Athens, Ga. – Twelve undergraduate and graduate students have been named McGill Fellows by the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
They 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 2008 McGill Fellows are JoAnn Anderson, senior newspapers major from Lawrenceville; Tamara Best, junior newspapers major from Loganville; Jason Butt, senior magazines major from Athens; Kristen Coulter, senior newspapers major from Alpharetta; Carolyn Crist, senior newspapers major from Senoi; Brian Creech, journalism graduate student from Zebulon, N.C.; Alex Dimitropoulos, senior magazines major from Marietta; Marona Graham-Bailey, journalism graduate student from Adairsville; Julie Leung, senior magazines major from Douglasville; Shannon Otto, senior telecommunication arts major from Kennesaw; Valentina Tapia, senior magazines major from Marietta; and Amanda Woodruff, senior magazines major from Locust Grove.
The Fellows will participate in the daylong 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 from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15, in the Grady College’s Drewry Room.
Later the same day, the McGill Fellows will attend and be introduced at the McGill Lecture, which will be presented by Hannah Allam, Middle East Bureau Chief of McClatchy Newspapers. The lecture will be held at 4 p.m. in Room 102 of the Student Learning Center.
The McGill Fellows also will help select the first winner of the McGill Medal, to be awarded annually to a U.S. journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage.
They also will have first priority to enroll in a one-hour, spring semester seminar on journalistic courage, to be taught by Greenman.
This is the second class of McGill Fellows. The first class was selected in 2007.
Joining Greenman on the selection committee were journalism professors Valerie Boyd, Charlayne Hunter-Gault Distinguished Writer-in-Residence and associate professor; Conrad Fink, professor and William S. Morris Professor of Newspaper Strategy and Management; Janice Hume, associate professor; and Patricia Thomas, professor and Knight Chair in Health and Medical Journalism.
For nearly 30 years, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to help 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 “long, courageous and effective leadership.”
The annual UGA McGill Lecture, which was first presented in 1978, addresses major issues impacting the American press.
Established in 1915, the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication offers seven undergraduate majors including advertising, broadcast news, magazines, newspapers, public relations, publication management and telecommunication 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.
