*Denzel Washington and his wife Pauletta will be honored this week by the United Negro College Fund at its 64th anniversary dinner in New York.

      According to the Associated Press, the couple will receive the Frederick D. Patterson Award for helping historically black colleges and universities and assisting minorities with finances for their education.

       The award is named for a co-founder of the United Negro College Fund and former president of what is now Tuskegee University in Alabama.     

       Washington, a two-time Oscar-winner, recently starred in and directed "The Great Debaters," inspired by a historically black college debate team that battled an all-white squad at an Ivy League university during legal segregation in the 1930s.

       The UNCF dinner will be held March 7 at a Manhattan hotel.