Three-time Olympic gold medal track and field athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee will participate in a talk titled “An Evening With Jackie Joyner-Kersee” as Northeastern Illinois University presents the fourth installment of the Daniel L. Goodwin Distinguished Lecture Series on Sept. 11. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Auditorium on the Main Campus, 3701 W. Bryn Mawr Ave. in Chicago.
Tickets are $25 for the general public and will go on sale at 8 a.m. Aug. 13.
Tickets are available to students, employees, alumni and retirees beginning today. Northeastern has made 100 free tickets available to students (unclaimed tickets may be released on Sept. 10). The free student tickets can be claimed at the Welcome Desk on the Main Campus. Students who attend classes at the Carruthers Center or El Centro may call the Welcome Desk at (773) 442-4636 and have tickets reserved. University employees, alumni and retirees may purchase up to two tickets apiece for $15 online, in person at the Welcome Desk, or by calling (773) 442-4636. Parking permits will not be required during this event.
Dubbed “The Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century” by Sports Illustrated, Joyner-Kersee is second to none. She won six Olympic medals (three gold, one silver, two bronze) and four World Champion titles over four consecutive Olympic Games. Joyner-Kersee was the first woman to earn more than 7,000 points in the heptathlon and she still holds the world record of 7,291 points. Joyner-Kersee continues to hold the Olympic and national records in the long jump, and her 1994 performance in the long jump remains the second-longest in history.
The Goodwin Lecture will take place during Inauguration Week for the University’s seventh president, Gloria J. Gibson. Both Gibson and Joyner-Kersee were born in East St. Louis, Ill. In 1988, Joyner-Kersee established the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation, which provides youth, adults and families with the resources to improve their quality of life with special attention directed to East St. Louis.
In 2007, Joyner-Kersee joined a number of pro athletes to found Athletes for Hope, a charitable organization that helps professional athletes get involved in charitable causes and inspires millions of non-athletes to volunteer and support the community.
The Daniel L. Goodwin Distinguished Lecture Series was created in 2015 by Daniel L. Goodwin, Chairman and CEO of Inland Real Estate Group of Companies, Inc., as part of his historic $2.5 million commitment to Northeastern Illinois University. The lecture series fund supports freedom of speech by providing prominent and well-respected thinkers representing all sides of issues to the University for presentations through conferences, seminars and major lectures. The lecture series has previously featured journalism icons Bob Woodard and Carl Bernstein, political pundits James Carville and Mary Matalin, and financial expert Terry Savage.
