibrant community at the Roosevelt House and Hunter College as the new executive director of the Sorensen Center,” said Hillary Schrenell, incoming executive director of the Sorensen Center. “It is an honor to advance Ted Sorensen’s remarkable legacy through collaborations with students and scholars across the City University of New York system and with partners in civil society, government, and the private sector. I look forward to building on the first decade of the center’s success and working to realize a shared vision of peace and justice in New York City, across the United States, and globally.”
“It is a privilege to welcome the Sorensen Center to the one-time family home where FDR crafted the social safety net, and where Eleanor Roosevelt not only advocated to extend its reach but evolved into a human rights champion in her own right,” said Harold Holzer, the Jonathan F. Fanton director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Insitute. “There could be no more perfect setting for the Sorensen Center than Roosevelt House — and we look forward to building a bridge here between the aspirations of the New Deal and the New Frontier, and beyond.”
Ted Sorensen was a legendary speechwriter and adviser to President John F. Kennedy. Sorensen worked as a chief legislative aide to then-Senator Kennedy, collaborating with JFK on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1957 book “Profiles in Courage,” and famously helping to draft Kennedy’s legendary “Ask Not” inaugural address in 1961. President Kennedy memorably called Sorensen his “intellectual blood bank.”
After leaving the White House, Sorensen joined the New York law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and served as an adviser to Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Remaining deeply engaged in domestic and international affairs for decades thereafter, Sorensen also wrote several acclaimed books, among them: “Kennedy” (1965); “The Kennedy Legacy: A Peaceful Revolution for the Seventies” (1969); “Watchman in the Night: Presidential Accountability after Watergate” (1976); “Why I am a Democrat” (1996); and a memoir, “Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History” (2008).
Roosevelt House, an integral part of Hunter College since 1943, re-opened in 2010 as a public policy institute honoring the distinguished legacies of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, who lived here from 1908 until 1933. Its mission is three-fold: to educate students in public policy and human rights, to support research, and to foster creative dialogue and civic engagement through public programming. Roosevelt House also offers tours and exhibits that bring the history of the Roosevelts to a broad audience.
