Month: January 2012

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Bob Zellner, civil rights activist and author of “The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement,” will speak at Transylvania University on Wednesday, February 1, at 7:30 p.m. The talk, in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center’s Carrick Theater, is free and open to the public. Zellner was born in Alabama in 1939, the son and grandson of Klansmen. After graduating from the Huntingdon College in 1961, Zellner became the first white southerner to serve as field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Zellner’s father rejected his past Klan associations and supported his son in his civil rights efforts. Arrested 18 times in seven states, Zellner organized in McComb, Miss.; Albany, Ga.; Danville, Va.; Talladega, Montgomery and Birmingham, Ala.; New Haven, Conn.; and Boston. From 1963-65, Zellner studied race relations in the Graduate School of Sociology at Brandeis University. During Mississippi’s Freedom Summer of 1964, he traveled with Rita Schwerner while taking part in SNCC’s and CORE’s investigation of the disappearance of her husband Mickey, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman. When SNCC became an all-black organization in 1967, Bob and his wife, Dottie, joined the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF) to organize an anti-racism project for black and white workers in the Deep South called GROW, Grass Roots Organizing Work. In the early 1990s, studying at Tulane University for a Ph.D. in history, Zellner wrote a dissertation on the southern civil rights movement.

Read “Bob Zellner, civil rights activist and author, to speak at Transylvania February 1, at 7:30 p.m.; free and open to the public”

“Give It Up For The Boys” Gissette Padilla LEXINGTON, Ky.—Transylvania University’s Morlan Gallery opens 2012 with “The Millennials,” a juried exhibition that  offers a visual entrée into the minds of America’s largest age group, the millennial generation. The Pew Research Center has defined this group, ages 18 to 29, as “the American teens and 20-somethings currently making the passage into adulthood.” They tend to be  confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and receptive to new ideas and ways of living. The exhibit opens  Tuesday, January 17, and runs through Friday, February 10. The 12 artists chosen for the exhibition represent nine states and every  region of the U. S. They are primarily in their mid-20s and submitted work in a variety of two- and three-dimensional media. The artists’ reception on Tuesday, January 17, from 5-7 p.m., is free and open to the public. The artists  are John Talbott Allen, Ky.; Jeanette Bonds, Calif.; Benjamin Cook, Ky.; Ryan Foley, Penn.; Natasha Giles, Ky.; Carl Glasemeyer, Mo.; John Haverty, Mass.; Andrea Hutchinson, Ind.; Gissette Padilla, Texas; Patrick Smith ’08, Va.; Nelson Wei Tan, Ind.; and Jordi Williams, Fla. Pieces for the exhibit were selected from an application pool of 45 national artists by Andrea Fisher, director of the Morlan Gallery, and Transylvania studio art faculty, Jack Girard, Kurt Gohde and Zoé Strecker. The Morlan Gallery is free and open to the public weekdays from noon-5 p.m. For more information, contact Fisher at (859) 233-8142

Read “The Morlan Gallery’s “The Millennials” exhibit explores the works of artists ages 18 to 29; opens Tues., Jan. 17”

LEXINGTON, Ky.—Sarah Weddington, nationally known for her work on issues affecting women through her roles as an attorney, legislator, presidential assistant and professor, will speak at Transylvania on Tuesday, January 17, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mitchell Fine Arts Center’s Carrick Theater.  Her talk, “Some Leaders are Born Women!” is free and open to the public. In 1973, Weddington successfully argued the winning side of the landmark Roe v. Wade case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  A long-time advocate for women, she was the first woman elected from Austin to be a member of the 150-member Texas House of Representatives, where she served three terms before going to Washington, DC, as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1977, the first woman to ever hold that position. From 1978 to 1981, she served as an assistant to President Jimmy Carter and led White House efforts to extend the time for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), assisted in the selection of women for federal judiciary appointments, co-chaired the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Mid-Decade Conference on Women in Copenhagen and implemented other programs to assist the equal treatment of women in the military. She later became the first female director of the Texas Office of State-Federal Relations in Washington, DC. Weddington currently practices law in Austin, and is an adjunct professor at The University of Texas in Austin, where she helped shape a new generation of

Read ““Some Leaders are Born Women!” Nationally-known lawyer, professor and women’s rights advocate to speak at Transylvania Tuesday, January 17, at 7:30 p.m.; free and open to the public”