Jane Golden Named 2019 Commencement Speaker

Jane Golden, a driving force for the nation’s largest public art program, will offer remarks to the 2019 graduating class of Albright College, May 18.

 As founder and executive director of Mural Arts Philadelphia, since 1984, Golden has grown the organization from a small city agency into the nation’s largest public art program, now considered a global model for transforming public spaces and individual lives through art.

Under Golden’s direction, Mural Arts has created more than 4,000 works of public art through innovative collaborations with community-based organizations, city agencies, nonprofit organizations, schools, the private sector and philanthropies. In partnership with a range of city agencies, she has developed groundbreaking and rigorous programs that work through art to make strides in youth education, restorative justice and behavioral health. Golden has also overseen a series of increasingly complex, ambitious and award-winning public art projects, as well as launching the knowledge-sharing Mural Arts Institute in 2017.

Sought after nationally and internationally as an expert on urban transformation through art, Golden has received numerous awards for her work, including the Eisenhower Exchange Fellowship Award, the Philadelphia Award, the Hepburn Medal from the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center at Bryn Mawr College and Philadelphia Magazine’s Trailblazer Award. In 2018, she received the Anne d’Harnoncourt Award for Artistic Excellence from the Arts + Business Council of Greater Philadelphia and the Dare to Understand Award from the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia.

She is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and serves on the Mayor’s Cultural Advisory Council, the Penn Museum Advisory Committee and the board of directors of The Heliotrope Foundation.