Date: October 04, 2012
Author: John Greenman
Contact: John F. Greenman, jgreenma@uga.edu

The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication has named 12 students as McGill Fellows for the McGill Lecture and Symposium on Oct. 24.

The sixth class of McGill Fellows will participate in the McGill Symposium, attend the McGill Lecture and also help choose the winner of the McGill Medal, awarded annually to an American journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage. They will also have the first priority to enroll in an independent study on leadership in journalism taught by Carter Professor of Journalism John F. Greenman during the spring semester.

The Fellows are made up of 10 undergraduates — seniors Julia Carpenter, Jacob Demmitt, Amanda Dixon, Maura Friedman, Parys Grigsby, Mariana Heredia, Elayna Rose, Ryan Williams and Kavi Vu and junior Gina Yu — as well as graduate students Jessica Luton and Stephen Morgan.

A Grady faculty committee chaired by Greenman selected the fellows. Valerie Boyd, Janice Hume, Mark Johnson and Patricia Thomas served on the committee, which selected the students for their strengths in academics, leadership and practical experience, Greenman said.

The McGill Fellows will start their day with the McGill Symposium, which brings together students, faculty and leading journalists to consider what journalistic courage means and how it is exemplified by reporters and editors. The symposium will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Drewry Room.

The Fellows will then attend and be introduced at the McGill Lecture, which will be presented by PolitiFact Editor Bill Adair. The lecture will be held at 4 p.m. in Room 150 of the Miller Learning Center.

For more than 30 years, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to honor Ralph McGill's courage as an editor. McGill, while editor and publisher of The Atlanta Constitution, was regarded as the conscience of the South, using the newspaper's editorial pages to challenge segregation in the 1950s and 1960s. McGill was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1958 for his long, courageous and effective leadership.

Established in 1978, this University of Georgia annual lecture series addresses major issues impacting the American press. The McGill Symposium is funded by the McGill Lecture Endowment. Contributors include the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism.

UGA Grady College

Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in Advertising, Public Relations, Journalism, Digital & Broadcast Journalism, and Mass Media Arts. The college offers two graduate degrees and is home to the Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism and the Peabody Awards, internationally recognized as one of the most prestigious prizes for excellence in electronic media. For more information, see www.grady.uga.edu or follow the Grady College on Facebook and @UGAGrady on Twitter.