St. Bonaventure University alumna Kathleen Brady, ’68, a writer and author, will present a number of classroom lectures and public presentations as the Lenna Visiting Professor from March 14-27.

The Lenna Endowed Visiting Professorship program is sponsored by Jamestown Community College (JCC) and St. Bonaventure University and features programs on both college campuses.

Brady’s newest biography is “Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi,” published in 2021. She was named a Fellow of the Society of American Historians for her biography “Ida Tarbell: Portrait of a Muckraker.” Her well-received “Lucille, The Life of Lucille Ball” is in its fifth printing.

Brady’s public presentations begin Monday, March 14, when she will be hosted by St. Bonaventure’s Staff Affairs Committee for her first program, “Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi.” The Zoom presentation begins at noon and is accessible via https://sbu.zoom.us/j/7723578485.

On Wednesday, March 16, at noon, Brady will give the lecture “History Made in Chautauqua County: How Ida Tarbell and Lucille Ball Changed America” at the Cattaraugus County Campus of JCC in Room 308 of the Library and Liberal Arts Center. The early years of Ida Tarbell and Lucille Ball’s careers are tied to Chautauqua County. Tarbell got her start on The Chautauquan, the newspaper of the Chautauqua Institution, and was present during the early days of the institution. Ball was born in Jamestown and spent her formulative years in the area.

Brady will discuss “Ida Tarbell: Her Stamp on U.S. History and the Media Today” during a presentation at 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 22, in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at St. Bonaventure.

On Thursday, March 24, Brady will again discuss two of her favorite topics in the lecture “Local Girls Make Good: How Ida Tarbell and Lucille Ball Changed America.” The program begins at 4 p.m. at the Chautauqua County Campus of JCC in Room 332 of the Sheldon Center.

The presentations are free and open to the public.

During her two-week visit, Brady will also lead discussions and workshops in courses on newswriting, women’s studies, and women in sports.

Brady has been featured in a number of national programs about her subjects, including TCM (The Plot Thickens) and National Public Radio podcasts, a Fox Nation documentary, an American Masters PBS special and the History Channel podcast Monopoly Money. She narrated the first installment of the PBS series “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power.”

The 1994 ABC-TV movie “A Passion for Justice” starring Jane Seymour was based on Brady’s research into the life of Mississippi journalist and civil rights activist Hazel Brannon Smith.

Brady is a past co-director of the Biography Seminar at New York University and a former reporter for Time magazine. She has contributed columns to Newsday and other publications. Brady served on the St. Bonaventure Board of Trustees from 1996 to 1999.

She graduated from St. Bonaventure in 1968 with a major in journalism and minors in history and philosophy. She earned a master’s degree in urban affairs from Hunter College in 2006.

The Lenna Endowed Visiting Professorship was established in 1990 and is funded through gifts from the late Betty S. Lenna Fairbank and Reginald A. Lenna of Jamestown.

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About the University: The nation’s first Franciscan university, St. Bonaventure University is a community committed to transforming the lives of our students inside and outside the classroom, inspiring in them a lifelong commitment to service and citizenship. St. Bonaventure was named the #5 regional university value in the North in U.S. News and World Report’s 2022 college rankings edition.