The Emeritus Club

The Emeritus Club

Outstanding Alumni of the Class of 1954

ADELAIDE WISDOM BENJAMIN

Adelaide Wisdom Benjamin was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on August 23, 1932. She is a 1954 graduate of Newcomb College and a 1956 graduate of Tulane Law School. She is a past member of the President’s Council, the Law School Dean’s Council and the Newcomb Children’s Center Advisory Board. She is also an honorary member of the Newcomb Campaign Committee, and a member of the Summer Lyric Theatre Advisory Board. She is currently the Chair of the Newcomb Dean’s Advisory Board.Mrs. Benjamin manages her family’s civic and charitable activities and also does pro bono legal work for the various community boards on which she sits. As a student at Newcomb, Mrs. Benjamin was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, and at Law School she was on the Board of Editors of the Tulane Law Review.

Mrs. Benjamin is a board member of the RosaMary Foundation, the Wisdom-Benjamin Foundation, the Mary Freeman Wisdom Foundation, and (as president) of the Ed and Adelaide Foundation, all of which support cultural programs, secondary and higher education, human services, and government/public administration.

In the mid-1980's, Mrs. Benjamin played an instrumental role in saving the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra (now the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra) as its president during its nearly terminal difficulties, returning the Orchestra to solvency during her tenure. In 1986, she received the Outstanding Philanthropist award from the New Orleans Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. That same year she was one of three recipients of the Weiss Brotherhood Award for human relations.

Later, she was the recipient of the Junior League’s award for Outstanding Sustainer of the Year, and Loyola’s Integritas Vitae Award for civic achievement and commitment to social justice.

Mrs. Benjamin’s family has enjoyed a long and extensive history with the university. Mrs. Benjamin’s grandfather, the late Alfred Bird Freeman, was a member of the Board of Administrators from 1944-55. The A.B. Freeman School of Business is named in his honor. Her mother, the former Mary Freeman, was a graduate of Newcomb College. Two of Mrs. Benjamin’s cousins, Richard West Freeman, Jr., and Louis M. Freeman, have served on Tulane’s Board of Administrators.

Mrs. Benjamin is a member of the board of trustees of Loyola University and has also graciously shared her time, talent, and resources with a number of other civic and cultural causes in the New Orleans community, including the National D-Day Museum, Louise S. McGehee School, the LPO, the Parenting Center, the Girl Scout Council of Southeast Louisiana, and the Louisiana Museum Foundation.