UGA Libraries, Southern Regional Council present Lillian Smith Books Awards
The 2005 Lillian Smith Books Awards were presented Oct. 15 at UGA. Since 1968, the Lillian Smith Books Awards have honored well-crafted books that contribute to a better understanding of human rights and other social issues. They are co-sponsored by the Southern Regional Council and the UGA Libraries. Smith was one of the most outspoken writers of the mid-20th century and addressed issues of social, and especially racial, injustice. A panel of jurors selects the winners each year.

The 2005 winners are: Frye Gaillard for Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America; Stephanie M.H. Camp for Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women’s Everyday Resistance in the Plantation South; and Tayari Jones for Leaving Atlanta and The Untelling.

For more than 80 years the Southern Regional Council has worked to advance the principles of racial fairness and unity. In 2004, the UGA Libraries joined the council in partnership to sponsor the book awards.

M.B.A. students win national competition
A polished presentation prepared by a team of Terry College of Business M.B.A. students earned first place in the National Black M.B.A. Association-DaimlerChrysler Case Competition held earlier this month in San Diego.

Redick Brown, Tracy Dunbar and Demetria Hannah, all second-year students in the Terry College’s full-time M.B.A. program, spent three weeks studying the case and outlining strategies that would help DaimlerChrysler penetrate the consumer automotive market in China.

After two rounds of presentations and question-and-answer sessions, the panel of DaimlerChrysler executives who judged the competition decided the Terry team had delivered it properly.The Terry M.B.A. team beat defending champions Michigan State University and 27 other M.B.A. teams from business schools across the country, including Vanderbilt, Penn State, Brandeis and Johns Hopkins.

Brown, Dunbar and Hannah have been invited by the DaimlerChrysler executives to make their presentation to the company’s board of directors in Detroit. The three students each received scholarships in the amount of $5,000.

Assisting the team in preparing for the competition were marketing professor Kimberly Grantham, management professor Melenie Lankau and finance professor Jim Linck. Anne Cooper, assistant director of the M.B.A. program, traveled with the team.

Performing Arts Center sets new record for subscription sales
UGA’s Performing Arts Center has set yet another subscription sales record, heralding a successful start to the center’s 10th anniversary season. For the current 2005-2006 season, subscriptions for the Dance Festival have hit an all-time high, with a 26 percent increase over the previous season. Likewise, Music Series II, which showcases classical music, has experienced a 27 percent jump in subscriptions from last year, giving that series one of the largest single-year increases in the past 10 years.

To date, the Performing Arts Center’s total subscriptions stand at 2,431, including student pass holders. Student passes will continue to be sold throughout the season, so projections are that the subscription total will exceed the 2,500 mark, resulting in one of the highest season ticket sales totals in the Performing Arts Center’s history.

“At a time when performing arts subscriptions are declining nationwide, we are indeed gratified by the strong show of support for our programming, especially in this, our tenth anniversary season,” says Timothy A. Bartholow, Performing Arts Center director.

The UGA Performing Arts Center’s 2005-2006 10th anniversary season runs through April 2006.