Cynthia Tucker to speak at COE commencement

Nationally syndicated newspaper columnist Cynthia Tucker will be the featured keynote speaker at the 2006 College of Education Spring Commencement on Sunday, May 7, in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the University of Florida Gainesville campus.

Tucker’s commentary appears in dozens of newspapers across the United States. As editorial page editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, she is responsible for guiding the newspaper’s opinion policies on a broad range of topics from foreign policy issues to local school board races.

Tucker has considerable reporting experience, covering local governments, national politics, crime and education. She also has filed dispatches from Africa, Central America and Cuba, and frequently provides news commentary on TV programs such as the “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.”

A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, Tucker is a recent recipient of Colby College’s prestigious Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award. She was awarded the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ Distinguished Writing Award in 2000 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2004.

Tucker is a member of the board of directors of the International Women’s Media Foundation and a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Association of Minority Media Executives and the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Writer

Joy L. Rodgers, jrodgers@coe.ufl.edu, 352-392-0726, ext. 274