At the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan on Monday night, Sony Pictures Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Lynton was honored by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Institute with the “Order of the Golden Sphinx” award. Lynton was chosen for this award because of his efforts supporting arts education while working at Sony, Time Warner, and Walt Disney.

“The award really embodies everything that’s really wonderful about being involved in the performing arts — what it does for the community, what it does for education,” said Andrew Farkas, chairman of Island Capital Group and Grand Sphinx of the Hasty Pudding Institute. “No one has done more of that in their career than Michael.”

Lynton earned his BA and MBA from Harvard and is the first Hollywood executive to be honored by the Hasty Pudding Institute. In 2010, his studio produced “The Social Network” which was set at Harvard.

Andrew Farkas was full of praise for Lynton: “I think that Michael has stayed very true to his own beliefs. For a studio executive to pander to nobody for anything is an extraordinary thing. He really doesn’t waver for anyone.”

There were 350 people that attended the dinner on Monday, which raised $1.5 million for the Hasty Pudding Institute. The event featured performances by the Krokodiloes (Harvard’s a capella group) and The Hasty Pudding Theatricals (Harvard’s all-male, cross-dressing theater troupe).