June 2005

National Public Radio's Renee Montagne Addresses Meredith Class of 2005
By Melyssa Allen

National Public Radio's Renee Montagne delivered the address for Meredith College's spring commencement on Sunday, May 15 in McIver Amphitheater.

Montagne has co-hosted NPR's Morning Edition since 2004, after serving as a correspondent since 1989, covering a wide-range of topics from National Guardsmen in Iraq to South Africa's historic presidential elections. Montagne was introduced by her cousin, Meredith graduating senior Sarah Margaret Tulloss, of Rocky Mount, N.C. Tulloss said, "In a time when Meredith College is striving to embrace the global community, Montagne is a perfect speaker."

Using examples from world news stories she has covered, Montagne urged graduates to look at their world not as a smaller place but a "more interconnected place…this is a future that Meredith has prepared you for, through the Model U.N. [team], study abroad and community service."

Montagne said that the "most valuable thing a good education will do is teach you to recognize what you don't know." She closed her speech by saying that the most important lesson is "the knowledge of how to learn. Your degrees are a torch. You and your curiosity are the fuel."

Degrees Conferred
During the outdoor ceremony in McIver Amphitheater, 302 undergraduates received degrees. The college conferred four types of undergraduate degrees: the Bachelor of Arts, the Bachelor of Science, the Bachelor of Music and the Bachelor of Social Work. Eighteen master's degrees in business, education, music and nutrition were presented to graduates of the John E. Weems Graduate School at Meredith. Two of the undergraduate students earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science degree, and seven students earned 4.0 grade point averages.

About the Class of 2005
Graduate students receiving degrees ranged in age from 24 to 58, while undergraduates ranged from 20 to 65. The graduates hail from 11 states and three foreign countries. While at Meredith, 73 undergraduates receiving degrees had held leadership positions.

For more information, visit www.meredith.edu/commencement.

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Summer Reading Program Explores "Telling Tales"
By Melyssa Allen

Meredith faculty and staff are encouraged to join students in participating in the College's Summer Reading Program for 2005.

This year's selection, Telling Tales, is a collection of contemporary world fiction edited by Nobel Prize winner Nadine Gordimer. The proceeds from the sale of the book support AIDS/HIV preventative education and medical treatment throughout the world. The authors, including five Nobel Prize in Literature recipients, contributed stories without any fee or royalty.

Summer Reading Program committee member Rebecca Duncan, associate professor of English, said this year's choice is more complex than previous selections.

"Over the years we have chosen books on a wide variety of topics, but we have yet to choose a book with such strong literary merit," Duncan said. "The stories are complex, intriguing, and sometimes difficult—difficult to comprehend and difficult to accept as visions of life in the 21st century."

The Summer Reading Program committee has chosen a few of the short stories in Telling Tales on which discussion groups will focus. These stories are "Sugar Baby" by Chinua Achebe; "Death Beyond Constant Love" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; "Cell Phone" by Ingo Schulze; "The Age of Lead" by Margaret Atwood; "The Rejection" by Woody Allen; and "The Ultimate Safari" by Nadine Gordimer.

"The stories range from Woody Allen's hilarious tale of the pre-school admissions process to haunting tales of displacement and exile in Africa," Duncan said.

Early in July, additional information will be posted at www.meredith.edu/summerbook/.

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