Ellen Goodman, a nationally syndicated columnist and associate editor of The Boston Globe, will speak at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 12, in Lorimer Chapel at Colby College. The title of her address will be "The Personal is Political, The Political is (Too) Personal."

Goodman will receive the 46th Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award and an honorary Colby degree. Colby established the award in 1952 for an editor, reporter or publisher who has contributed to the nation's journalistic achievement. Lovejoy was a Colby graduate who became America's first martyr to freedom of the press when he was killed Nov. 7, 1837, defending his abolitionist newspaper from a pro-slavery mob.

The Lovejoy fellow is chosen annually by a committee of distinguished newspaper editors. "This year's Lovejoy award honors the integrity, craftsmanship and character that Ellen Goodman has demonstrated in her work," said Bill Kovach, curator of The Nieman Foundation at Harvard University and chair of the Lovejoy selection committee. "During a time of confusion and bitterness brought about by broad social and political change, Ms. Goodman's has been a quiet, intelligent, persistent voice appealing to reason. Her voice, like that of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, has been devoted to finding the common ground without which a civil society cannot exist."

Last year's Lovejoy award was presented to David Halberstam. Previous recipients include Katharine Graham and David Broder of The Washington Post, John Kifner and Anthony Lewis of The New York Times, the late Murray Kempton of New York Newsday and the late Robert Maynard of The Oakland Tribune.