Sharon Robinson, the daughter of the legendary Jackie Robinson, is scheduled to speak at Penn State DuBois at noon Wednesday, Feb. 5, in Hiller Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.
Robinson will offer her program, "Values, Baseball and Jackie Robinson," touching on the many life lessons she learned from her father following his battle with racial barriers in Major League Baseball.
Carrying on family tradition, Sharon Robinson has found her own success in the major league. She is the league's educational consultant, and manages a national character education curriculum, Breaking Barriers: In Sports, In Life. The program helps to empower students to face obstacles in their lives. It also includes a national essay contest for students in grades 4-9 and throughout MLB’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program. Each year, thousands of students write an essay about how they used the values demonstrated by Jackie Robinson to overcome their challenges. Essay winners are celebrated in their schools and in major league ballparks. Since 1997, the program has reached more than 22 million students and 2.9 million educators.
Robinson is also the author of many works of fiction and nonfiction. She has written several widely praised books about her father, including "Jackie’s Nine: Jackie Robinson’s Values to Live By," "Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America," "Jackie Robinson: American Hero" (children’s biography), and picture books "Testing the Ice," illustrated by Kadir Nelson, and "Jackie’s Gift: A True Story of Christmas, Hanukkah, and Jackie Robinson," illustrated by EB Lewis.
Prior to joining the MLB, Sharon had a 20-year career as a nurse-midwife and educator. She taught at Yale, Columbia, Howard and Georgetown, and is vice chairman of the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Robinson received her bachelor’s degree from Howard University and master’s degree from Columbia. She went on to earn a post-master’s certificate in teaching from the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania and received honorary doctorates from Medaille College, Dowling College and Monmouth College. Sharon lives in Sarasota, Fla., and New York City.