Wednesday, Sep 17, 2014
The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian helps launch sesquicentennial anniversary
by Adam Grybowski
Rider University officially kicked off its sesquicentennial and constitution day celebration on Sept. 16, heralding a year of events with an appearance and lecture by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Having authored five books on presidential giants like Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, Goodwin, 71, began her speech by turning her sights on the University’s namesake, Andrew J. Rider, and its founding. She stressed the importance of storytelling as a means for people to connect to the past and keep the memories of people alive.
“I fear that we’re losing the art of storytelling, so with the 150th anniversary, I’m very glad Rider is celebrating its history,” she said.
An estimated crowd of 1,000 people — consisting of students, faculty, staff and the local community — gathered in the Student Recreation Center to listen to her lecture. The event was originally slated to take place in the Bart Luedeke Center, but was moved to accommodate the demand for what became one of Rider’s largest open lectures in recent memory.
The heart of Goodwin’s lecture focused on the leadership lessons of Abraham Lincoln. Drawing on Team of Rivals, her best-selling account of Lincoln’s “political genius,” Goodwin presented a portrait of a man who was generous, strong-willed, good-natured and self-aware. Lincoln was famously a prairie lawyer whose folksy manners and awkward appearance caused his rivals to underestimate him throughout his career but especially once he ascended to the nation’s most powerful position. Goodwin recounted Lincoln’s ability to rise above petty political infighting and personal slights to assemble and lead the team that would win the Civil War.
Rider students had the chance to interview, photograph and film Goodwin during a press conference before her lecture. Casey Gale ’15, the news editor for The Rider News, the University’s student newspaper, and Kaitlin Rust ’16, who works on several programs for the student-produced Rider University Network, sat elbow to elbow with Goodwin as she discussed the subjects of her books, politics, leadership and visiting Rider.
Students also participated in Goodwin’s appearance by live-tweeting throughout the evening. Students from Jackie Incollingo’s news and feature writing class shared quotes and color from Goodwin’s talk on Twitter in real time. Incollingo is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism.
Goodwin has been a familiar face in homes across the country this week, appearing in Ken Burns’ new 14-hour documentary, The Roosevelts, which premiered on Sunday on PBS and is running in parts all week. Goodwin’s latest book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism, explores the relationship between Roosevelt and Taft while folding in the story of their wives and a cast of muckraking journalists. Except for a memoir about baseball fandom, Wait Till Next Year, all of Goodwin’s books focus on the American presidency, starting with her President Lyndon Johnson biography, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. Her book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, No Ordinary Time, won her the Pulitzer in 1995.
After wrapping her speech, Goodwin was joined on stage by Ben Dworkin, the director of Rider’s Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics, who asked her questions submitted by the audience. Responding to a question about the potential of a future presidential leader on par with Lincoln or Roosevelt emerging today, Goodwin said she believes the political process has been poisoned by the outsized role of money. “I worry that good people will not want to spend so much time raising money," she said.
A sustained round of applause greeted Goodwin’s assertion that the time has come for a woman to be elected president. She also shared that, as a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was eager to discuss Lincoln’s character and emotional intelligence with her. Calling his presidency a tough one, Goodwin estimated that it would take an entire generation for historians to accurately assess Obama’s legacy.
Students were eager to know about Goodwin’s involvement with the Steven Spielberg movie Lincoln, which was based on Team of Rivals. Sharing stories of how she contributed to developing the script and Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of the Great Emancipator, Goodwin said that when the film’s creators finally saw Lewis in character, “We felt like we were watching Lincoln alive.” Lewis would win an Academy Award for best actor.
Following the lecture, Provost DonnaJean Fredeen awarded two of the 32 sesquicentennial medals the University will distribute to individuals and organizations throughout the year. The Times of Trenton, which has been the premier source of local news for more than a century, and Walter Brower ’48, the University’s unofficial historian and former dean of the School of Education, received the medals. Earlier in the day, the first medal was given to the Student Government Association during the annual Cranberry Fest celebration held on the campus mall.
The University will continue to celebrate the sesquicentennial throughout the year with events on- and off-campus. For a full list of events and more on Rider’s 150 years of history, visit www.rider.edu/150.