The Cleveland Council on World Affairs Honors U.S. Diplomatic Corps 

The year 2023 marks the Centennial of the Cleveland Council on World Affairs (CCWA), and the 10th anniversary of CCWA’s Global Impact Award. The Global Impact Award “recognizes an individual or organization whose actions have had positive impact and created greater understanding and cooperation among people and countries around the world.”

For its Centennial, CCWA decided to honor the U.S. Diplomatic Corps – American diplomats, past and present – for their service to our country.

CCWA’s connection to the U.S. Diplomatic Corps is longstanding. CCWA has hosted current and former Foreign Service Officers as speakers, including ambassadors and former Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of State. We have consistently worked with the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs on international exchange programs, and several of the individuals who have led CCWA over the years have also had significant ties to the Foreign Service. Notably, the current President and Ambassador-in-Residence is Heather Hodges, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Moldova from 2003 to 2006 and to Ecuador from 2008 to 2011.

CCWA presented its 2023 Global Impact Award to the U.S. Diplomatic Corps during its Centennial Gala event on October 19, 2023, to recognize and appreciate the work of the Foreign Service in the past 100 years.

At the event, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, a four-time chief of mission, two-time assistant secretary of State, who had remarkable 43-year Foreign Service career and holds the rank of Career Ambassador, received this recognition on the collective behalf of the U.S. Diplomatic Corps. The award is being transmitted to the office of the Director General of the Foreign Service.

Past receipients of CCWA’s Global Impact Award were: Richard Celeste, former Ambassador to India, former Director of the Peace Corps, and former Governor of Ohio (2013); Strobe Talbott, former Deputy Secretary of State (2014); Richard Lugar, former Chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (2015); James A. Baker III, former Secretary of State (2016); Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State (2017); George Mitchell, fomer Senator, former Special Envoy for Middle East Peace, and former Chairman of the Northern Ireland Peace Talks (2018); Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations (2019); Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense (2021); the National Geographic Society – award presented to CEO Jill Tiefenthaler (2022).