Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, writer Alice Adams, Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Bartholet, and professor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith are among the distinguished women who will be honored by Radcliffe College during Commencement/Reunion Week in June.

The award ceremonies, which will include the presentation of Alumnae Recognition and Distinguished Service Awards, Graduate Society Medals, and the Jane Rainie Opel '50 Young Alumna Award, will take place on Radcliffe Day, Friday, June 6.

Radcliffe College will also sponsor a symposium, "The 21st Century: Defining the Challenges," on Friday, June 6, from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. at the American Repertory Theatre. Panelists will include award winners Adams, Bartholet, Gorelick, Smith, and feminist scholar Nancy Cott.

Writer Alice Adams '47, Harvard Law School professor and scholar Elizabeth Bartholet '62, LLB '65, and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick '72 are the recipients of 1997 Alumnae Recognition Awards from the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association (RCAA). These annual awards are presented to women "whose lives and spirits exemplify the value of a liberal arts education." The awards will be presented during the RCAA symposium on Friday, June 6, at 10:15 a.m. at the American Repertory Theatre.

During her career, Alice Adams has written 10 novels, several short story collections, a travel book, and many short stories for The New Yorker and other magazines. She also served as editor of Best American Short Stories in 1991.

Her writing career began with the publication of a short story in 1958. Her first novel, Careless Love, was published in 1966. She has written nine more novels, including Rich Rewards, Superior Women, Caroline's Daughters, A Southern Exposure, and Medicine Men, which have all been published by Knopf. Last year, she published her 100th short story, "Old Love Affairs."

Adams earned an A.B. in English literature from Radcliffe College. A Guggenheim Fellow in 1978, she also received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1976. She has taught writing at Stanford University and at the University of California, Berkeley and Davis.

Her honors include the Best American Short Stories Awards in 1976, O. Henry Awards from 1971 to 1982 and 1984 to 1995, and a literature award in 1992 from the American Academy and Institution of Arts and Letters.

Elizabeth Bartholet, an expert on civil rights and family law, is the Morris Wasserstein Public Interest Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where she has taught since 1977. She also writes, lectures, and consults on issues relating to infertility, reproductive technology, adoption, and child abuse and neglect. Bartholet served from 1968 to 1972 as staff counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. and then founded the Legal Action Center, a public interest firm in New York City.

In 1993, she brought infertility and adoption to the national forefront in Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting (Houghton Mifflin), in which she combines her experiences as a single parent with an indictment of policy governing these issues. Bartholet is the mother of three sons, two of whom are adopted. She has won three "Friends of Adoption" awards for her book and for her related advocacy work.

Bartholet earned an A.B. in English literature cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1962, and an LL.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1965.

She is member of the board of directors of the Legal Action Center, the New England Committee of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., the advisory committee of the International Concerns Committee for Children, the IVF Ethics Advisory Committee of a Boston-area hospital, and the U.S. State Department Advisory Committee on Intercountry Adoption.

As the U.S. deputy attorney general from 1994 to 1997, Jamie S. Gorelick was the second-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice and the chief operating officer of the department. She has recently been named vice chair of Fannie Mae, a congressionally chartered, shareholder-owned company and the nation's largest source of funds for home mortgages. She has also been named to the board of America's Promise-The Alliance for Youth, the nonprofit organization headed by Gen. Colin Powell to accomplish many of the goals of the President's Summit for America's Future.

From 1975 to 1993, Gorelick was a litigator with the Washington, D.C., firm of Miller, Cassidy, Larroca and Lewin, served as vice chair of the task force on the Evaluation of the Audit, Investigation and Inspection Components of the Department of Defense, and was assistant to the Secretary and counselor to the Deputy Secretary of Energy.

In 1993, Gorelick was appointed general counsel of the Department of Defense, serving as chief legal officer among the 6,000 lawyers within the department. She was awarded the Secretary of Defense Distinguished Service Medal in 1994.

Gorelick graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and Radcliffe with an A.B. in 1972 and earned a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1975.

Honored as the Woman Lawyer of the Year by the Women's Bar Association in 1993, Gorelick received the Prominent Woman in International Law Award in 1994. In August, she will receive the Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award from the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession. She is listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in American Law.

From 1992 to 1993, she was president of the D.C. Bar, then a 60,000-member association. She also has served on the board of several public interest groups and charitable organizations.

Jane Rainie Opel '50 Young Alumna Award

Jennifer Lynn Gordon '87, the founder and executive director of The Workplace Project in Hempstead, N.Y., will receive the 1997 Jane Rainie Opel '50 Young Alumna Award from the RCAA during the annual meeting on Friday, June 6, in Agassiz Theatre, Radcliffe Yard.

The award, which honors former RCAA executive director Jane Rainie Opel for her 18 years of service, is presented annually to an alumna in the 10th reunion class for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of women, to her profession, or to the College.

An attorney specializing in labor law, Gordon has devoted much of her life to helping immigrant workers from Central America receive equitable treatment in the workplace. From 1985 to 1989, she designed and implemented programs for immigrants and employers at Centro Presente in Cambridge. In 1992, she founded The Workplace Project, an organizing center for Latino immigrant workers in New York. She has also worked as a consultant at the National Immigration Forum in Washington, D.C., and with immigrants on the United States border in Texas, farm workers in Florida, and union workers in Massachusetts.

Gordon graduated from Harvard and Radcliffe in 1987 with an A.B. in Latin American studies magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. The winner of the Untermeyer Poetry Prize, she was awarded the Captain Jonathan Fay Prize by Radcliffe College for showing the greatest promise among graduating senior women. In 1992, she graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School with a J.D. degree. She is a Kaufman Public Interest Fellow.

In 1995, The National Law Journal named her one of 40 talented attorneys under 40 years of age, "whose energy and enterprise, in their daily work and other activities, point to future leadership in the legal profession." She was also named a Women on the Job honoree.

Graduate Society Medals

Nancy F. Cott, a professor of history at Yale University and a visiting scholar at Radcliffe College's Schlesinger Library, and Anna Deavere Smith, BI '92, an actress, playwright, and professor who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1996, will receive 1997 Graduate Society Medals from the RCAA. The medals are given annually to alumnae of Radcliffe and Harvard graduate schools and the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College who have made outstanding contributions to their professions. Cott and Smith will receive their awards during the symposium on Friday, June 6.

Nancy F. Cott has been on the faculty of Yale University since 1975. The Stanley Woodward Professor of History and the chair of the American Studies Program, Cott teaches courses related to the history of women and the family, and the social and intellectual history of the United States.

A frequent lecturer at academic conferences and on college campuses, Cott is the author of six books and dozens of articles. She also served as the general editor of The Young Oxford History of Women in the United States, a series of books for junior high and high school students, and as a member of the advisory board for the Public Television series, The American Experience.

Cott graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University with an A.B. in history in 1967. She also earned master's and doctorate degrees from Brandeis University in the history of American civilization in 1969 and 1974, respectively.

Her numerous honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Charles Warren Center at Harvard University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Cott, the recipient of a Radcliffe Research Scholarship in 1982, has been a visiting scholar at the Schlesinger Library in 1991 and 1997. She was awarded Liberal Arts Fellowships in Law from the Harvard Law School in 1978 and 1993.

Anna Deavere Smith, BI '92, is a professor, actor, and playwright noted for her one-woman shows exploring issues of race and community in America. Her work combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through her performance.

Smith teaches at Stanford University, where she is Ann O'Day Maples Professor of the Arts. She came to national prominence in 1992 with Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities, an award-winning exploration of the 1991 clash between Jews and blacks in those New York communities.

Her play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, examined the Los Angeles riots and their aftermath. Smith is currently preparing a new play about the presidency and our national identity.

Smith was the first performance artist to be appointed a Bunting Fellow. She has been profiled on 60 Minutes and described by Newsweek magazine as "the most exciting individual in American theater." Her work has received numerous awards, including two Obie Awards, two NAACP Theatre Awards, and two Tony Award nominations.

Distinguished Service Awards

Frances Mulhearn Fuller '37, Grace Logan Huffaker '47 (posthumously), and Cecily Orenstein Morse '62 are the recipients of 1997 Distinguished Service Awards. The awards are given annually to alumnae "for outstanding service to the RCAA, and, through it, to the College." RCAA President Honey Jacobs Skinner will announce the names at the RCAA annual luncheon on Friday, June 6; the awards will be presented at the RCAA annual meeting.

Frances Mulhearn Fuller, an associate professor of management at Ohio University and a professor of organizational behavior at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, during the summer term, has volunteered her time on behalf of Radcliffe College for more than 50 years.

A College alumna trustee from 1971 to 1977, she served as a director of the RCAA from 1966 to 1969, a member of the Solicitation Committee from 1965 to 1969, and a member of the national committee of the Harvard and Radcliffe Scholarship Program in 1974 with her husband, Stephen H. Fuller. From 1979 to 1980, she worked as a regional fund chair.

Within her class, she was a member of her 10th and 25th reunion committees, and a member of the Class Reunion Gift Committee and the Class Reunion Special Gift Committee from 1986 to 1987. For six years, she was vice president of Iota Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Radcliffe College.

Fuller earned a bachelor's degree in economics magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1937 and a master's in economics from Columbia University in 1938. She also holds an honorary doctoral degree from Alverno College, awarded for her contribution to strengthening the work of women. She has taught at Harvard College and at the Harvard-Radcliffe Program in Business Administration.

Through her service and enthusiasm, the late Grace Logan Huffaker left her mark on the College. As class chairman from 1977 to 1982, she led her class to become, in the words of a classmate, "one of the most innovative, active classes in Radcliffe's history."

With the blessing of her class at their 30th reunion in 1977, Huffaker established the Externship Program, which offers undergraduates the opportunity to spend spring break with alumnae. The program remains an important part of the undergraduate experience for women.

In 1978, she proposed that the life experiences of her class might be helpful to younger graduates and undergraduates. Collaborating with the developing Murray Research Center, class representatives developed a questionnaire, to which 82 classmates responded. Their answers became a data set for scholars researching women's issues at that phase of the life cycle.

Huffaker also served as chair of her Class Reunion Gift Committee from 1977 to 1987, as a director of the RCAA Board of Management from 1983 to 1986, and as a member of the RCAA Awards Committee from 1984 to 1985. She was also a Radcliffe Club president.

Huffaker earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Radcliffe College in 1947. She died in 1989. Her award will be accepted by her daughter Christiana Logan-Smith, who graduated from Harvard and Radcliffe in 1987.

Cecily Orenstein Morse '62, the executive director of the A.C. Ratshesky Foundation in Boston, has served her alma mater in various volunteer capacities. She was also the director of development and alumnae affairs at Radcliffe College from 1982 to 1985.

A member of the Radcliffe Quarterly editorial board from 1979 to 1993, Morse served on the Arts Advisory Committee from 1989 to 1992. Within her class, she served as cochair of her 10th, 15th, 20th, and 30th reunions, and as a member of her Class Reunion Gift Committee.

Morse earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Radcliffe College in 1962, and a master's in conservation of fine arts materials from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts. She is on the board of the Friends of the Radcliffe Choral Society.