Lyn Chase

Ethelyn Atha Chase served as Board Chair of the Academy of American Poets from 1987 to 1994. She graduated from Smith College in 1944. 

Chase settled in New York City after college, where she later founded the American Poets Corner at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and served on the boards of the New York Society Library, the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), The Glimmerglass Festival, and the New York Botanical Garden. She also served as president of the Junior League of New York City and the Garden Club of East Hampton, as well as governor of the Colony Club, the Cosmopolitan Club, and the Maidstone Club in East Hampton, New York. She established the Ethelyn Chase Fund for Poetry at the New York Society Library, where she contributed a large donation of her books to the Whitridge Room. She was an honorary trustee of the Village Preservation Society of East Hampton and a chairperson of the Metropolitan Opera’s Patrons Committee. 

Chase’s community service outside of the arts and preservation includes serving on the Citizens Advisory Board to the Department of Social Services under three mayors and serving on the boards of the Community Service Society, the Community Council of Greater New York, the Foundation for Child Development, and the New York YWCA. 

Chase died in Manhattan, New York, on September 3, 2023.