League of Women Voters Executive Director to Speak at Clayton State, April 7

Polly McKinney, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Georgia, will be speaking on gender and political participation as part of Clayton State University’s celebration of Women’s History Month on Monday, Apr. 7.

McKinney will be appearing in room 272 of the James M. Baker Center on the Clayton State campus from 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. A voter registration table, staffed by Clayton State students from the School of Business’ Women in Leadership Class, will be available directly outside the room during this event. This discussion of gender and political participation is free and open to all interested parties.

“Clayton State University’s Women’s History Month Committee thinks that the historical candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton brings the issue of women’s political participation to the forefront. This topic, however, is one that has relevance far beyond this particular election year,” says Dr. Deborah Deckner, assistant professor in the Clayton State Department of Psychology and a member of the Women’s History Month Committee. “Women in America have had the vote for the better part of a century and have been the majority of the voting age population for the past several decades, but only hold about 16 percent of America’s congressional seats. In comparison, many European countries have close to 40 percent of their legislative seats filled by women.

“We think that this topic will be of interest to anyone who is concerned about equitable political representation.”

McKinney has always been drawn to projects where hard work and academic analysis meet. She was a member of the first graduating class of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics and went on to minor in Pre-med and major in English Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She attended the University of Bristol (England) for a year, focusing on English Literature, the history of Theology, and Art History, and spent three summers at St. Edmund’s Hall in Oxford, where she studied the History of Literature and Literary Criticism.

As a documentary producer in the late 80’s/early 90’s, she directed, wrote, and edited various programs for local public television. Her favorite projects were interview-based documentaries, a number of which were nominated for regional Emmy Awards. After leaving public TV, McKinney went on to write and direct the documentary which now plays on a continuous loop at the National P.O.W. Museum at Andersonville, Ga. This project, narrated by Colin Powell, involved countless interviews of former American prisoners of war, including Senator John McCain and Vice Admiral James Stockdale.

In addition, McKinney spent some time as a legacy advisor for Georgia Governor Zell Miller, and has worked her share of national and statewide political ad campaigns.

A unit of the University System of Georgia, Clayton State University is an outstanding comprehensive metropolitan university located 15 miles southeast of downtown Atlanta.