"Leadership in Turbulent Times"
6:00 p.m. Reception
6:30 p.m. Dinner
Oklahoma Memorial Union Ballroom
For reservations and accommodations, email universityevents@ou.edu or call (405) 325-1701.
Space is limited.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker, and Pulitzer Prize-winning, New York Times #1 best-selling author. Her ninth book and her first for young readers, The Leadership Journey: How Four Kids Became President, will be published on September 10. Her bestselling An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s, was published earlier this year to critical acclaim and topped the bestseller list in its debut week. Artfully weaving together biography, memoir, and history, this new book takes readers on the emotional journey Doris and her husband, Richard (Dick) Goodwin, embarked upon in the last years of his life as they delved into more than 300 boxes of letters, diaries, documents, and memorabilia that Dick had saved for more than fifty years. They soon realized they had before them an unparalleled personal time capsule of the 1960s, of the events and pivotal figures of the decade—John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and especially Lyndon Johnson, who greatly impacted both their lives. The voyage of remembrance brought unexpected discoveries, forgiveness, and the renewal of old dreams, reviving the hope that the youth of today will carry forward this unfinished love story with America.
Goodwin’s previous books include the critically acclaimed and New York Times best-selling Leadership: In Turbulent Times, which incorporates her five decades of scholarship studying Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. Leadership inspired the History Channel’s miniseries events Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and FDR, which Goodwin executive produced through her production company, Pastimes Productions, Inc.
Goodwin was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Her Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was awarded the Lincoln Prize and was in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s highly acclaimed film Lincoln. Well known for her appearances and commentary on television, Goodwin is seen frequently in documentaries and on television news, cable networks, and late-night talk shows. She even portrayed herself on an episode of the enduringly successful television show The Simpsons.
Goodwin’s interest in presidential leadership was inspired by her experience as a 24-year-old White House Fellow, working directly for President Johnson in his last year in the White House, and later assisting him in the preparation of his memoirs. Her first book was the widely praised and enormously popular Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream.
Goodwin graduated magna cum laude from Colby College. She earned a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Government from Harvard University, where she taught Government, including a course on the American Presidency. Goodwin lives in Boston. 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.
“An Evening of Perspective with Peggy Noonan”
6:00 p.m. Reception
6:30 p.m. Dinner
Oklahoma Memorial Union Ballroom
RSVP information for the Presidential Speakers Series Dinner with Peggy Noonan will be available in early 2025.
Peggy Noonan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Wall Street Journal, where her weekly column, Declarations, has run since 2000. She is also the bestselling author of nine books on American politics, history and culture, including the bestsellers What I Saw at the Revolution, and When Character Was King. She is one of ten historians and writers who contributed essays on the American presidency for the book, Character Above All. In her most recent release, The Time of Our Lives, Peggy chronicles her career in journalism, the Reagan White House, and the political arena.
On April 10, 2017, Noonan received the Pulitzer Prize for Political Commentary for her coverage of the 2016 Presidential Election.
In 2008 the National Journal dubbed Noonan’s political column indispensable to an understanding of the presidential year, and Forbes Magazine called her column “principled, perceptive, persuasive, and patriotic.” Noonan’s essays have appeared in TIME, Newsweek, The Washington Post and other publications, and she provides frequent political commentary on television.
Noonan was a special assistant and speechwriter for president Ronald Reagan. In 2010 she was given the Award for Media Excellence by the living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor; the following year she was chosen as Columnist of the Year by The Week. In November 2016 she was named one of the city’s Literary Lions by the New York Public Library. She has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics, and has taught in the history department at Yale University.
Before entering the Reagan White House, Noonan was a producer and writer at CBS News in New York, and an adjunct professor of Journalism at New York University. She was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there, in Massapequa Park, Long Island, and in Rutherford, New Jersey. She is a graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Rutherford. She lives in New York City.
