By Melyssa Allen

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy will speak at Meredith on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at 7 p.m. in Jones Auditorium.

Her lecture, "The Camera Doesn't Lie: Social Change Through Documentary Filmmaking," is free and open to the public.

The Rory Kennedy lecture is the first event in Meredith College's new Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Presidential Lecture Series.

Kennedy is the co-founder and co-president of Moxie Firecracker Films, Inc. Her impressive body of work, which tackles pressing social concerns including poverty, domestic abuse, drug addiction, human rights, AIDS and mental illness, has garnered numerous awards and been featured on HBO, A&E, MTV, Lifetime, The Oxygen Network, Court TV, TLC and PBS.

Kennedy is also a committed social activist and human rights advocate. She has been a member of the board of directors for a number of non-profit organizations including the Legal Action Center and the Project Return Foundation. She served as chairperson of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation Associate Trustees Program and continues as a member of the board. She was a member of the 1999 Presidential Mission on AIDS in Africa. She has also been a member of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Human Rights delegations in South Africa, South Korea, Japan, El Salvador and Poland.

Kennedy is a graduate of Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in women's studies.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Presidential Lecture series is designed to foster students' abilities to develop the knowledge, skills, values and global awareness necessary to become tomorrow's leaders, and to lead responsible lives of citizenship, learning and service.

For 2005-06, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Presidential Lecture Series at Meredith College will follow a theme of "Our World, Our Responsibility: Contributing to Positive Change Around the Globe.

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Speakers for the series' inaugural year are

• Documentary Filmmaker Rory Kennedy at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, November 30;
• Nicolas de Torrenté, U.S. executive director of the international humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, February 16; and
• William McDonough, founding partner of an internationally recognized design firm practicing ecologically, socially and economically intelligent architecture, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 12.

Each lecture will be held in Jones Auditorium. Events in the series are free and open to the public.