CNN’s Soledad O’Brien To Deliver Lecture At Holy Cross

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Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Karen Mills, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

If there is a big news story lurking on Worcester’s horizon, you can bet award-winning CNN journalist Soledad O’Brien will be ready to report it when she visits the College of the Holy Cross on March 19th to deliver the College’s 47th Hanify-Howland Memorial Lecture. Beginning at 8 p.m. and located in the Hogan Ball Room, this talk is free and open to the public.

“When we came across Soledad O’Brien, we thought it would be a nice blend with our celebration of 40 years of co-education,” said Kelsey Russell, one of the co-chairs of the Hanify-Howland Lecture Series.

“She will be speaking about how diversity plays out in her own work as a woman in media.”

Renowned for her role as the anchor on CNN’s morning show “Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien,” and for producing award-winning, critically-acclaimed documentaries on globally significant stories, O’Brien has reported breaking news from around the globe. O’Brien is a graduate from Harvard University and a former NBC News anchor on “Weekend Today,” who has worked for CNN since 2003.

O’Brien has won numerous awards for her work, including her first Emmy in 2011 for “Crisis in Haiti” (Anderson Cooper 360) in the category of Outstanding Live Coverage of a Current News Story. In 2010, O’Brien was named Journalist of the Year by the National Association of Black Journalists; that same year she was also honored with the RTDNA/UNITY award for “Latino in America” by the Edward R Murrow Awards. For its work on reporting the BP oil spill and Hurricane Katrina, the CNN team O’Brien was a part of earned a George Foster Peabody award.

An annual event since 1965, the Hanify-Howland Lecture series has brought distinguished speakers to Holy Cross to exemplify work done in the spirit of public service. Last year, the lecture was delivered by Steven D. Levitt, co-author of the famed book “Freakonomics.” Past speakers also include the Honorable Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Class of ’71; Ruth Wedgwood, director of the Program in International Law and Organizations at Johns Hopkins University; and Retired Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, USAF.

“We want to stimulate academic debate on campus,” Russell said of the lecture and seminar series.

O’Brien’s greatly admired 2010 memoir entitled “The Next Big Story: My Journey through the Land of Possibilities” will be available for purchase both at the event and at the Holy Cross bookstore. After her lecture, O’Brien will be on hand to sign copies of her book, which chronicles her most noteworthy moments as a reporter as well as how her upbringing impacted her experiences. O’Brien will also conduct an interactive seminar on campus for students, in keeping with the tradition of the Lecture.

As Holy Cross is celebrating its 40th year of coeducation, this lecture is one of many events held throughout the 2012-2013 year that commemorate the 1972 decision to allow female students to attend Holy Cross.  

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