Beyond Vassar

AAVC Outstanding Service to Vassar Award

By Micah Buis '02

Mary Pick Hines has made many invaluable contributions to Vassar since graduating with a degree in sociology in 1953. Hines served on the Board of Trustees from 1992 until 2004 and has been director of the Friends of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. She is also devoted to the Chicago Vassar Club and has always raised significant funds from her class. Over time, Hines has been a generous financial supporter of many Vassar projects.

Hines has served other institutions with equal verve. She attended the North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois, and has been president of its woman’s board and alumni association and is currently on the board of trustees. She continues as a member on the Contemporary Art Committee of the Art Institute of Chicago, on the Visiting Committee of the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and the Anthropology Alliance at the Field Museum of Natural History. As a bird-watching enthusiast, Hines serves on the administrative board of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Hines followed her mother, Frances Weis Pick ’27, to Vassar and proudly saw her daughter, Anne Hines Young ’81, and niece, Sarah Pick ’86, graduate from the college.

On October 5, 2007, the Alumnae and Alumni of Vassar College (AAVC) recognized Hines’ support of her alma mater by awarding her the seventh annual AAVC Award for Outstanding Service to Vassar College.

“Every Outstanding Service Award winner has shown an ability to get things done; that’s a basic requirement,” said Meg Venecek Johnson ’84, AAVC president, during the award ceremony. “But it’s not only what she’s done, but how she’s done it—with smarts, style, and a sense of humor—that makes Mary rise to the very top.”

To read more about the award and the presentation ceremony visit www.aavc.vassar.edu/aavc/awards.