1977
- Joan S. Mondale
1978
- Samuel R. Milbank
- Richard Rodgers
- Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger ’14
- Rosalyn S. Yalow
1979
- Adelyn Dohme Breeskin
- Helen Gahagan Douglas ’24
- Eleanor Thomas Elliott ’48
- William A. Marsteller
- Toni Morrison
- Francis T.P. Plimpton
1980
- Dorothy I. Height
- Julius S. Held
- Mary Dublin Keyserlng ’30
- Margaret S. Mahler
- Alan Pifer
- Henriette H. Swope ’25
1981
- Robert L. Hoguet
- Elizabeth Hall Janeway ’35
- Beverly Sills
1982
- Carol Bellamy
- Raymond J. Saulnier
- Twyla Tharp ’63
1983
- Mario M. Cuomo
- Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
- Mirra Komarovsky ’26
1984
- Arthur G. Altschul
- Annette K. Baxter ’47 (posthumous)
- Joseph G. Brennan
- Anna Hill Johnstone ’34
1985
- Marian Wright Edelman
- S. Dillon Ripley
- Elizabeth Man Sarcka ’17
1986
- A. Bartlett Giamatti
- Frances Lehman Loeb
- Helen M. Ranney ’41
1987
- Judith S. Kaye ’58
- Sally Falk Moore ’43
- Rev. James Parks Morton
- Ellen Stewart
1988
- Augusta Souza Kappner ’66
- Ntozake Shange ’70
- Maxine Singer
1989
- Joan Kaplan Davidson
- Eugene M. Lang
- Bernice Segal (posthumous)
- Lottie L. Taylor-Jones
1990
- Jacqueline K. Barton ’74
- Robert L. Bernstein
- Jean Blackwell Hutson ’35
- Julie V. Marsteller ’69
1991
- Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum ’50
- Tisa Chang ’63
- Mamphela Alette Ramphele
1992
- Ingrith Deyrup-Olsen ’40
- Fred W. Friendly
- Millicent McIntosh
- Frank Stella
1993
- Arthur Ashe (posthumous)
- Elizabeth B. Davis, M.D. ’41
- Helene L. Kaplan ’53
- Bette Bao Lord
- Cyrus R. Vance
1994
- Walter Cronkite
- Ellen V. Futter ’71
- Barbara S. Miller ’62 (posthumous)
- Arthur Mitchell
- Sheila E. Widnall
1995
- Madeleine K. Albright
- Rosemary Park Anastos
- Derek Bok
- Sissela Bok
1996
- Rita R. Colwell
- Kitty Carlisle Hart
- Maya Lin
- Dame Anne Warburton ’46
1997
- Sarah Brady
- Merce Cunningham
- Charlayne Hunter-Gault
- Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1998
- Mary Lowe Good
- Joan Ganz Cooney
- David A. Kessler
1999
- Zoe Caldwell
- Abby Joseph Cohen
- Esther Dyson
- William Golden
2000
- Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Hanna Holborn Gray
- Annie Leibovitz
- Kathie L. Olsen
2001
- Morris Dees
- Maxine Greene ’38
- Susan Hendrickson
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
2002
- Barbara Novak ’50
- Alice M. Rivlin
- Harold Varmus
2003
- Susan Band Horwitz
- Judith Miller ’69
- Martha Nussbaum
2004
- Sylvia A. Earle
- Louise Glück
2005
- Carla D. Hayden
- Amartya K. Sen
2006
- Francine du Plessix Gray ’52
- Linda Greenhouse
- Audra McDonald
2007
- Joan Didion
- Nicholas D. Kristof
- Mary Patterson McPherson
- Muriel Petioni
- Anna Deavere Smith
2008
- Thelma C. Davidson Adair
- Michael R. Bloomberg
- Billie Jean King
- David Remnick
- Judith R. Shapiro
2009
- Kay Crawford Murray
- Indra K. Nooyi
- Irene Winter
- Hillary Clinton
2010
- Thelma Golden
- Olympia J. Snowe
- Shirley M. Tilghman
- Meryl Streep
