2002 Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Medal Recipient

An outstanding teacher and administrator, Mrs. Debs has focused her life work on the power of the arts to educate. A 1953 Fulbright scholar to Italy, she studied art history in Pisa and Rome and later earned her doctorate from Harvard University. Mrs. Debs was President of Manhattanville College, instituting international studies and English as a Second Language programs, and of the New York Historical Society, guiding these prominent institutions from difficult circumstances to renewed success. She serves on the boards of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Foreign Policy Association and the Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge Foundation, among others.