John B. King Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Education, will deliver the twelfth annual Walter N. Ridley lecture at the University of Virginia on Wednesday, November 2 at 4:00 p.m. at Alumni Hall, 221 Emmet Street South, Charlottesville, VA.
During his lecture, King will speak about the importance of quality preschool and early learning.
The event is open to the public, though an RSVP registration is required.
In tapping King to lead the U.S. Department of Education in January 2016, President Obama called Dr. King “an exceptionally talented educator,” citing his commitment to “preparing every child for success” and his lifelong dedication to education as a teacher, principal, and leader of schools and school systems.
Before becoming Secretary, Secretary King had served at the Department since January 2015 and carried out the duties of the Deputy Secretary, overseeing all preschool-through-12th-grade education policies and programs as well as Department operations. Secretary King joined the Department following his tenure as the first African-American and Puerto Rican to serve as New York State Education Commissioner, a post he held from 2011 to 2015.
The annual lecture, sponsored by the UVA Curry School of Education and the Ridley Scholarship Fund, honors the late Walter Ridley, who earned his Ph.D. from the Curry School in 1953, and in so doing became the first African-American to graduate from UVA and the first to receive a doctorate from a white Southern university.
Dr. Ridley, a native Virginian and a respected, accomplished academic at one of Virginia’s oldest public institutions of higher education (Virginia State College, Petersburg), was admitted to UVA three years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which ordered desegregation of public schools. The lecture honors his legacy at the University and his contributions to the field of education.
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Chris Graham
