Stewardship Excellence Award: Judith M. Carson

Judith M. Carson has been selected as honoree of the opening reception on the eve of the 2012 ‘Stewardship of Central Park’s Woodlands’ Conference, in recognition of her remarkable philanthropic leadership at the Central Park Conservancy. Mrs. Carson, who serves on the institution’s Board of Trustees, will play an important role in launching a comprehensive restoration of the North Woods of Central Park, a key component of the Conservancy’s Woodlands Initiative. This follows her previous commitment to The Campaign for Central Park, which revitalized the Lake and its surrounding landscapes. The Central Park Conservancy is deeply grateful to Mrs. Carson as a visionary champion of its mission of world-class urban park management.

Mrs. Carson is also an Education Committee member at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she is on the Board of Trustees of New York Public Radio. An arts educator, Mrs. Carson is Founder and Director of “Learning to Look,” a program that teaches art appreciation to inner-city children of the Archdiocese of New York. The program reaches more than 850 students in the second through fifth grade each year in seven schools.

Previously, Mrs. Carson was a Trustee of the Inner-City Scholarship Endowment Fund, and she served on the boards of the Metropolitan Opera, American Red Cross of Greater New York, Marymount Manhattan College, Dartmouth College for the Hopkins Center for the Arts, the Hood Museum, Kenyon College, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, the East Harlem School at Exodus House, and the Neighborhood Coalition for Shelter.

Mrs. Carson is an alumna of Marymount Manhattan College. She is married to Russell Carson, co-founder of the investment firm Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe. They have two children.