NPR's Michele Norris in Penn State Behrend Speaker Series January 19, 2010

Michele Norris, co-host of National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered,” brings a nuanced perspective on current events spoken with one of the most recognizable voices in radio to the Speaker Series at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, next month.

“All Things Considered with Michele Norris” takes place Tuesday, January 19. She will speak at 7:30 p.m. in the McGarvey Commons of the Reed Union Building; admission is free and open to the public.

Before joining NPR in 2002, Norris was a correspondent for ABC News, where she reported extensively on education, inner city issues, the national drug problem and poverty. While at ABC, she earned an Emmy Award and Peabody Award for her contribution to the network’s coverage of 9/11. Norris has also reported for the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. Her Washington Post series about a six-year-old living in a crack house was reprinted in the book Ourselves Among Others, along with essays by Václav Havel, Nelson Mandela, Annie Dillard, and Gabriel García Márquez.

Norris has received numerous awards for her work and is a four-time Pulitzer Prize entrant. Her honors include the National Association of Black Journalists’ Salute to Excellence Award; Ebony magazine’s Annual Outstanding Women in Marketing and Communications Award; and the Outstanding Achievement Award from her alma mater, the University of Minnesota.

Currently she is at work on her first book, Say What? The Hidden Conversation about Race, which focuses on how America talks about race in the wake of the Obama presidency.

Michele Norris’ Penn State Behrend Speaker Series presentation is supported by the Student Activity Fee, the Division of Student Affairs, and the Harriet Behrend Ninow Memorial Lecture Series Fund. Additional spring semester speakers are Fox News business correspondent Stuart Varney on March 18 and environmentalist Jean-Michel Cousteau on April 20.

For more information about Penn State Behrend’s annual Speaker Series, phone the Office of Student Activities at 814-898-6171.

Official Website: http://www.behrend.psu.edu