Joan L. Bildner

Joan L. Bildner has served on the board of directors for the Paper Mill Playhouse for more than 25 years, and has been instrumental in many important projects at Rutgers University, including as a member of the boards of governors, trustees and overseers from 1993 to 2005. She and her husband founded the Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life at Rutgers. Appointed by New Jersey’s governor, Bildner was founding co-chair of the New Jersey/Israel Commission and has won numerous awards for her volunteerism over the years. She is president of SME Co., Inc., a family management and investment consulting company.

Mrs. Bildner was named Volunteer of the Year in 1999 by the National Society of Fundraising Executives in New Jersey, and she and her husband were the recipients of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Social Justice Lifetime Achievement Award from Dartmouth College in 2003. They founded the New Jersey Campus Diversity Initiative, which helps colleges and universities prepare its graduates for life in a world of human and intergroup differences. They became the first couple in the Bloomfield College’s history to receive an honorary Doctor of Law degree in 2002, where Bildner also received an honorary AB degree. Bildner also holds an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from Rowan University and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Rutgers University.