Wendy Lee Gramm

Recipient, 1988

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair

Sherry Lansing

Recipient, 1989

Hollywood Film Producer

Sondra Gair

Recipient, 1992

Actress
Singer
Talk Show HostPublic Radio Host

Phyllis Elliott Oakley

Recipient, 1993

State Department Spokesperson

Lynn Nesbit

Recipient, 1994

Partner, Janklow & Nesbit
Literary Agent, Janklow & Nesbit

Geneva Overholser

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 1996

Overholser is a veteran newspaperwoman. She was for seven years editor of The Des Moines Register, leading the paper to a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. She was an editorial board member at the New York Times, and ombudsman for the Washington Post. She also spent five years overseas, working and writing in Paris and Kinshasa.

Until 2013 she was the director of the USC Annenberg School of Journalism and before that she held the Curtis B. Hurley Chair in Public Affairs Reporting for the Missouri School of Journalism. In recent years, she has advised numerous organizations, including the Trust Project, Report for America, SciLine, the Democracy Fund and served on the boards of the Rita Allen Foundation, Northwestern University in Qatar and the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism Foundation.

Grace Bumbry

Recipient, 1997

Opera Star

The Founding Members and Original Professors of the Northwestern Alumnae Continuing Education Program

Recipient, 1998

Mary Zimmerman

Recipient, 1999

Director
Playwright
MacArthur Genius Grant Award Recipient

Augusta Read Thomas

Distinguished Alumnae Award Recipient, 2000

Read Thomas was the longest-serving Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1997-2006. She is a University Professor of Composition in Music and the College at The University of Chicago and won the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, among many other coveted awards. Augusta is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  She also received the Lincoln Academy of Illinois Awards Order of Lincoln, the state’s highest honor for professional achievement and public service.