Scholar is MLK Day speaker

Dr. James D. Anderson is the keynote speaker for the University of Southern Indiana's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Luncheon on January 19. The lunch begins at 11 a.m. in Carter Hall in the University Center and also includes entertainment by student and community groups.

Anderson is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutsgell professor of education; head of the Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership; executive associate dean for the College of Education; and affiliate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

His scholarship focuses broadly on the history of U.S. education with specializations in the history of African American education in the South, the history of higher education desegregation, the history of public school desegregation, and the history of African American school achievement in the 20th century. His book, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935, won the American Educational Research Association outstanding book award in 1990. He is senior editor of History of Education Quarterly.

Anderson has served as an expert witness in a series of federal desegregation and affirmative action cases, including Jenkins v. Missouri, Knight v. Alabama, Ayers v. Mississippi, Gratz v. Bollinger, and Grutter v. Bollinger. He served as an adviser for and participant in the PBS documentaries "School: The Story of American Public Education" (2001), "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" (2002) and "Forgotten Genius: The Percy Julian Story."

Tickets for the luncheon are $5 for USI students and $10 for USI employees, on sale now. Tickets go on sale to the general public on December 15 and are $15. Tickets may be purchased at the USI Multicultural Center. Call 812-465-7188 for more information.

This event is sponsored by the USI Foundation, USI Multicultural Center and USI 50^th Anniversary Committee and is part of the University's 50th anniversary events.