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November 2, 2009
Advance Notice

JWJI to honor six in medals ceremony
James Weldon Johnson Institute will award medals to six individuals “who have enriched our national life,” says Rudolph P. Byrd, JWJI director and the Goodrich C. White Professor of American Studies.

This year’s medalists are author Alice Walker, for literature; women’s rights pioneer Gloria Steinem, for journalism; and U.S. Rep. John Lewis and activist Myrlie Evers Williams, for civil rights. Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and E. Neville Isdell, former CEO of Coca-Cola, will each receive the first-ever Humanitarian Award.

The medals will be presented in a ceremony at The Carter Center on Wednesday, Nov. 4. Actress Regina Taylor will be mistress of ceremonies, and President Jim Wagner will speak. On Nov. 5, the six medalists will take part in a colloquium panel discussion on campus for undergraduate students on “Lessons Learned Along the Way.”

Tickets are $25. For more information, call 404-727-2515.

PNAS editor to give McCormick lecture
Randy Schekman, investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, will give the 2009 McCormick Lecture Series for the Department of Biochemistry at the School of Medicine.

The event will be Thursday, Nov. 5, at 3 p.m. in 110 School of Medicine Building.

The professor of cell and developmental biology at University of California at Berkeley will speak on “Transport Vesicle Biogenesis: Mechanism, Regulation and Connections to Human Disease.” Shekman currently is editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The annual lectureship honors the former chair of the Emory Department of Biochemistry, Donald B. McCormick, who currently is professor emeritus in biochemistry.

For more information, call 404-727-5960.

Series welcomes playwright Hudes
The Creative Writing Reading Series brings playwright Quiara Hudes to campus for a reading and colloquium. Hudes, whose plays include “Elliot,” “A Soldier’s Fugue” (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and “26 Miles,” wrote the book for “In the Heights,” winner of the 2008 Tony Award for Best Musical. She is currently writing the screenplay for a film version of “In the Heights.”

Hudes will give a free reading at 6:30 p.m., Monday, Nov. 16, in the Woodruff Library, Jones Room. Her colloquium is on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 3:30 p.m. in N301 Callaway Center.

For information, visit www.creativewriting.emory.edu/series.