One of National Public Radio’s longtime news analysts, Juan Williams, will speak at 1 p.m. April 30 in the Kiva.

Williams, the former host of NPR’s call-in show “Talk of the Nation,” regularly appears on “Morning Edition” and “Day to Day” in addition to serving as a panelist on “Fox News Sunday.”

Charlene Reed, secretary for the Board of Trustees, said the university is still finalizing the topic of Williams’ speech, but Kent State is “sponsoring the lecture in the spirit of the democracy symposium,” which will not occur this year.

For the past eight years, Kent State organized an annual Symposium on Democracy as part of events related to the observance of May 4, 1970.

Reed said, for a variety of reasons, aspects of organizing a symposium for this year did not come together. Even so, she said Associate Provost Laura Davis, who is a co-chair of a committee planning next year’s symposium, will soon announce the topic for the 2009 Symposium on Democracy.

The topic of last year’s Symposium on Democracy was “Democracy and Peace? Historical Links and Implications for World Order.” Political activist Tom Hayden served as the keynote speaker.

KentNewsNet.com will update this story as more details become available.

-Jackie Valley