First McNair Conference Features Former Personal Diarist to President Clinton

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Janis F. Kearney – Presidential Diarist and Author

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The office of graduate and international recruitment at the University of Arkansas will host the University of Arkansas’ first McNair Scholars Research Conference on Thursday, Nov. 4 and Friday, Nov. 5. Sixty-three McNair Scholars from six states will come to Fayetteville for the conference. McNair scholars are undergraduate students selected by their colleges to receive mentoring and training in hopes that each will pursue and eventually earn a doctoral degree. 

“We are excited to welcome the talented McNair Scholars to the campus,” said Todd Shields, interim dean of the Graduate School and International Education. “We hope that many of these students will eventually decide to attend graduate school here at the University of Arkansas and we are confident that the excellent preparation they receive in the McNair Scholars program will help them succeed.”

During the conference, students will attend a graduate school fair, present posters in a research conference setting and visit academic departments to learn about graduate programs of interest to them. At a dinner on Friday night they will hear a keynote address by Janis Kearney, former personal diarist to President Bill Clinton. Kearney is an alumna of the university, with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. The Graduate School will host a book signing and reception for Kearney from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 5, in the Multicultural Center in the Arkansas Union. The university community and the public are invited to attend.

Janis Kearney was born in Gould, Arkansas, one of 18 children. She worked for the State of Arkansas from 1978 until 1987, when she purchased the Arkansas State Press newspaper from Daisy Bates. She published the paper for five years, then joined the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign, first as director for minority media outreach, then as a member of the president’s transition team. During the president’s first term, Kearney was appointed director of public affairs and communications for the U.S. Small Business Administration. In 1995, she became the first presidential diarist in U.S. history, chronicling President Clinton’s day-to-day life. She remained in this capacity until the president left office. In 2001 Kearney was named a fellow at Harvard University’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute, where she began writing Conversations: William Jefferson Clinton—From Hope to Harlem. Today Kearney is the Chancellor’s Lecturer at the City Colleges of Chicago, and continues her W.E.B. DuBois writing project.

The McNair Scholars Program is a U.S. Department of Education-funded project designed to foster undergraduate college students who are from underrepresented groups low-income, or first generation college students; the program seeks to mentor students until they earn a Ph.D. One component of the McNair Scholars training requires that students visit research universities to learn about graduate school and research careers, and to meet faculty and graduate students.