Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication recently named 12 undergraduate and graduate students McGill Fellows.
The students were selected by a faculty committee “for their strengths in academics, practical experience and leadership,” said John F. Greenman, Carter Professor of Journalism, who chaired the committee.
The 2011 McGill Fellows are senior newspapers major Rachel Bowers of Athens; senior broadcast news major Jason Hafford of Snellville; journalism graduate student Felicia Harris of Athens; senior newspapers major Sam Kaswala of Newnan; junior newspapers major Polina Marinova of Atlanta; senior magazines major Sarah Osbourne of Roswell; senior newspapers major Tiffany Stevens of Byron; senior magazines major Joe Williams of Dallas; senior magazines major Elizabeth Wilson of Atlanta; senior publication management major Lilly Workneh of Atlanta; senior magazines major Sarah Wormser of Tampa, Fla.; and senior magazines major Alyson Wright of Bogart.
The McGill Fellows will participate in 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 McGill Symposium will be held Oct. 26 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Drewry Room.
Later the same day, the McGill Fellows will be introduced at the McGill Lecture, which will be presented by Jan Schaffer, director of J-Lab. The lecture will be held at 4 p.m. in room 101 of the Miller Learning Center.
The McGill Fellows will help select the fourth winner of the McGill Medal, awarded annually to a U.S. journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage. They also have first priority to enroll in a one-hour independent study on journalistic courage to be taught by Greenman in the spring semester.
This is the fifth class of McGill Fellows. The first class was selected in 2007.
Joining Greenman on the selection committee were journalism faculty members Conrad Fink, Janice Hume, Mark Johnson and Patricia Thomas.
For more than 30 years, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to UGA to help honor Ralph McGill’s courage as an editor.
While editor and publisher of “The Atlanta Constitution,” McGill 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 “long, courageous and effective leadership.”
Established in 1978, the annual lecture series addresses major issues impacting the American press.
The McGill Symposium is funded by the McGill Lecture Endowment. Contributors include the Gannett Foundation.
Established in 1915, the UGA Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers undergraduate majors in journalism, advertising, public relations, digital and 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 @UGAGrady on Twitter.