The Joy Cole Corning Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series presents Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian. He will be lecturing about, “Finding Hope Through the Lessons of Yesterday” on Monday, Sept. 19, at 7 p.m. The lecture will be held in the Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center’s Great Hall. Admission is free but a ticket is required to attend. Tickets are available at GBPAC, McLeod ticket office or by phone at 319-273-4849. 

Jon Meacham’s lecture, “Finding Hope Through the Lessons of Yesterday” will be mixing the old with the new. With his breadth of historical knowledge in American history and its great leaders that helped make the nation what it is today, he will be using a historical lens to put current events into another perspective with more possible solutions. 

Jon Meacham is the current Canon Historian of the Washington National Cathedral and the chair of American Presidency of Carolyn T. and Robert M. Rogers Endowed Chair. Meacham won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography after publishing “American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House” in 2009. He is also critically acclaimed and a number one New York Times bestseller, and he has several other titles covering historical figures including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Civil Rights leader John Lewis to name a few. He will be releasing his latest book “And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle” later this fall on October 18.

Former Iowa Lieutenant Governer and alumna of UNI Joy Cole Corning created the Joy Cole Corning Distinguished Leadership Lecture Series in 2001. The goal of this lecture series is that students will gain the knowledge of how to become a leader by learning from different leaders across multiple kinds of disciplines. Various recognized leaders, national and international, are brought to campus to share their knowledge and experience.

“Our mother embodied what it meant to be a lifelong learner,” said Joy Cole Corning’s daughter Ann Lyons, courtesy of UNI Foundation. “Education was both her passion and mission throughout her life. We are so very proud of the legacy she created through the Joy Cole Learning Lecture Series and are honored to be in this collaboration with the University of Northern Iowa.”