WCU Stories      September 5, 2019

John Quiñones, an ABC News correspondent and host of the popular TV show “What Would You Do?,” will deliver the keynote address as Western Carolina University holds a ceremony to honor the academic success of 1,681 students who were named to the university’s chancellor’s list for spring semester 2019.

The event will begin at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10, in the performance hall of the John W. Bardo Fine and Performing Arts Center. Both the ceremony and a reception that will be held afterward in the Bardo Arts Center Star Lobby are free and open to the public.

The chancellor’s list is a WCU designation to recognize students who achieve a 3.8 or higher GPA during a semester. Those being honored include 385 students who graduated following the spring semester. Invited guests for the event include the high-achieving students, their mentors on campus and the students’ families.

For Quiñones, the ABC show “What Would You Do?” is the latest phase in a TV career that has spanned 35 years. Raised in a poor Latino family in San Antonio, Texas, he joined ABC News in June 1982 as a general assignment correspondent based in Miami, providing reports for “World News Tonight with Peter Jennings” and other ABC News broadcasts. He also spent nearly a decade in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama and was one of the few American journalists reporting from Panama City during the U.S. invasion in December 1989.

Quiñones’ work at ABC News includes time on the anchor desk of “20/20” and “Primetime.” In “What Would You Do?,” which first aired in 2008, he and his team use hidden cameras to examine how people react in situations that prompt them to intervene, or mind their own business.

Quiñones has been the recipient of seven Emmy Awards for his work on “Primetime Live,” “Burning Questions” and “20/20.” He also has been honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition and was awarded honorary doctorates from Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia and Utah Valley University. Quiñones earned a bachelor’s degree in speech communications at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio and a master’s degree from the Columbia Journalism School.

Remarks also will be delivered during the Sept. 10 ceremony by WCU Chancellor Kelli R. Brown and Provost Alison Morrison-Shetlar.

For more information, contact WCU’s Office of Student Transitions at 828-227-3017.