Twelve undergraduate and graduate students have been named McGill Fellows by the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
They were selected by a faculty committee “for their strength in academics, practical experience and leadership,” said Diane Murray, public service faculty and director of the McGill Program in Journalistic Courage, who chaired the committee.
The McGill Fellows are:
Sara Katherine Bowen (Tifton, Georgia) senior, journalism and finance
Kristin Bradshaw (Buford, Georgia) senior, journalism and international affairs
Mary Carol Butterfield (Greer, South Carolina) senior, journalism and political science
Lindsey Conway (Alpharetta, Georgia) senior, journalism
Emily Giambalvo (Easley, South Carolina) senior, management information systems, Grady Sports Media certificate
Zach Hansen (Cataula, Georgia) senior, journalism
Noelle Lashley (Cartersville, Georgia) senior, journalism
Saleen Martin (Norfolk, Virginia) graduate student, health and medical journalism
Nicolle Sartain (Lawrenceville, Georgia) senior, journalism
Maureen Sheeran (Atlanta) senior, journalism
Mollie Simon (North Druid Hills, Georgia) senior, journalism
Sammy Smith (West Point, Georgia) senior, journalism
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. November 15, 2017, in the Peyton Anderson Forum at Grady College.
- Later Wednesday, the McGill Fellows will attend and be introduced at the McGill Lecture, which will be presented by Souad Mekhennet, correspondent for The Washington Post’s national security desk and author of “I Was Told to Come Alone.” The lecture is part of the University’s Signature Lecture Series and will be held at 4 p.m. in Studio 100 at Grady College.
- The McGill Fellows also will help select the ninth recipient of the McGill Medal, awarded annually to a U.S. journalist whose career has exemplified journalistic courage.
- Finally, the McGill Fellows have first priority to enroll in a one-hour independent study on journalistic courage, to be taught by Murray in the spring.
This is the eleventh class of McGill Fellows. The first class was selected in 2007.
Joining Murray on the selection committee were Grady faculty Keith Herndon, Barry Hollander, Janice Hume, Mark Johnson and Vicki Michaelis.
For nearly 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.