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Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander – poet, educator, memoirist, scholar, and arts activist – is president of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the nation's largest funder in arts and culture, and humanities in higher education. Dr. Alexander has held distinguished professorships at Smith College, Columbia University, and Yale University, where she taught for 15 years and chaired the African American Studies Department.
3 min
Art will never die. So why does it need philanthropy?
We wouldn't want to live without it, so how can we create art that's durable?
4 min
Creative process: Are you in a period of ‘woodshedding’?
It's normal if you're not productive in your creativity all the time. Even the greats took breaks.
6 min
Why American history lives between the cracks
The stories we tell define history. So who gets the mic in America?
3 min
Education doesn’t happen on paper. It happens between people.
What makes an excellent educator?
3 min
Elizabeth Alexander on Language and Racial Identity
The poet considers race from a linguistic perspective
1 min
Elizabeth Alexander on Poetry as a Cultural Unifier
The poet cites Adrienne Rich and “the dream of a common language.”