Convocations represent a tradition at Lawrence - one derived from the older tradition of chapel services. Seven years after the first class was conducted here, the Lawrence community began attending a twice-daily chapel service, a practice that continued until the mid-1870s. After that point, until 1927, Lawrence required students to attend daily chapel services. The term convocation first appeared in the 1926-27 catalog, where it was called "a regular college assembly." Thus, convocations replaced chapel services and were held for 25 minutes three times each week in Memorial Chapel. Attendance was required unless a student received an excuse from the president or dean. During the next 40 years or so, the frequency and duration of convocations varied, and, by the mid-1960s, they were held once a month, but attendance continued to be required. In 1968, the faculty approved - with one dissenting vote -a plan to reduce the convocations to two a year - Matriculation and Honors Day -and to drop the attendance requirement.
This pattern continued for the next ten years. Sentiment for reinstating the convocation tradition emerged in 1976, and the beginning of the present convocation series may be traced to the 1978 lecture by William Sloane Coffin, former Yale chaplain and civil rights and antiwar activist. The following year, the faculty voted to reserve the 11:10 a.m. hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays for convocations and other public or extracurricular events.
Convocations were described in a catalog entry during Nathan Pusey's presidency as "a kind of general all-college course without format requirements or credit." In many ways, that description still fits. Lawrence welcomes visitors to campus to address the college and Fox Valley communities about topics of broad interest and import. Two convocations involve an academic procession: Matriculation in the fall, at which the president speaks, and Honors Day in the spring, at which the college recognizes the academic and extracurricular achievements of students. All are held under the auspices of the Committee on Public Occasions.
Typically, five or six convocations are scheduled each academic year. Although there is no required attendance, the success of these public occasions has made participation emerge as a growing tradition for both students and faculty. The following list indicates the speakers who have addressed convocation audiences since the series was reestablished in 1978.
1978-79
| October 5, 1978 William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Minister of Riverside Church of Manhattan, former chaplain at Yale University, and civil rights and antiwar activist "What is National Security?" |
October 26, 1978 James D. Dana John R. Kimberly Distinguished Professor in the American Economic System at Lawrence University "Capitalism, Democracy, and Equity" |
| January 17, 1979 Guido Calabresi Sterling Professor of Law at Yale University and former law clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court "The Role of the Courts in the Age of Statutes" |
February 7, 1979 Thomas N. Todd Attorney in Chicago "Blacks and the Civil Rights Movement in America: Dred Scott to Bakke" |
| February 20, 1979 Leslie Fiedler Samuel Clemens Professor of English at the State University of New York at Buffalo "Violence: The Fifties and the Seventies" |
March 28, 1979 Nani A. Palkhivala Indian ambassador to the United States "A New Birth of Freedom" |
| April 17, 1979 Catharine R. Stimpson Associate professor of English at Barnard College "Women and Men: New Perspectives, New Attitudes" |
May 17, 1979 Michael Hammond, '54 President of the State University of New York at Purchase, neurophysiologist, and former assistant conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski "It Takes a Skyblue Juggler" |
1979-80
| September 27, 1979 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Unamuno Begs to Differ" |
October 18, 1979 Henry Shapiro Former United Press International correspondent and bureau chief in Moscow "Forty Years in Moscow: An American Reporter's Story" |
| November 6, 1979 Lord Caradon Former British ambassador to the United Nations "What Hope for the Middle East" |
January 31, 1980 Christopher Lasch Professor of history at the University of Rochester and author of The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations "The Nuclear Family and Its Critics" |
| February 13, 1980 Raymond H. Herzog, '38 Chairman of the board at 3M and director of U.S. Steel, General Motors, and Northwest Airlines "The Future of Innovation Belongs to You" |
February 21, 1980 McGeorge Bundy Professor of history at New York University, former special assistant for National Security Affairs under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, and former president of the Ford Foundation "Foreign and Defense Policy after Afghanistan" |
| April 10, 1980 Karl J. Weintraub Dean of humanities at the University of Chicago "The Fallen Monarch: Thoughts on the Baroque" |
April 11, 1980 Michel Oksenberg Professor of political science at the University of Michigan "The United States and China in World Affairs" |
| May 22, 1980 William J. Bennett Executive director of the National Humanities Center "Lessons and Legacies: The 'Liberal Arts' in a Republic of Virtue" |
1980-81
| September 25, 1980 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Sailing Toward Oceania" |
October 30, 1980 Estelle Ramey Professor of physiology and biophysics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine and member of the President's Advisory Committee on Women "Physiological Differences Between Men and Women and Their Effects on Behavior" |
| November 18, 1980 Walter E. Massey Director of the Argonne National Laboratory "Science, Technology, and the Citizen: An Impossible Combination" |
January 15, 1981 Walter B. Wriston Chairman and chief executive officer of Citicorp and Citibank and director of General Electric, J.C. Penney, and the Chubb Corporation "The Independent Man and the Transference Machine" |
| February 12, 1981 Samuel P. Huntington Professor of government at Harvard University Richard Falk Professor of internaitional law and practice at Princeton University "A New United States Foreign Policy for the 1980s?" |
March 5, 1981 John Simon Film critic for National Review "The Failure of Moral Passion on Contemporary Film" |
| April 9, 1981 Alan Beattie Senior lecturer in political science at the London School of Economics "Mrs. Thatcher and the American Revolution" |
May 26, 1981 John G. Kemeny President of Dartmouth College and former research assistant to Albert Einstein "Computer Literacy: A Challenge to Liberal Education" |
1981-82
| September 24, 1981 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Bland Ambition" |
October 20, 1981 John Seelye Professor of American literature and American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former contributing editor to The New Republic "What's in a Name: Sounding the Depths of Tom Sawyer" |
| November 17, 1981 Edwin R. Bayley, '40 Dean of the graduate school of journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, and former special assistant to President Kennedy "The Lasting Impact of Joe McCarthy" |
January 19, 1982 Lester C. Thurow Professor of economics and management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Can the United States Survive in a Competitive World?" |
| February 23, 1982 Gerald K. O'Neill Professor of physics at Princeton University, former director of NASA studies, and the inventor of the colliding-beam storage ring "2081: Our Next Century on Earth and in Space" |
April 21-22, 1982 Julius D. Heldman President of Heldman Associates "An Oilman Looks at Corporate Responsibilities" Charles W. Powers Executive director of the Health Effects Institute "Business Judgment: Is There a Role for Ethics?" Norman E. Bowie Director of the Center for the Study of Values "Business Ethics: Fad, Folly, or Foundation?" |
| May 20, 1982 F. Theodore Cloak Professor of theatre and drama emeritus at Lawrence University "The Theatre in Your Mind" |
1982-83
| September 23, 1982 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "A Terrible Business" |
October 19, 1982 Betty Williams Co-laureate of the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize "Can There Be Peace in Northern Ireland?" |
| November 9, 1982 Martin C. Anderson Senior fellow it the Hoover Institution of Stanford University and the principal architect of Reaganomics "National Economic Policy: The Prospects for Reaganomics" |
January 27, 1983 Thomas A. Brady, Jr. Professor of history at the University of Oregon "From Luther to Hitler: A Political Myth and Its Makers" |
| February 15, 1983 Dick Clark Former senator of the United States "Nuclear Arms and Arms Control" |
April 20, 1983 John Barth Novelist, short story writer, and creative writing teacher "The Prose and Poetry of It All" |
| May 17, 1983 William H. Riker Dean of graduate studies and professor of political science at the University of Rochester "Curbing the Special Interests - Why Presidents Fail" |
1983-84
| September 22, 1983 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Taming the Monster" |
November 3, 1983 Judith Jarvis Thomson Professor of philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology "On Some Ways Of Causing Death" |
| February 21, 1984 Abraham H. Raskin Associate director of the National News Council "Organized Labor: Cooperation, Collision, or Collapse?" |
April 17, 1984 Robert Coles Research psychiatrist at Harvard University Health Services, professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard Medical School, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author "The Moral Life of Children" |
| May 15, 1984 George F. Will Political commentator and columnist "A View from Washington" |
May 22, 1984 Marshall B. Hulbert Dean emeritus at Lawrence University "Credo" |
1984-85
| September 20, 1984 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Liberal Education, Careerism, and the World of Work" |
October 16, 1984 Carlo Ginzburg Professor of history at the University of Bologna "Fictional Narrative vs. Historical Narrative" |
| November 29, 1984 John W. Macy, Jr. Former chairman of the U.S. Civil Service Commission and former special assistant for presidential appointments "The Quest for a New Breed of Public Leaders" |
February 19, 1985 Alan David Member of the Royal Shakespeare Company "Dylan Thomas in Love" |
| April 11, 1985 Robert Jay Lifton Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at the City University of New York, John Jay College "Nuclear Winter and Beyond -- The Imaginative Struggle" |
April 11, 1985 Panel Discussion: "Nuclear Arms and Moral Discourse" Ruth Salzman Adams Director of the International Security Program at the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation Marvin Kalkstein Nuclear chemist Edward Luttwak Fellow, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University |
| April 25, 1985 Ted Fiske Education editor for the New York Times and author of Selective Guide to Colleges "Curriculum Reform in the '80s: Is Technology Taking the Byte out of the Liberal Arts?" |
May 9, 1985 Colleen Dewhurst, M-D '46 Actress and member of the board of trustees at Lawrence University "Theatre: An Extension of Life" |
| May 14, 1985 Tom Wolfe Critic, commentator, journalist, and author "New Ideas and Intellectual Fashions in the Last Fifteen Years of the Twentieth Century" |
May 21, 1985 Ben Schneider Professor of English emeritus at Lawrence University "Democracy Is Not Enough" |
1985-86
| September 27, 1985 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Look Again, Look Again" |
October 1, 1985 Lukas Foss Music director of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, composer, conductor, and pianist "Baroque Confessions" |
| November 5, 1985 John P. Frank Attorney, professor of law, and author "The Miranda Case: Its Past, Its Present, and Its Future" |
January 14, 1986 Lawrence B. Slobodkin Evolutionary theorist and ecologist "A Critique of the Sociobiological Rationalization of Religion" |
| January 30, 1986 David Halberstam Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author "The American Dream Reconsidered" |
February 13, 1986 Richard E. Leakey Paleoantliropologist "Origins of Mankind" |
| May, 6, 1986 Jeffrey G. Williamson Laird Bell Professor of Economics at Harvard University "Poverty, Enterprise, and Wealth" |
May 8, 1986 Howard R. Pollio Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville "Taking Humor Seriously" |
| May 20, 1986 Thomas R. Dale Professor of Enalish emeritus at Lawrence University "A Prolusion on Scholarship" |
1986-87
| September 25, 1986 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "That's the Deal" |
October 23, 1986 Ralph Whitehead, Jr., '65 Professor of public service at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and political consultant "Thinking About the Baby Boom" |
| November 13, 1986 Vincent G. Dethier Gilbert L. Woodside Professor of Zoology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst "Sniff, Flick, and Pulse: An Appreciation of Interruption" |
November 25, 1986 Ezra Bowen Senior writer at Time magazine "Athletics, Accountability, and the Liberal Arts" |
| February 24, 1987 Charlayne Hunter-Gault National correspondent for "The McNeil/Lehrer News Hour" "How Black History Saved My Life and Career" |
April 9, 1987 John J. Mearsheimer Associate professor of political science at the University of Chicago "Why Nuclear Weapons are Necessary to Keep Peace Between the Superpowers" |
| April 21, 1987 Barbara Ehrenreich Journalist, feminist, and author "Confronting Anti-Feminism" |
May 19, 1987 Nathan Pusey Former president of Lawrence College and Harvard University "Reflections on Freshman Studies" |
1987-88
| September 29, 1987 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Miss Manners Goes to College" |
October 20, 1987 Elie Wiesel 1986 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, author, and survivor of the Holocaust "Reconciliation -- Is It Possible? Is It Desirable?" |
| November 17, 1987 Henry Reuss Former member of the U.S. House of Representatives "Our Constitutional Government: Can It Resolve Deadlocks?" |
February 2, 1988 Nikki Giovanni Poet, columnist, and author "Poetry and the Black Experience in America" |
| February 18, 1988 Dennis G. Maki Head of the infectious disease section of the University of Wisconsin Medical School "The World AIDS Epidemic: Relevance to Every Citizen" |
April 7, 1988 Thomas A. Halsted Scoville Lecturer of the Arms Control Association "Kicking the Nuclear Habit" |
| May 10, 1988 Garrett Hardin Author and professor of human ecology emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara "Ethics Without Numbers Is Immoral" |
May 24, 1988 Charles Breunig Professor of history emeritus at Lawrence University "A Revolutionary Lawrence President: Henry Merritt Wriston" |
1988-89
| September 22, 1988 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Sex, Gender, and Coeducation" |
October 13, 1988 Samuel Adler Professor of composition at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester "The Educated Person vs. the Fine Arts" |
| November 15, 1988 William Sloane Coffin, Jr. President of SANE/FREEZE "For the World to Survive" |
April 6, 1989 Stephen Jay Gould Paleontologist, evolutionary theorist, and author "Human Equality is a Contingent Fact of History" |
| April 13, 1989 Florence Howe Founder and director of The Feminist Press, and professor of English at City College, City University of New York "From Master and Willing Slave to Equal Partners: Educating Men and Women Together" |
April 18, 1989 Henry Cisneros Former mayor of San Antonio "Strategic Planning for Success in Public Enterprises" |
| May 25, 1989 Mojmir Povolny Professor of government emeritus and Henry M. Wriston Professor in the Social Sciences at Lawrence University "The House of Memory" |
1989-90
| September 21, 1989 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Living in the Bubble: Lawrence and the Rest of the Real World" |
October 10, 1989 Jonathan Miller Director of opera and theatre, producer, author "Bringing Literature to Film" |
| January 11, 1990 McGeorge Bundy Presidential confidant and scholar, Lawrence University's Stephen Edward Scarff Distinguished Professor "How Much Peace Without the Cold War?" |
February 27, 1990 Mary Frances Berry U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner "Liberty and Justice for All: The Unfinished Agenda" |
| April 5, 1990 Richard Westfall Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, distinguished professor of the history and philosophy of science at Indiana University "A New Model of Nature" |
April 24, 1990 Susan Sontag Writer "The Writer's Freedom: Literature and Literacy" |
| May 17, 1990 George B. Walter, '36 Professor of education emeritus at Lawrence University "Jim Duncan, Honors Graduate" |
1990-91
| September 18, 1990 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "When a University is a College" |
October 4, 1990 Howard Nemerov Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of English at Washington University, 1988 poet laureate of the United States "Science and Stories" |
| November 1, 1990 Philip Glass Avant-garde composer "Language and Music Theatre" |
February 19, 1991 Clayborne Carson Editor and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Papers Project, professor of history at Stanford University "The Historical Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr." |
| April 16, 1991 Toyoo Gyohten Former vice-minister of finance for international affairs, Japan "How the Japanese Economy Works: Myths and Realities" |
May 23, 1991 Marjory Irvin Professor of music emerita at Lawrence University "Shake Off the Shackles" |
1991-92
| September 26, 1991 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "You and I and Us and Them" |
October 29, 1991 William Raspberry Urban affairs columnist for The Washington Post "Education in a Multicultural Environment" |
| November 12, 1991 Robin Wright Author, journalist "Flashpoints: Issues for the '90s" |
January 16, 1992 Leon Lederman Nobel Prize-winning physicist and Frank L. Sulzberger Professor of Physics at the University of Chicago "Science, Literacy, and Survival" |
| January 30, 1992 John P. Demos Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, Samuel Knight Professor of American History at Yale University "In the Shadow of the Founders: The Meaning, and Significance, of 'Generations' in American History" |
February 18, 1992 Diane Abbott Member of Parliament, Great Britain "Let Freedom Ring: A Global Perspective" |
| April 16, 1992 John Searle Professor of philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley "The Storm Over the University" |
May 7, 1992 David Mulford, '59 Under Secretary for International Affairs, U.S. Department of the Treasury, and member of the Board of Trustees at Lawrence University "Russia: From Marxism to Markets" |
| May 21, 1992 E. Graham Waring Professor of religion emeritus at Lawrence University "Options and Requirements" |
1992-93
| September 24, 1992 Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Practicing What We Preach: Scholarship and the Aims of Liberal Education" |
October 13, 1992 Wayne Franklin Chair, American Studies Program, University of Iowa "The Doubling of Discovery" |
| November 19, 1992 Elizabeth Loftus Professor of psychology, University of Washington "False Memories" |
January 14, 1993 Daniel Kleppner Phi Beta Kappa Visititing Scholar, Lester Wolfe Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Science, Science-Bashing, and the Descent into Woolliness" |
| February 9, 1993 Bernice Johnson Reagon Curator, Division of Community Life, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution "Culture in the Civil Rights Movement" |
March 4, 1993 Robert Frank Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics, Ethics, and Public Policy, Cornell University "Can an Honest Person Survive in a Material World?" |
| May 4, 1993 Alan Ryan Professor of politics, Princeton University "Our Hankering After Community" |
May 10, 1993 His Excellency Takakazu Kuriyama The Ambassador of Japan to the United States "Japan and U.S.: Then and Now One Man's Historical Perspective" |
| May 20, 1993 Joseph A. Hopfensperger, '52 Associate professor emeritus of theatre and drama and former resident director of Björklunden "More Than an Scrapbook, Less Than a Sermon" |
1993-94
The Arts and Society
| September 23, 1993 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Playing by the Rules" |
October 14, 1993 John Updike Author "The Artist and Society: Selected Readings from his Work" |
| November 30, 1993 Leon Botstein President, Bard College, and Music Director, American Symphony Orchestra "Music and Culture in the Twentieth Century" |
January 13, 1994 Paul Goldberger Cultural news editor and architecture critic, The New York Times "Architecture as a Reflection of Public Policy and Social Responsibility" |
| February 15, 1994 Gwendolyn Brooks Author, poet "The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks" |
April 12, 1994 Miriam Schapiro Visual Artist "A Woman Artist and Her Relationship to the Past" |
| May 19, 1994 Honors Convocation Eric Simonson, '82 Associate Artistic Director, Steppenwolf Theatre "The Re-imagination of Form and Collaboration" |
1994-95
Rethinking Government
| September 22, 1994 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Our Account of Ourselves" |
October 6, 1994 Richard Lamm Director of the Center for Public Policy and Contemporary Issues, University of Denver, and author "Money, Morality, and Medicine" |
| October 20, 1994 Luis Rubio Mexican economist, 1994-95 Woodrow Wilson Fellow "Beyond NAFTA: The Future of U.S.-Mexican Relations" |
November 10, 1994 Russ Feingold United States Senator "Reinventing Government? Reform the Process" |
| January 19, 1995 Robert Bork Judicial scholar, Supreme Court nominee "Politics and the Constitution" |
February 21, 1995 Clarence Page Pulitzer Prize-wining journalist, Chicago Tribune "Civil Rights in the 1990s" |
| April 11, 1995 Jane Nelson British environmental consultant "From Bombay to L.A.: Protecting the Environments of Mega-Cities" |
May 18, 1995 Honors Convocation Richard Nieme, '62 Professor of political science, University of Rochester "What Shapes? What Numbers? Representation in America Today" |
1995-96
The Ideas That Shape Our Time, the People Who Shape Our Ideas
| September 21, 1995 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Autodidacts, Cyberspace, Students, and Björklunden" |
November 2, 1995 Faye Wattleton Former Presicient and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America "Women's Healthcare and Reproductive Rights" |
| February 13, 1996 Harry Wu Human rights activist "At What Price? The Human Cost of China's Economic Miracle" |
April 16, 1996 Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Professor of history, Harvard University, Professor emeritus of the humanities, City University, Pulitzer Prize-winning author "The Politics of Identity: Will It Shape the Future?" |
| May 16, 1996 Honors Convocation David Halberstam Journalist and author "The World You Inherit" |
1996-97
The Challenges of Excellence:
Reflections on Tradition, Change, and the Modern World
| September 16, 1996 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Sesquicentennial" |
November 14, 1996 Gunther Schuller Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, conductor, and educator "New Dimensions in Jazz and Modern Music" |
| January 14, 1997 The Honorable Tommy G. Thompson Governor, State of Wisconsin "150 Years of Excellence" |
January 23, 1997 Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, and the W. E. B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University "Race and Class in America" |
| February 13, 1997 Robert Jay Lifton Professor of psychiatry and psychology, The City University of New York "The Protean Self -- Psychological Resilience in Teaching and Learning" |
May 29, 1997 Honors Convocation Maya Angelou Author, poet, playwright, actress "Meeting the Challenges of Success" |
1997-98
| September 25, 1997 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Tough-minded or Thin-skinned" |
September 30, 1997 Tony Kushner Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning playwright "The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism" |
| February 26, 1998 Richard Rodriguez Journalist "What No One Told Me When I Was in College" |
April 9, 1998 Dudley Herschbach Nobel Prize winning chemist "The Impossible Takes a Little Longer" |
| May 21, 1998 Honors Convocation Richard Holbrooke Former Assistant Secretary of State "The Never Ending Search for Peace in Southeast Europe" |
1998-99
| September 24, 1998 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Dogfish and Sonnets: Some Thoughts on Unmediated Learning" |
October 22, 1998 Robert Ballard Author, Specialist in Deep-Ocean Archeology, and Founder of the JASON Foundation "Deep Sea Explorations" |
| November 19, 1998 William Sloane Coffin, Jr. Minister of Riverside Church of Manhattan, former chaplain at Yale University, and civil rights and antiwar activist "Civility, Democracy, and Multiculturalism" |
February 9, 1999 Cornel West Professor of Afro-American Studies and Philosophy of Religion at Harvard University "Race Matters" |
| April 13, 1999 Michael Beschloss Presidential Historian, Provacative Political Author, and Television Commentator "Presidential Leadership" |
May 27, 1999 Honors Convocation Joyce Carol Oates Author and Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University "Readings and Commentary" |
1999-2000
| September 23, 1999 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Musings on the Millennium" | November 2, 1999 Heinz Fricke Music director of the Washington Opera Guest conducting the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra |
| January 25, 2000 James McPherson Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the George Henry Davis Professor of American History at Princeton University "Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War" | April 4, 2000 George J. Mitchell Former United States Senator and chairperson of the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland "Making Peace" |
| May 23, 2000 Honors Convocation Isabel Allende Latin American novelist "Stories and Dreams" |
2000-2001
| September 28, 2000 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "The Campus Business" | October 26, 2000 Frank McCourt Pulitzer Prize-winning author "A Memoir of a Memoir" |
| January 11, 2001 Brian Greene Proponent of the united theory of superstrings and Professor of Physics and Mathematics at Columbia University "What is String Theory?" | April 19, 2001 Martha Nussbuam Philosopher and the Ernst Freund Distinguished Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago "Global Duties: Cicero's Problematic Legacy" |
| May 22, 2001 Honors Convocation William Julius Wilson Sociologist and the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor at Harvard University "Welfare, Children and Families: The Impact of Welfare Reform in the New Economy" |
2001-2002
| September 27, 2001 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "The Better Angels of Our Nature" | October 9, 2001 Wynton Marsalis Legendary jazz musician "The Need for a New American Mythology" |
| October 25, 2001 Lech Walesa Founder of Solidarity, Nobel Peace Prize-winner, former President of Poland "Democracy: The Never Ending Battle" | February 21, 2002 Anna Deavere Smith Playwright and Actor "Snapshots: Glimpses of America in Change" |
| April 30, 2002 Harold Varmus President and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Nobel Prize-winner, former director of the National Institutes of Health "Globalizing Science" | May 21, 2002 Honors Convocation Edward Hirsch Poet "Reading as Relationship" |
2002-03
| Thursday, September 26, 2002 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "Liberal Education and Civic Engagement" | Tuesday, October 8, 2002 William Sloane Coffin Peace activist "The U.S., Iraq, and Nuclear Weapons" |
| Thursday, November 14, 2002 Oliver Sacks Neurologist and Author "Creativity and the Brain" | Thursday, January 30, 2003 Susan Estrich Law Professor, Author, Legal and Political Commentator "Civil Liberties in Times of Terror: The Balance Between Security and Freedom" |
|
Tuesday, March 4, 2003 Fareed Zakaria Editor, Newsweek International and Former Managing Editor, Foreign Affairs "Why Do They Hate Us? America in a New World" | Thursday, May 22, 2003 Honors Convocation N. Scott Momaday Native American Scholar, Poet, and Author "A Morning With Scott Momaday" |
2003-04
| Thursday, September 25, 2004 Matriculation Convocation Richard Warch President of Lawrence University "The Lawrence Difference: Difference at Lawrence" | Tuesday, October 14, 2003 David Sedaris Humorist, Author, Playwright, and NPR Commentator "An Evening with David Sedaris" |
| Tuesday, January 20, 2004 Steven Pinker Cognitive Scientist, Author, and the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University "The Blank Slate" | Thursday, March 4, 2004 SARK (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) Author and Artist "Make Your Creative Dreams Real" | Tuesday, May 25, 2004 Honors Convocation William Cronon Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison "The Portage: History and Memory in the Making of an American Place" |
2004-05
| Thursday, September 23, 2004 Matriculation Convocation Jill Beck President of Lawrence University "The Value of Individualized Instruction in Liberal Education" |
Thursday, October 7, 2004 Arianna Huffington Columnist, Author, and Political Commentator "The 2004 Election: What's at Stake?" |
| Tuesday, February 8, 2005 John Lewis Congressman and Civil Rights Activist "Get in the Way" | Tuesday, March 8, 2005 Joia Mukherjee Medical Director of Partners in Health and Human Rights Activist "On the Joy of Giving Back" | Thursday, May 26, 2005 Honors Convocation Lee C. Bollinger President of Columbia University "Three Issues for Colleges and Universities: Affirmative Action, Academic Freedom and Globalization" |
2005-06
| Thursday, September 22, 2005 Matriculation Convocation Jill Beck President of Lawrence University "A Question of Values: Community Engagement, Altruism, and Liberal Education" |
Tuesday, October 4, 2005 Christopher Stone Environmental Ethicist and Author "Mending the Earth: Ethical Issues in Healing the Global Environment" |
| Thursday, January 26, 2006 Lisa Randall Theoretical Physicist "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions" |
Thursday, April 20, 2006 Salman Rushdie Novelist "A Morning with Salman Rushdie" | Thursday, May 25, 2006 Honors Convocation D. Michael Lynn, '65 United States Bankruptcy Court Judge "American Justice: Proud Promise or Oxymoron: How Does the Legal System Measure Up?" |
2006-07
| Thursday, September 21, 2006 Matriculation Convocation Jill Beck President of Lawrence University "Liberal Philosophy, Free Discussion, and Individualized Learning at Lawrence" |
Tuesday, November 7, 2006 Robert Sapolsky Neuroscientist and Author "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: Stress, Disease, and Coping -- Stress and Where Stress-Related Diseases Come From" |
| Tuesday, February 6, 2007 Juliette Kayyem Terrorism Expert and National Security Analyst for NBC News "Preserving Liberty in an Age of Terror" |
Tuesday, April 17, 2007 Theodore Chapin Theatre Producer and Broadway Impresario "A Life in the Musical Theatre...and the Lawrence Connection that Mattered" |
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 Honors Convocation Susan Faludi Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist and Social Commentator "Sexual Politics and the Tragedy of 9/11" |