McGill Fellows selected for 2019 Symposium

Twelve students have been named McGill Fellows by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. The class, selected by a faculty committee for their strengths in academics, practical experience and leadership, includes 10 journalism majors, one PR major and one graduate student.

The McGill Fellows are:

• Gabriella Audi, Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania
• Yash Bhika, Cartersville, Georgia
• Sofia Gratas, Marietta, Georgia
• Cat Hendrick, Orange County, California
• Collin Huguley, Hoschton, GA
• Sam Jones, Cumming, Georgia
• Taylor Maggiore, Athens, Georgia
• Myan Patel, Knoxville, Tennessee
• Adia Randall, Snellville, Georgia
• Cameren Rogers, Thomasville, Georgia
• Will Salter, Claxton, Georgia
• Wangechi Warui, Acworth, Georgia

The McGill Lecture will be given by David McCraw, general counsel for the New York Times, at 4 p.m. in Miller Learning Center 150. The lecture is free and open to the public.

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 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13, in the Peyton Anderson Forum at Grady College.
• Attend and be introduced at the 41st McGill Lecture, “Fake, Fake News: The Press, The President and the Future of the First Amendment” delivered by McCraw.
• Help select the tenth recipient of the McGill Medal, awarded annually to a U.S. journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage.

This is the thirteenth class of McGill Fellows. The first class was selected in 2007.

The Grady College faculty selection committee consisted Valerie Boyd, Keith Herndon, Janice Hume, Mark Johnson, Vicki Michaelis and Diane Murray, who directs the McGill program for Journalistic Courage.

For more than 40 years, the McGill Lecture has brought significant figures in journalism to the University of Georgia to help us 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.”

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.