Alumna Achievement Award
Dorothy H. Wickenden '76, L.H.D.'14
Executive Editor of The New Yorker
An accomplished journalist and author, Dorothy H. Wickenden has been the executive editor of The New Yorker since 1996 and is considered to be one of the most influential women in journalism.
Upon graduation from William Smith, Wickenden entered the Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course, a six-week intensive summer program that is considered to be "the West Point of publishing." Upon completion of this program, she moved to Washington D.C., where she was hired as an editorial assistant for the journal Shakespeare Quarterly at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
She spent the next 15 years at The New Republic, first as managing editor and later as executive editor. Wickenden went on to serve as national affairs editor of Newsweek before making the move to The New Yorker. In addition to her role as executive editor, she also serves as the moderator of The New Yorker's weekly podcast, "The Political Scene."
In 2011, Wickenden authored "Nothing Daunted," a book that traces the westward journey of Rosamund Underwood and Dorothy Woodruff, Wickenden's grandmother. Newsweek praised Wickenden, saying, "[She] is a very good storyteller, and bracingly unsentimental. The sweep of the land and the stoicism of the people move her to some beautiful writing."
Wickenden also has written for The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post and The Wilson Quarterly. She is the editor of The New Republic Reader: Eighty Years of Opinion and Debate, a compilation of the best work from some of the magazine's top contributors, including George Orwell, Rebecca West, John Dewey, Arthur M. Schlesinger and many others.
In addition, Wickenden serves on the faculty of The Writer's Institute at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.
Wickenden graduated magna cum laude as a member of Phi Beta Kappa, earning her B.A. in English with high honors. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in 1988. She served as a member of the Colleges' Board of Trustees from 1994-1998. In 2014, she received an honorary doctorate from Hobart and William Smith.