May 13, 2008

California State University, Fresno alumna Dr. Diana Meehan, who has contributed most of her life to education, gender issues and leadership development, will speak at 6 p.m. Jan. 31 on campus as the College of Arts and Humanities’ Distinguished Alumnus.

Meehan’s topic will be “Founding a School, Learning My Lesson.” The lecture will be presented at the Alice Peters Auditorium in the University Business Center.

Meehan graduated from Fresno State in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. She earned a master’s degree in mass communication from San Diego State University and her doctorate in communication from the University of Southern California.

She is a co-founder of the prep school Archer School for Girls in Los Angeles, the first women's educational institution founded in the past 30 years and the first-ever based on social science research about the way girls learn.

Meehan also is a documentary producer and a founding partner of VU Productions, which is dedicated to creating documentary and reality-based programming for television on social issues regarding women, children and families. VU is the nonfiction programming subsidiary of UBU Productions, in which Meehan’s husband, writer/producer Gary David Goldberg (“M*A*S*H,” “Family Ties,” “Spin City,” “Must Love Dogs”), is the principal.

Meehan is a founding board member of the Children's Action Network, the Communications Consortium and the Hollywood Policy Center. She has held key advisory roles at two Presidential Economic Conferences, the National Commission on Children and the Women's International Summit in Dublin, Ireland.

For more information, call 559.278.3056.

(Copy by University Communications student-intern Megan Jacobsen.)