President Richard C. Levin and Yale University will be honored at a benefit dinner hosted by Young Audiences of Connecticut, to be held Thursday, Nov. 12, 5:30-9 p.m. at Anthony's Ocean View restaurant in New Haven.

Young Audiences of Connecticut is a nonprofit arts-in-education organization that each year provides performances, workshops and residencies for thousands of schoolchildren and teachers in the state. In 1994, it became the first organization ever to receive the National Medal of Arts.

The group will present its John T. Garrity Award to Levin and Yale at the benefit dinner. Named for the first chair of the board of Young Audiences of Connecticut,
the Garrity Award recognizes those individuals and organizations that work to
make access to and participation in all the arts a part of the daily curriculum of schoolchildren.

In the invitation to the benefit, the leaders of Young Audiences of Connecticut write: "Yale students, faculty and staff, colleges and schools, have given the world of arts to New Haven students through their in-school, on-site and after-school programs. President Levin, as leader of this great academic institution, has paved the way for greater interaction between the school system and the University." These arts programs have been sponsored by the Schools of Music, Art, Architecture and Drama; Dwight Hall; the Yale Repertory Theatre; the Yale University Art Gallery; the Yale Center for British Art; and the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The Nov. 12 fundraiser will feature a cash bar, dinner and auction, as well as performances by members of Freestyle Repertory Theatre, the Cooperative High School Choir and the Cooperative High School Jazz Ensemble. Frances T. "Bitsie" Clark, the 1997 Garrity Award honoree, will serve as mistress of ceremonies.

Tickets for the benefit are $50. To make a reservation, call (203) 469-9010.