 The following year, President John F. Kennedy invited her to serve on his advisory committee to the National Cultural Center (now the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts), and Secretary of State Dean Rusk appointed her to the U.S. Commission on International Education and Cultural Affairs, the only woman to so serve.In addition, Vance was one of only seven American directors to attend contemporary Soviet theatre in Moscow, while touring the Soviet Union at the invitation of the Soviet Ministry of Culture and the U.S. Department of State.She received numerous other awards, including the Matrix Award of Theta Phi, the Outstanding Alumni Award of Texas Southern University and the Houston Y.W.C.A.