Last modified: Tuesday, March 9, 2004
IU trustee to present a view of women in leadership
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Cora Smith Breckenridge, a member of the national board of directors of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and an Indiana University trustee, will give the Neal-Marshall SPEA Public Policy Lecture on March 22 at IU Bloomington. The event is free and open to the public.
"An Intimate View of Women in Leadership: A Conversation with IU Trustee Cora Breckenridge" will begin at 7 p.m. in the Grand Hall of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, 275 N. Jordan Ave. The event is sponsored by IU Bloomington's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Neal-Marshall Alumni Association.
In addition to lecturing, Breckenridge will join a panel discussion by African American women campus leaders moderated by Charlie Nelms, IU vice president for institutional development and student affairs. The format for the discussion will be similar to that used on the popular television talk show, The View.
The Neal-Marshall SPEA Public Policy Lecture series was established in honor of Marcellus Neal and Frances Marshall, the first male and female African Americans to graduate from IU. Previous speakers have included Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Roger Wilkins, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, PBS broadcaster Tavis Smiley, U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., and Jackson, Miss., Mayor Harvey Johnson Jr.
First elected by IU alumni in 1997, Breckenridge is the first African American member of the IU Board of Trustees. She earned her undergraduate degree from IU in 1959 and her master's degree in 1963. She is a retired speech/language pathologist for the Elkhart Community Schools.
In 2000, Breckenridge was elected to the NAACP national board of directors and was re-elected in 2003. She has served as membership chairman of the Indiana NAACP since 1978, as secretary of the Elkhart County Branch since 1984 and as president of the Elkhart NAACP Women since 1994. She also has served as president of the Elkhart County Branch. She and her husband Franklin, the immediate past Indiana NAACP president, reside in Elkhart.
Student leaders who will join Breckenridge are Crystal Brown, secretary of the IU Black Student Union; Quiana Stone, president of the Black Graduate Student Association; and Shannon Finnegan and Bemmy Granados of the Rutledge Diversity Project in SPEA.
