ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT ANN COMPTON TO SPEAK AT HOLLINS' 2001 GRADUATION
Ann Compton'69, chief Washington correspondent for ABC News.com, is the commencement speaker for Hollins University's 159th graduation ceremony in Roanoke, Virginia. Commencement exercises begin at 10:00 a.m. Sunday, May 20, on Hollins' historic Front Quadrangle.
Throughout her career, Compton has covered five presidential elections, has served as president of the Radio Television Correspondents Association and is a member of the board of the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center in New York. Compton has traveled to all 50 states and across Europe, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and Asia during her years as a White House correspondent.
A recent inductee into the Society of Professional Journalists Dateline Journalism Hall of Fame, Compton began her broadcast career during her junior year at Hollins when she interned at WDBJ 7 in Roanoke. After graduation she pursued a journalism fellowship at the Washington Journalism Center, moved to Richmond and established a State Capital Bureau for WDBJ 7. Compton joined the ABC network in September 1973 and was a correspondent and anchor for ABC Radio newscasts in New York. She was the first woman to be named a full-time White House correspondent by a network news organization and was one of the youngest correspondents to receive the assignment. Compton also served the ABC News chief correspondent at the House of Representatives, and eventually covered the White House for ABC World News This Morning and Good Morning America. Among numerous honors outside journalism, she has also been saluted as Outstanding Mother of the Year by National Mother's Day Foundation.
Compton made a visit to Hollins last spring as a keynote speaker for a weekend conference for students and alumnae called Careers 2000. The two-day conference featured many Hollins alumnae including Elizabeth Valk Long, Time, Inc. executive vice president, and M.L Flynn, executive producer of NBC's Nightly News.
Hollins is a distinguished national liberal arts university, founded in 1842 as Virginia's first chartered women's college. Coed graduate programs were established in 1958. Hollins emphasizes a broad liberal arts curriculum that offers strong career preparation, superior teaching, and extensive study abroad and internship opportunities. Hollins University has long been recognized for the hundreds of well-known writers it has produced -- among them Annie Dillard, Lee Smith, Margaret Wise Brown, Madison Smartt Bell, Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, Jill McCorkle, and Henry Taylor. Hollins is included in Barron's Best Buys in College Education and is on U.S. News and World Report's "Great College at a Great Price" list.
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Press Contact: Rachel S. Brittin, coordinator of publicity, [email protected]
(540) 362-6451, Hollins UniversityJean Holzinger, director of public relations(540) 362-6451
February 27, 2001
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