Actor and arts advocate Jane Alexander to receive Radcliffe Medal

Today, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study announces that this year’s Radcliffe Medal will be awarded to actor and arts advocate Jane Alexander.

Radcliffe Day 2013 will celebrate the arts with a morning panel that unites leaders across the visual arts, writing, music, and theater. It will be immediately followed by the annual Radcliffe Day lunch, featuring an address by Alexander, who is being honored as an individual whose life and work have significantly and positively influenced society.

This year, Dean Lizabeth Cohen will present the Radcliffe Medal to Jane Alexander in honor of the courage she has shown as an actor and as a champion for the arts during her tenure as the head of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from 1993 to 1997. Alexander’s acting roles—including The Great White Hope, which confronted race and segregation in the Jim Crow era, and All the President’s Men and Kramer vs. Kramer—have earned four Oscar nominations, seven Tony nominations and one win, and nine Emmy nominations and two wins. As the first working artist to chair the NEA, Alexander fought to protect arts funding in the 1990s when it came under fire by Congress.