The culminating event of the two-day symposium will be the gala on Friday evening, June 27, 2008, where three distinguished leaders in higher education will be honored with John Hope Franklin medallions.

This year, Xavier University President, Dr. Norman C. Francis, Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Alvin Poussaint, and North Carolina Philanthropist, Ms. Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans will be honored.

Drs. Francis, Poussaint, and Duke Biddle Trent Semans will join a distinguished group of men and women honored with past Franklin Awards, including:

- Dr. Maya Angelou, poet laureate and American writer (2006)
- Dr. Johnnetta Cole, former university president and national education spokesperson (2005)
- Dr. William Clyde Friday, president emeritus, The University of North Carolina System (2006)
- Dr. James Comer, professor of medicine, Yale University (2006)
- Dr. Clifton R. Wharton, former TIAA-CREF chief executive officer and state department officer (2005)
- Dr. David Levering Lewis, Two-time Pulitzer Prize Winning Historian and endowed professor, New York University (2004)

 

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