KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (TVC) – The University of Tennessee hosted PBS NewsHour Senior Correspondent Judy Woodruff for the Baker Memorial Lecture Tuesday evening.
The Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs hosted the event in the Pilot Company Ballroom in the University’s Student Union.
Woodruff, the NewsHour’s former anchor and managing editor, gave her speech on civic discourse and engagement to 200 Knoxville-area residents. She encouraged student involvement in journalism and public service.
The Volunteer Channel’s Gail Fanning interviewed Woodruff on the Baker Memorial Lecture’s namesake, U.S. Senator Howard H. Baker Jr.
“He stands out as someone who was emblematic of the necessity to work across the aisle and of someone who did it and maintained his integrity,” Woodruff said. “He maintained the respect he had in his own party.”
“I think Howard Baker is pretty much in a category by himself,” Woodruff said.
A Q&A with UT’s College of Communication and Information Professor of Practice Gene Wojciechowski (’79) followed Woodruff’s lecture.
“People of my generation, as a journalist who went to school here, you are what we aspire to be,” Wojciechowski said. “I hope journalism majors and those here at the Baker School also aspire to what Judy Woodruff is.”
Woodruff’s speech and Q&A can be found on the Baker School’s YouTube channel.
