Meet Dr. Richard Lyman, Class of 1940, Recipient of the 2011 Alumni Achievement Award

Dr. Richard Lyman 1940 is president emeritus and the J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities, emeritus, in the History Department at Stanford University. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1958 and held positions as professor of history, associate dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences, and vice president and provost before serving as president of Stanford University from 1970 to 1980.

From 1980 to 1988 he was president of the Rockefeller Foundation, and from 1988 to his retirement in 1991 he was director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

Dr. Lyman has served as a director of the Council on Foundations and chaired the board of Independent Sector; he is also a past chairman of the Association of American Universities. He served as a director of IBM Corp. and Chase Manhattan Corp., and as a member of the board of the World Affairs Council of Northern California and the Association of Governing Boards of Colleges and Universities. He is a member of the American Historical Association and the Council on Foreign Relations.

He holds eight honorary degrees; is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Royal Historical Society; is a member of the American Philosophical Society; an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics, and an officer of the French Legion of Honor. He received a BA in history from Swarthmore College, and an MA and PhD in history from Harvard University. In 1951 and 1952 he studied at the London School of Economics as a Fulbright Fellow.

Dr. Lyman and his wife, Elizabeth (whom everyone calls “Jing!”), have been married 63 years and live in Palo Alto, Calif. The Lymans have four children, daughters Jennifer and Holly, and sons Christopher (whom everyone calls “Cricket!”) and Tim, and four grandchildren.

Jennifer Lyman is a graduate of Yale University and is a lawyer in Washington, D.C. She and her husband, Gregory Schmidt, have two children. Their daughter, Jordan, is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., and their son, Owen, is a graduate of Brown.

The Rev. Holly Lyman Antolini, a graduate of Yale, is an Episcopal priest in Cambridge, Mass. Holly has two daughters, Christina “Tina” Antolini, a Hampshire College graduate who is a producer for National Public Radio, and Anasatia “Tessa,” a graduate of Boston University who lives in Rockland, Maine, and is learning how to teach ballroom dancing, thanks to her partner in life!

Cricket Lyman, the third Yale graduate in the family, and his wife, Lori, live in Fearsmont, Maine, where they work together as web masters.

Tim Lyman, the Lymans’ youngest child, is a graduate of Harvard and New York University Law School and lives in New Hartford, Conn. Tim works for the World Bank as a micro financial advisor, and his work takes him all over the world.