Retired football player discusses life after the NFL

Event Information
Date:  Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2009
Time:  4 p.m.
Place:  John P. Raynor, S.J., Library,
           Beaumier Conference Center
           1355 W. Wisconsin Ave.

Former professional football player Robert W. Turner will deliver “Not for Long: An Examination of Life in the NFL,” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, in the Beaumier Conference Center of the John P. Raynor, S.J., Library, 1355 W. Wisconsin Ave. As Marquette University’s 2009/2010 Arnold L. Mitchem Dissertation Fellow, Turner will speak about his research on the transition to life after the NFL. The program is free and open to the public. 

Turner is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the City University of New York working to complete his dissertation. Turner played professional football for four years during the late 1980s in the United States Football League, Canadian Football League and the National Football League. He has presented papers at the American Sociological Association and the Eastern Sociological Society. This spring he plans on defending his dissertation, under the same title of his lecture, and plans to publish a book on his findings. 

Established in 2002, the Mitchem Fellowship program assists under-represented ethnic groups in joining the professorate by giving doctoral candidates from other U.S. universities one academic year of support and the opportunity to teach an undergraduate course at Marquette while finishing their dissertations. They also participate in a formal mentoring program and receive financial support.

The fellowships are named in honor of Dr. Arnold L. Mitchem, who earned his Ph.D. from Marquette in 1981 and is an internationally recognized advocate of educational opportunity. Mitchem founded Marquette’s Educational Opportunity Program in 1969 and is currently the president of the Council for Opportunity in Education, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization that works with colleges, universities and agencies to help low-income students enter and graduate from college.

Media wishing to talk with Turner should contact Andy Brodzeller in the Office of Marketing and Communication at (414) 288-0286.