Pulitzer Prize Winner Gene Roberts to Give Commencement Address

Gene Roberts

Gene Roberts, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for History, will give the commencement address at Mars Hill College’s December graduation exercises on Friday, December 14. The college will confer degrees on approximately 70 graduates, and will also award an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree to Mr. Roberts. Commencement will begin at 5:00 p.m. in Moore Auditorium, preceded at 3:00 p.m. by a reception for graduates and their guests.

Gene Roberts is a 1951 graduate of Mars Hill College. A professor at
the University of Maryland’s Merrill College of Journalism, he and
co-author Hank Klibanoff won the Pulitzer for their book “The Race
Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a
Nation.” “The Race Beat” examines how the nation’s press, after decades
of ignoring the problem, came to recognize the importance of the civil
rights struggle and turn it into the most significant domestic news
event of the Twentieth Century. Both Roberts and Klibanoff spent the
early years of their careers covering the South. A native of Goldsboro,
NC, Roberts reported for the Goldsboro News-Argus, Virginian Pilot, The
(Raleigh) News & Observer and the Detroit Free Press before joining
The New York Times in 1965 and becoming its chief southern and civil
rights correspondent. Klibanoff grew up in Alabama and reported for
what is now the Sun Herald and other smaller papers in Mississippi.
Roberts joined the Merrill College in 1991, after 18 years as executive
editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, where his staff won 17 Pulitzer
Prizes. He took a leave of absence from 1994 to 1997 to serve as
managing editor of The New York Times. In 1993, he won the National
Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award for Distinguished Contributions to
Journalism.

This will be the fourth year Mars Hill has held commencement in
December for graduates who completed their degree requirements in
August or December. Degrees will be awarded in five areas: Bachelor of
Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Bachelor of Music, Bachelor of Science,
and Bachelor of Social Work.