To kick off the 2016-2017 school year, the long-held Baker tradition of convocation will focus on success and the importance of a Baker University education. Themed “Baker Builds Achievers,” the featured speaker will be Pulitzer Prize-winning Baker graduate Harold Jackson at 11 a.m. on Aug. 30 in Rice Auditorium.

Jackson likes to credit Baker University for providing him with a foundation that prepared him for his career as a journalist.

“The whole experience, when you total all the parts, there is something very valuable to me,” Jackson said. “I don’t think I would have become the journalist or the person that I am had I not experienced the good and bad parts of being a Baker student.”

He encourages students to step back and look around them to see all that is available to them, and maybe take on something that is more challenging.

Using a journalism scholarship he won in high school, Jackson started at Baker in 1971 eager to be involved in Baker’s journalism program. While at Baker, Jackson was on the staff of The Baker Orange and developed some fundamental journalism skills – copy editing, photography and news writing.

“What Baker gave me was the entry-level skills that I needed to get a job in journalism,” Jackson said. “Anybody in the journalism business knows that much of what you learn in college is useful, but only to a point, because it is almost as if you have to learn on-the-job, be put in those situations where you have to do reporting … going to places that you are unfamiliar with, (covering) topics that you are unfamiliar with. So there is only so much that you can learn in journalism school, but Baker gave me the background that I needed to become a good reporter.”

Jackson graduated from Baker in 1975 as a dual major in journalism and political science. He has worked for multiple news organizations.

In 1991, Jackson was an editorial writer at the Birmingham News in Alabama, his home state. He, along with two other editorial writers, wrote a series of nine editorials about the many discrepancies within the tax system in Alabama.

The Pulitzer Committee took notice of the nine editorials and awarded each of the three men a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

“It was a big deal,” Jackson said, “especially for us and what we wanted to do with our careers.”

Jackson said he remembers the importance and value of convocation when he was a Baker student.

Convocation will also include a class of 2020 video, an alumni spotlight video and speeches given by BU President Lynne Murray on “The Transformative Baker Experience” and by Interim Provost Tes Mehring on “Academic Vision for the Future.”

Following convocation, Jackson will participate in a panel along with other media professionals to discuss the modern media’s role and impact in this year’s election. That event will be held at 7 p.m. on Aug. 30 at the Baldwin City Library as part of the library’s centennial celebration. Associate Professor of Mass Media Joe Watson will moderate the panel. The Pulitzer Foundation is helping sponsor the panel discussion, which will include questions from the audience.