CHICAGO (April 24, 2006) - On Monday, June 12, 2006, Hanna H. Gray will be honored with The Newberry Library Award for her outstanding contributions to higher education and the humanities at the annual Spring Benefit for the Newberry Library. Guests attending this year's benefit will also enjoy a performance before dinner by the Newberry Consort, our nationally acclaimed early music ensemble-in-residence.
"The Newberry Library is pleased to honor Dr. Hanna Gray and celebrate her accomplishments in leadership, scholarship, teaching, and civic life," said David Spadafora, president and librarian of the Newberry Library. "The humanities shape all of our lives. Dr. Gray has played a very important role in advancing the cause of the humanities, as well as in influencing the intellectual life of Chicago, this country, and indeed the world through her work as a university president, professor, and civic leader."
Dr. Gray has had a distinguished career as an influential scholar of the Renaissance and Renaissance humanism. An award-winning teacher at the University of Chicago, she has held research fellowships at prestigious institutions including the Newberry Library. She served as Provost and then as Acting President of Yale University during the 1970s, before becoming President of the University of Chicago. Since concluding her fifteen-year term as President in 1993, she has returned to professorial activities and is now the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor of History Emeritus. Dr. Gray has served on the boards of trustees of Harvard University and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, among other organizations.
The Newberry Library Award was initiated in 1987 as part of the Library’s Centennial celebration to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to the humanities. Previous recipients are Paul Oskar Kristeller, Jaroslav Pelikan, Lawrence Stone, and Richard J. Franke.
Individual ticket prices start at $250. Please call (312) 255-3510 or visit www.newberry.org for more information.
ABOUT THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY
The Newberry Library is an independent library open to the public for research and reference in the humanities. One of the largest independent research libraries in the United States, the Newberry holds an extraordinary collection of about 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and more than 300,000 historic maps. As one of the world's leading repositories of a broad range of books and manuscripts relating to the civilizations of western Europe and the Americas, the Library acquires and preserves research collections of such materials and provides for and promotes their effective use by a diverse community of users. Visit the Newberry online at www.newberry.org.