By Michelle Price
Special to the UCBJ
COOKEVILLE – The 2021 College of Business Fall Celebration will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 26 at the Leslie Town Centre. The annual Fall Celebration brings together alumni, students, faculty and staff to celebrate the college’s recent achievements and to recognize outstanding alumni. The event also kicks-off the Albrecht Lecture Series. This year’s featured speaker is Doris Kearns Goodwin, a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author.
The event will include a reception at 6:30 p.m. followed by dinner and a program at 7 p.m. and is open to the public, but reservations and tickets are required. Individuals can purchase tickets by visiting, https://www.tntech.edu/business/media/celebration-dinner.php.
Goodwin’s seventh book, “Leadership in Turbulent Times,” was published in September 2018 to critical acclaim and became an instant New York Times bestseller. A culmination of Goodwin’s five-decade career of studying the American presidents focusing on Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson, the book provides an accessible and essential road map for aspiring and established leaders in every field, and for all of us in our everyday lives.
“The College of Business is forever grateful for the wisdom and vision of Joe Albrecht who established the lecture series which brings individuals like Ms. Kearns Goodwin to campus so students and the community can meet and interact with them,” said College of Business Dean Thomas Payne. “Past speakers include Shark Tank’s Barbara Corcoran & Daymond John, Ben & Jerry’s founder Jerry Greenfield, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan, and NFL great Archie Manning.”
Goodwin’s career as a presidential historian and author was inspired when as a 24-year-old graduate student at Harvard she was selected to join the White House Fellows, one of America’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service. Goodwin worked with Johnson in the White House and later assisted him in the writing of his memoirs. She then wrote Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream, which became a national bestseller and achieved critical acclaim. It was re-released in 2019 with a new foreword highlighting LBJ’s accomplishments in domestic affairs that have stood the test of time.
Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II.” “The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys” was adapted into an award-winning five-part television miniseries. Her memoir, “Wait Till Next Year,” is the heartwarming story of growing up loving her family and baseball. Her sixth book, “The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism,” won the Carnegie Medal and is being developed into a film. Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” served as the basis for Steven Spielberg’s hit film “Lincoln” and was awarded the prestigious Lincoln Prize, the inaugural Book Prize for American History, and the Lincoln Leadership Prize.
Well known for her appearances and commentary on television, Goodwin is frequently seen in documentaries including Ken Burns’ “The History of Baseball” and “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History,” and on news and cable networks and shows including “Meet the Press” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” She played herself as a teacher on “The Simpsons “and a historian on “American Horror Story.” In 2020, she served as the executive producer for History Channel’s six-hour, three-night miniseries event, “Washington”, which delves into the lesser-known details of America’s first president and shows the arc of his developments as a leader.
Goodwin graduated magna cum laude from Colby College. She earned a doctorate degree in government from Harvard University, where she taught government, including a course on the American Presidency. Among her many honors and awards, Goodwin was awarded the Charles Frankel Prize, the Sarah Josepha Hale Medal, the New England Book Award, as well as the Carl Sandburg Literary Award. Goodwin recently founded Pastimes Productions with Beth Laski to develop and produce film, television and digital projects. Goodwin lives in Boston, Massachusetts. She was the first woman to enter the Boston Red Sox locker room in 1979 and is a devoted fan of the World Series-winning team.
