Community Service Award

The Hotchkiss Alumni Association is proud to recognize Scott Busby ’77 as this year’s Community Service Award recipient. He has dedicated his career to advancing human rights and supporting refugees around the world. His service, which has spanned roles with the U.S. government, the United Nations, and other organizations, reflects his deep commitment to protecting vulnerable populations and strengthening global communities.

“I am very grateful to receive the Hotchkiss Community Service Award and look forward to discussing my career with the Hotchkiss community and how we all can contribute to the common good,” he said. He will be honored on campus during a ceremony in November.

Busby worked for more than 30 years on human rights, refugee, and migration issues with the U.S. government and the United Nations before his retirement from the Department of State in September 2023. In his last position, he served for 10 years as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where he oversaw, at different times, the bureau’s work on East Asia and the Pacific, Africa, the Western Hemisphere, multilateral issues, business and human rights, labor rights, and human rights-based sanctions. 

In other positions within the U.S. government, Busby served as a director on human rights and refugee issues at the National Security Council (1997-2000 and 2009-11), directed the Office of Policy and Resource Planning at the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration in the Department of State (2000-05), and worked as an asylum officer and lawyer with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

He has also served with two international organizations. He was a lawyer at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington, D.C. from 1992-95, and he was coordinator of the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees from 2005-09.

He received the F. Allen “Tex” Harris Diplomacy Human Rights Award from the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area in 2020 and was a finalist for the Career Achievement Award of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals in 2022.

He holds advanced degrees in sociology and law from the University of California at Berkeley and received his B.A. from Amherst College. 

Busby is currently a part-time senior advisor at Human Rights First, a nongovernmental organization whose mission is to ensure that the United States is a global leader on human rights. He is also a senior associate (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Distinguished Fellow (non-resident) with the Human Rights Institute of Georgetown University Law Center.

Presented annually, the Community Service Award honors the service contributions that Hotchkiss graduates have made to their respective communities, whether local, national, or international. The award seeks to recognize individuals who—in the estimation of the Nominating Committee of the Board of Governors of the Alumni Association—demonstrate through their volunteer and/or vocational endeavors an exemplary sense of caring, initiative, and ingenuity. Nominate an alumnus or alumna for the Community Service Award.