The Honors College sponsors and presents Boise State University’s Distinguished Lecture Series. Twice a year, the Series brings eminent speakers to Boise State from the realm of politics, academics, and humanitarian activism to promote the discussion of important issues.
| Date | Lecturer |
|---|---|
| March 2, 2023 | Arthur C. Brooks, William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School |
| October 13, 2022 | Kwame Anthony Appiah, Author and International Affairs Expert |
| April 14, 2022 | Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University |
| March 7, 2022 | Jason Riley, Wall Street Journal |
| September 26, 2018 | Antony J. Blinken, former Deputy Secretary of State |
| April 9, 2018 | Werner Herzog, award-winning filmmaker, director and writer |
| September 25, 2017 | Azar Nafisi, Iranian-American bestselling author |
| April 17, 2017 | Sarah Lewis, bestselling author and assistant professor at Harvard University |
| September 27, 2016 | David Brooks, political analyst and columnist for The New York Times |
| April 14, 2016 | Carl Wieman, award-winning physicist and professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University |
| October 5, 2015 | Julia Gillard, Australia’s first woman Prime Minister |
| April 8, 2015 | Margaret Atwood, acclaimed author who has received numerous international literary awards including the prestigious Booker Prize |
| Nov. 20, 2014 | Salman Rushdie, author and winner of many of the world’s top literary prizes |
| April 8, 2014 | Richard Heinzl, founder of the first North American chapter of Doctors Without Borders |
| October 3, 2013 | Jonathan Spence, the world’s foremost authority on Chinese civilization and the role of history in shaping modern China |
| April 18, 2013 | Louis Menand, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and scholar of American studies |
| October 4, 2012 | Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist one of the world’s foremost writers on language, mind and human nature |
| March 6, 2012 | Susan Solomon, climate scientist internationally recognized as a leader in atmospheric science, 2007 Nobel Laureate, and Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. <a href="http://youtu.be/i8UW4jSADC0"View her speech |
| October 6, 2011 | Raj Patel, award-winning writer, food activist and academic |
| March 10, 2011 | Martha Nussbaum, philosopher and author of Fragility of Goodness and Cultivating Humanity: A Classic Defense of Reform in Liberal Education |
| December 1, 2010 | Jody Williams, humanitarian and Nobel Laureate |
| February 16, 2010 | Steve Fainaru, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting and author of Big Boy Rules: America’s Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq |
| April 16, 2008 | William McDonough, internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents and shapers of what he and his partners call “The Next Industrial Revolution” |
| October 16, 2007 | Louis Sullivan, former secretary of health and human services under President George H.W. Bush |
| March 12, 2007 | Hans Blix, former chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq and author of Disarming Iraq |
| October 10, 2006 | Jonathan Kozol, public education advocate, author and winner of the National Book Award for Death at an Early Age |
| April 12, 2006 | Joseph Stiglitz, winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics and bestselling author of Globalization and Its Discontents |
| February 13, 2006 | Seymour Hersh, investigative reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. He is the author of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib and other books |
| October 4, 2005 | Karen Armstrong, religion scholar and author who wrote A History of God, The Battle for God, the memoir The Spiral Staircase and a number of other well-received books |
| March 15, 2005 | Christopher Hogwood, internationally acclaimed conductor and musicologist |
| April 14, 2004 | E.O. Wilson, a world-renowned biologist and two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize |
| October 19, 2004 | Mary Robinson, president of Ireland from 1990-1997 and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997-2002 |
| October 9, 2003 | Michael Cunningham, author who won the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for The Hours |
| October 2, 2002 | Lech Walesa, former president of Poland and winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for Peace |
| April 25, 2002 | Horst Stormer, winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics |
| October 9, 2001 | Jose Ramos-Horta, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Peace for “his sustained efforts to hinder the oppression of a small people” in his homeland of East Timor |
| April 10, 2001 | Terry Waite, humanitarian and hostage negotiator |