Hannah Holborn Gray

The only daughter in a family of academic achievers, Hanna Holborn Gray was charged with upholding the distinguished legacy of her family’s academic tradition. Determined not to disappoint, she followed a path that led her to become the first female president of a coeducational university.

At age 15, Gray entered Bryn Mawr College and graduated, summa cum laude, in 1950. A Fulbright Scholar at St. Anne’s College of Oxford University from 1950 to 1952, she interrupted her doctoral studies and returned to America to teach history at Bryn Mawr from 1953-54.

After completing the Ph.D. program at Harvard in 1957, she taught on Harvard’s faculty through 1960. A distinguished historian, she joined the history faculty at the University of Chicago in 1961 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1964. After a number of fellowships at schools throughout the country, she continued to teach at Chicago until 1972.

Named Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at Northwestern University in 1972 — the first woman to hold that position — she was elected provost of Yale University — another first — in 1974. She served as acting president of Yale from 1977 to 1978.

In 1977, she was elected to serve as the 10th President of the University of Chicago, a position she held for 15 years. Gray remains Harry Pratt Judson Professor Emeritus at the University and continues to offer advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in history. She currently serves as the chair of the Board of the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

BLACKWELL RECIPIENTS

• February 3, 2021
  Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• January 22, 2015
  Dr. Janet L. Yellen

• November 10, 2013
  The Most Reverend Doctor Katharine Jefferts Schori

• October 27, 2011
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver

• April 23, 2009
  Rabbi Sally J. Priesand

• April 24, 2008
  Dr. Wangari Maathai Sc.D.'94, P '94, P '96

• April 27, 2007
  Dr. Priscilla A. Schaffer '64, Sc.D. '94

• September 7, 2004
  Bishop Barbara Clementine Harris

• September 9, 2003
  Loretta C. Ford

• September 4, 2001
  Madeleine K. Albright

• May 15, 1998
  Billie Jean King

• February 10, 1996
  Wilma Mankiller

• September 23, 1993
  Barbara Jordan

• September 27, 1991
  Margaret Chase Smith

• February 22, 1991
  Dr. Antonia C. Novello

• February 19, 1988
  Barbara Aronstein Black

• October 9, 1985
  Cicely Saunders

• March 8, 1985
  Sandra Day O’Connor

• February 11, 1984
  Hannah Holborn Gray

• February 26, 1982
  Agnes George de Mille

• February 15, 1980
  Mary Douglas Leakey

• September 30, 1977
  Mary S. Calderone

• October 3, 1975
  Antonia Brico

• Janurary 23, 1974
  Frances Keller Harding

• May 28, 1973
  Judith Graham Pool

• June 8, 1972
  Marian Anderson

• April 10, 1972
  Mary Lasker

• June 13, 1971
  Mina Rees

• June 14, 1970
  Helen Brooke Taussig

• June 15, 1969
  Georgiana Sibley

• June 16, 1968
  Constance Baker Motley

• September 8, 1967
  Catharine Macfarlane

• July 10, 1966
  Fe del Mundo

• June 13, 1965
  Annette LeMeitour-Kaplun

• June 14, 1964
  Margaret Mead

• June 9, 1963
  Marty Mann

• June 10, 1962
  Frances Perkins

• June 18,1961
  Leona Baumgartner

• June 12, 1960
  Miki Sawada

• June 14, 1959
  Elisabeth Luce Moore

• September 27, 1958
  Gwendolyn Grant Mellon