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SHERMAN — The Austin College social action group, ACCares, will present Susan Rutherford discussing “Are We Sleeping Through the Global AIDS Crisis?” Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 4:30 p.m. in Wright Campus Center Room 231 on campus. The event is open to the public at no charge.
Rutherford is a 1969 Austin College graduate who received a master’s degree from Southern Methodist University in art history, with concentrations in African and Chinese art. She worked as a journalist for the Dallas Times Herald and later for the Midland Reporter Telegram. Returning to Dallas in 1979, she began working as a science writer for The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and became a part-time Humanities instructor at Richland College. Today, she is senior editor for the executive vice president for Clinical Affairs at UT Southwestern and a Humanities instructor at Richland.
In 1999, through involvement at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas, Rutherford became involved with AIDS work in Africa. Since 2000, she has chaired the South African Mission efforts at the church, which supports 23 gifted children with scholarship funds.
Using her connections at UT Southwestern, she has engaged the UT Southwestern and Parkland Hospital AIDS team in the church's efforts to help the people of Guguletu Township, Cape Town, South Africa, where the mission partners with a local church. The group is training AIDS medical professionals in Guguletu, sending AIDS educators to help prevent the spread of the disease, and will soon hire a hospice nurse to help those dying from the disease.
ACCares is a campus organization with a goal of educating and encouraging compassion while promoting awareness of AIDS/HIV upon individuals and their communities.
Austin College, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), is an independent, liberal arts college located 60 miles north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Chartered in November 1849, it is the oldest college in Texas under original charter and name as recognized by the State Historical Survey Committee.
U.S. News & World Report ranked Austin College among the top 100 colleges in the category of "Best Liberal Arts Colleges" for 2005. Austin College also ranked among the "Best 357 Colleges" in the 2005 Princeton Review, was profiled in Loren Pope's Colleges That Change Lives, and was profiled in the 2005 edition of Kaplan's Insiders Guide to the 331 Most Interesting Colleges.
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