The Board of the Harvard Club of Chicago recently presented the Club’s Annual Award to Sarah Herda and Michelle T. Boone. The honor was given to these two Chicagoans because in October 2015, they launched a new Chicago institution, the Chicago Architecture Biennial.
The Award was presented on Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at the University Club, 76 East Monroe Street, and Chicago. The guest speaker was the Honorable Deval Patrick, former Governor of Massachusetts.
Since 1967, the Club has given awards to Chicagoans who have contributed significantly to the Chicago community in fields that include education, medicine, philanthropy and the arts. The Awardees do not have to have Harvard Connection. Sarah Herda is the Director of the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies and Michelle Boone is the Chicago Commissioner of Cultural Affairs. The Architecture Biennial began by Herda and Boone was North America’s largest survey of contemporary architecture and had over half a million visitors that actually rivaled its counterpart in Venice.
During the cocktail hour, guests visited and also Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune Architecture Editor and Harvard Nieman Fellow interviewed the awardees informally. At Dinner, the Club was privileged to have as its speaker Deval Patrick, AB ’78, JD ’82. From Chicago’s South Side, Patrick attended Milton Academy, Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He has been the assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, Massachusetts’ first African-American Governor and currently serves as a Managing Director of Bain Capital LLC. Mr. Patrick is an author, a Rockefeller Fellow and a Crown Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
The President of the Harvard Club is Bruce Hochstadt of Highland Park. The Dinner committee members included Danielle Cupps, Margaret McCurry, Kristopher Mendez and Richard Shepro of Chicago. From the north shore were Steven Baird of Winnetka, Blair Kamin of Wilmette and Stephen Schaumberger of Highland Park.
The guests numbered 198 and the evening’s profit was expected to be approximately $10,000. The dinner, the Club’s only fundraiser, is a source of scholarship and community service funds for Harvard’s Chicago area students.
