Author to Discuss 1970s Student Protests in UA’s Gladney Lecture

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. Candace Waid, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will present the Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change at The University of Alabama Tuesday, Oct. 6 at 5:30 pm. in room 30 of ten Hoor Hall.

Waid will present “Some Secrets of Tuscaloosa in the Spring of ’70: Narrating a Community’s Role in the On-Going Plot of Social Justice,” focusing on Vietnam War-related and civil rights-related student protests on the UA campus in the spring of 1970.

She will discuss how the events are echoing down to the present day in struggles for justice and social change.

In 1970, following the American invasion of Cambodia, National Guardsmen killed four protesting students at Kent State University in Ohio. Another student and a high school student passing by were killed by police at Jackson State College in Mississippi.

More than 450 universities and colleges nationwide erupted in protests and student strikes, including at The University of Alabama.

Waid is the author of three books on Edith Wharton and one on William Faulkner’s art. She is affiliated with the comparative literature program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Her primary interests include American literature and culture, African American literature, Southern literature, Native American literature, gender studies and the visual arts.

She received a Master of Arts in women’s studies from George Washington University and a doctorate in American studies from Yale University. She also has taught at Yale, the Sorbonne and Northwestern University.

The Gladney lecture series was founded in 2003 to honor Margaret Rose Gladney, a UA professor emeritus who taught in both New College and American studies.

Gladney worked in New College when she first joined The University of Alabama faculty in 1975, and she also taught in American studies. She helped craft the master’s degree program in the department of women’s studies and was the recipient of the first Autherine Lucy Award for service, leadership and support for minority programming at UA in 1987.

The Gladney Lecture is sponsored by the Rose Gladney Lecture Fund, the College of Arts and Sciences, the department of religious studies, the department of American studies, New College, the department of history, the Summersell Center for the Study of the South, the College of Education, education leadership, policy and technology studies and the department of cultural studies in education.

The department of American studies is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, UA’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Truman Scholarships and Goldwater Scholarships.