Contact: Karie Patton
An award-winning advocate for social justice and human disability rights will lead a public program Wednesday [Feb. 16] at Mississippi State.
The Rev. Dan Hopkins will speak at 1:30 p.m. in the McComas Hall theater. The university's College of Education Diversity and Globalization Committee is sponsoring the presentation.
An ordained Episcopal priest and former parish rector, Hopkins is founder and president of his own Aurora, Colo.-management consulting company. His firm has worked with the President's Committee for the Employment of People with Disabilities to advance the causes of minority persons with disabilities. The company also provides program development and training services to community leaders with disabilities.
He has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including the Jefferson Award for Public Service from the American Institute for Public Service and the Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award from the MLK Holiday Commission.
Joan Looby, MSU assistant dean of education, said Hopkins' message is important for all audiences to hear.
"One of the goals of Mississippi State University is to create and promote a community that respects and prizes a diverse and global society," she said. "Dan Hopkins' visit reminds us that expressing diversity allows us to value and appreciate the uniqueness of self and others."
While on campus, Hopkins will assist education college administrators and faculty in developing a diversity plan for their academic unit, Looby added.
Hopkins' visit is co-sponsored by MSU's Richard Holmes Cultural Diversity Center and he will serve as keynote speaker for the center's 1999-2000 honors banquet Wednesday night.
He also will tour the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Blindness and Low Vision, the only one of its kind in the nation.