Campus Life

Schreyer Honors College to host John Quiñones for annual Luchinsky Lecture

John Quinones Credit: Provided / American Program Bureau Inc.All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — John Quiñones, an author, broadcast journalist, motivational speaker, and host of ABC's reality show "What Would You Do?" will present "A 20/20 Vision for Our World: Building Bridges, Not Walls" as part of the 27th annual Mark Luchinsky Memorial Lecture Series, at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 24.

The event will be held at The State Theatre in downtown State College and is free and open to the public. Registration to attend is required and the event will be livestreamed. Visit shc.psu.edu/luchinsky for registration information and important health and safety protocols.

The Luchinsky Memorial Lecture Series was endowed by family and friends to honor the memory of Penn State alumnus Mark Luchinsky through the support of a speaker who exemplifies intellectual honesty, personal integrity, and joy in learning. The 27th annual event is co-sponsored by Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, Department of Journalism, the Multicultural Association of Schreyer Scholars, the Multicultural Resource Center, Penn State Educational Equity, Penn State Gender Equity Center, Penn State Hillel, the Presidential Leadership Academy, Rock Ethics Institute, and the Schreyer Honors College Student Council.

Quiñones grew up in the barrio of San Antonio, Texas. He learned English only when he started school. As a boy, he dreamed of being a TV reporter, but with his heavy Mexican accent, “that was a hard dream to have,” he said. Through drama class and school plays, he worked on his English enunciation.

After graduating from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio with a degree in speech communications, he clawed his way up from local radio to television in Texas. He earned a master’s degree in journalism on a fellowship at Columbia University. He became a reporter for a Chicago TV station. He ultimately earned a network job with ABC by "doing stories in places where no one else would go," he said; when a reporter was shot and killed in Nicaragua, Quiñones was sent to replace him. He spent nearly a decade covering conflicts in Central America for "World News Tonight with Peter Jennings."

Throughout his career, Quiñones has been recognized for his excellence in broadcast journalism. He won seven national Emmy Awards for his work on "Primetime Live," "Burning Questions" and "20/20." His first Emmy came when he swam across the Rio Grande to explore why so many Mexican immigrants take that risk to enter the United States. He has also been commended for his coverage of Congo's virgin rainforest; the blood diamonds of Sierra Leone; the homeless children of Bogota, Colombia; and children sugar cane cutters in the Dominican Republic.

Quiñones said he saw the adversity he faced growing up as an opportunity to keep proving himself. His parents dropped out of elementary school to help support their families. When his father lost his janitorial job when Quiñones was a teen, the family became migrant farm workers, picking cherries and tomatoes in Michigan and Ohio. This experience was critical in inspiring Quiñones to greater things, he said. According to a "20/20" profile in 2009, as they knelt in the mud picking tomatoes at dawn, his father asked him if he wanted to do that work for the rest of his life or go to college. The answer was "a no-brainer," Quiñones said.

In the lecture, Quiñones will tell the story of where he came from, what it was like working as an international reporter, and how he got where he is today. He will share scenarios and lessons from "What Would You Do?" and his perspective from years of observing the best and worst of human nature.

About the Mark Luchinsky Memorial Lecture

Luchinsky was a Schreyer Scholar and biochemistry major at Penn State who died in 1995 at the age of 20. A native of Pittsburgh who graduated first in his class from Thomas Jefferson High School, he was a member of the Penn State Golden Key Society and the Alpha Epsilon Delta Premedical Honor Society. Known for his intellectual honesty and integrity, Luchinsky enjoyed the study of all subjects and loved the classics, sports, poetry, history and geography.

Past Luchinsky lecturers have included Leland Melvin, former NASA astronaut and former NFL wide receiver; Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For All and Teach For America; Sean Misko, special adviser to the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan; and Schreyer Scholar alumna Mary Beth Long, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense. Additional information about the Mark Luchinsky Lecture and a list of previous speakers is available at shc.psu.edu/life/programs/luchinsky.

Last Updated January 14, 2022

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