Index
Scholarships
The Arnold L. Raphel Memorial Scholarship
The Arnold L. Raphel Memorial Scholarship was established in 1988 in memory of Ambassador Arnold L. Raphel, Class of 1964, by his family and friends. It is awarded with preference given to female students from Pakistan.
The Honorable Arnold L. Raphel, U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, was born in Troy, New York. At Hamilton, he joined the Emerson Literary Society, graduating in 1964 having majored in government. He pursued graduate studies at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, earning his M.A. in public administration in 1966. He subsequently joined the Foreign Service and served in Iran and Pakistan.
Ambassador Raphel returned to Washington, D.C. as a special assistant to Secretaries of State Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie during the Iran Hostage Crisis. His lingual skills and knowledge of Mideast culture proved invaluable to the State Department: he was the only member of the U.S. negotiation team who was fluent in Farsi and had firsthand knowledge of Iranian society. He served as senior deputy assistant secretary to the Bureau of Military Affairs from 1982 until his appointment as the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan by President Ronald Reagan in 1985. In Pakistan, he is credited for creating a “veritable army of fine young officers just as eager to serve as he was,” and proved himself to be “a senior policymaker’s delight, a man of incisive thought and decisive action.”
Ambassador Raphel was killed in the explosion that destroyed the plane carrying Pakistan’s President Muhammad Zia in August 1988.
June 2014
Please note: The named scholarships profiled on these pages support the College’s generous need-based financial aid commitment. These donor-funded scholarships help ensure the Hamilton promise of keeping education affordable through meeting a student’s full demonstrated financial need.
