Left to right, Susan Lennon ’85 MPPM, Secretary and Immediate Past Chair; Jennifer Ebisemiju ’88, Chair; and Susan Pepin ’87 Vice Chair

The YAA Board of Governors Excellence Awards recognize alumni organizations that make a deep and lasting impact on the Yale alumni community. In November, YaleWomen received this coveted honor in recognition of the program we developed and hosted in March 2019 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Awards for Excellence: Working Toward Gender Equity, which attracted over 170 attendees, featured the presentation of Lifetime Achievement Awards to Anita Hill '80 JD, Catherine Lhamon '96 JD, and Ann Olivarius '77, '86 MBA, '86 JD, and Impact Awards to Araceli Campos '99, C'Ardiss Gardner Gleser '08, Kamala Lopez, Rebecca Reichman Tavares '78, and Vera Wells '71. The celebration shined a light on Yale women alums who make a difference in their many different walks of life, as well as on issues that affect women. It also featured a panel discussion with the Lifetime Achievement honorees moderated by Joanne Lipman '83. (More information about YaleWomen’s Award for Excellence is here. 

The YAA Award serves as a broader Yale recognition of the impact of the YaleWomen event—an impact that was clearly felt by the many of the celebration’s attendees. Former YaleWomen Council member, Erin Endean ’80, ’82 MA, described the evening as “a really remarkable occasion!” Lisa Beth “LB” Friedman Savitz '88, who joined the Council in July, experienced the celebration through an intergenerational lens informed by her mother, Barbara Lander Friedman '65 MAT, and her son, Samuel Friedman Savitz '17. “My mother's experience at Yale colored the way I viewed my own relationship with the school. She and I both thought the '60s were the bad old days and the '80s promised a different experience. What was unexpected for us was how much about Yale and the world had not changed. The YaleWomen Award ceremony was a moment of acknowledging both progress and the lack thereof for women, and the significant role Yale women play in pushing that progress forward.” LB’s son, who was surprised and gratified to see attendees from his generation of Yalies at the celebration, added, “This speaks to how YaleWomen has been able to create an inclusive community where multiple generations of Yale women want to be a part of it and can bond over shared experiences.”

More information on the YAA award is here.