JUST before Memorial Day, Ashley Judd graduated from Harvard. In a universitywide commencement ceremony, she shared billing with Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline, who was getting her bachelor\u2019s degree, and Meryl Streep, who was awarded an honorary degree. Ms. Judd\u2019s father and \u201ca mess of girlfriends\u201d were in Cambridge, Mass., for the ceremony. Her husband, Dario Franchitti, could not attend because of the Indianapolis 500, which he would win that weekend for the second time. He watched live via Harvard\u2019s Internet feed, and they texted.<\/p>\n
Ms. Judd, who plays tough-yet-vulnerable women on Broadway and in film (\u201cDouble Jeopardy,\u201d \u201cThe Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood\u201d), has spent the last year in the midcareer master\u2019s program in public administration at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School of Government.<\/p>\n
Hollywood has always had its share of activists \u2014 from Ronald Reagan and Warren Beatty to Madonna and Angelina Jolie. But Ms. Judd is one of the few to get formal training in public service.<\/p>\n
She hardly lacks for causes. She has delivered impassioned speeches to the United Nations General Assembly about sex- and labor-trafficking, and to the National Press Club about mountaintop-removal mining in Kentucky, her home state. She is a board member of PSI, a global health organization where she has worked on issues like maternal health, family planning and malaria prevention. . .<\/p>\n