Throughout the academic year, Presidential Scholars meet with speakers of national stature--women and men whose achievements place them at the forefront of their professions, yet whose energies and abilities are directed beyond themselves. These evening gatherings promote conversations among the speakers and Scholars on issues relating to leadership, world developments, the harmonizing of personal and professional commitments, and the Jesuit ideal of service. A primary goal of these sessions is to provide Scholars with role models--people in whom they can see their own aspirations articulated, achieved, and incarnated.
Past speakers include:
Grace Akallo
Refugee, survivor of war in North Uganda
and co-author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda's Children
Prof. Ana Martinez Aleman
Lynch School of Education, Boston College
and co-author of Online Social Networking On-Campus
Dr. Marcia Angell
Sr. Lecturer, Social Medicine
Harvard Medical School and
author, The Truth about the Drug Companies
Paula Apsell
Award-winning Senior Executive Producer
NOVA (WGBH-TV)
Tom Ashbrook
Host, National Public Radio's On Point
Mary Catherine Bateson
Writer and Cultural Anthropologist
Dr. Sheila Blair
Calderwood Professor, Islamic & Asian Art
Boston College and author, Islamic Calligraphy
and Islam: A Thousand Years of Faith and Power
Dr. Jonathan Bloom
Calderwood Professor, Islamic & Asian Art
Boston College
David Campbell
Founder & Executive Director
Hands On Disaster Response
Robert Campbell
Architect, Pulitzer-Prize winning
Architecture critic for the Boston Globe
John Carroll
Senior Media Analyst, WBUR
and Correspondent with WGBH's Greater Boston
Sheila Cavanaugh
Vice President of Internal Communications
Fidelity Investments
Martha Coakley
Attorney General of Massachuestts
& former Middlesex District Attorney
Clare Dunsford
Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Boston College and
author, Spelling Love with an X: A Mother, a Son and the Gene that Binds Them
Michael Dukakis
Professor, Political Science
Northeastern University
Former Governor of Massachusetts
Dr. David Eisenberg
Director, Division for Research & Education in Complementary & Integrative Medical Therapies, Harvard Osher Institute, Harvard Medical School; authority on traditional Chinese medicine
Aaron Feuerstein
Chairman of the Board & President;
Former CEO
Malden Mills
Dr. Atual Gawande
Assistant Professor, Surgery, Harvard Medical School;
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Policy &
Management, Harvard School of Public Health; and
General and Endocrine Surgeon, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Boston; Recipient, 2006 MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant;
Author of Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science;
Staff Writer on medicine and science for The New Yorker
Florence Graves
Director, Schuster Institute for
Investigative Journalism
Brandeis University
Carol Guzy
Three-time Pulitzer Prize Winning Photojournalist
Washington Post
Dr. Dean Hashimoto
Professor, Boston College
Rev. Ray Hammond, MD
Physician; pastor of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
Scott Harshbarger
Attorney
Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane, LLP
Former President & CEO, Common Cause; Former Massachusetts Attorney General
Dr. Charles J. Hatem
Director, Medical Education,
Mount Auburn Hospital;
Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Director, Rabkin Fellowships in Medical Education;
Harold Amos Academy Professor at Harvard Medical School; &
Director of Faculty Programs in Medical Education, Shapiro Institute for Education and Research
Dr. David Hatem
Professor, General Medicine & Primary Care
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Father Michael Himes
Professor, Theology
Boston College
Kathleen Hirsch
Author of A Home in the Heart of a City; A Sabbath Life;
Songs from the Alley and former New York Times reporter
Dr. Amir H. Hoveyda
Professor, Chemistry
Boston College
Prof. Seth Jacobs
History Department
Boston College
Karim Kawar
President Kawar Group, Jordan and
Former Ambassador
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to the United States
Ellen Kushner
Host of WGBH's Sound and Spirit;
Author, Swordspoint: A Melodrama of Manners and
The Fall of Kings
Dr. Timothy Johnson
ABC News - Medical Correspondent
Bill Littlefield
Host, WBUR's Only a Game
Author and professor of Creative Writing
Curry College
Chris Lowney
Author of Heroic Leadership: Best Practices of a 450-Year-old Company that Changed the World and A Vanished World: Medieval Spain’s Golden Age of Enlightenment; Heroic Living and Founder, Pilgrimage for Our Children’s Future
Stephen Maler
Director, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company
Dr. Paul Mariani
University Professor of English
Boston College
Kathe McKenna
Founder & Executive Director
Haley House, Inc.
Dr. Charles Meyer
Professor, Fine Arts
Boston College
Dr. John Michalczyk
Professor, Film Studies
Boston College
Shannon Miller
Most decorated gymnast in US History &
BC Law School student
J. Donald Monan, SJ
Chancellor and past president,
Boston College
Thomas Moore
Psychotherapist; author of Care of the Soul; Soul Mates and The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life
William Neenan, SJ
Special Assistant to the President, Boston College
Former Professor of Economics, University of Michigan
Anne Mulcahy
Chairman and Former CEO
Xerox Corporation
Father Paris
Chair of Bioethics, Theology Dept.
Boston College
Deval Patrick
Governor of Massachusetts
Former General Counsel & Vice President for Texaco, Inc. and
Former Assistant US Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, US Department of Justice
Chet Raymo
Author and science columnist;
Boston Globe
Mary C. Richardson
Co-Anchor, WCVB TV's Chronicle
Travis Roy, co-author, Eleven Seconds: A Story of Tragedy, Courage and Triumph and founder of the Travis Roy Foundation, dedicated to spinal cord injury survivors and research
Joshua Rubenstein
Northeast Regional Director
Amnesty International USA
Ron Rubin
Vice President
Center for Higher Education in the Middle East, Inc.
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy
Catholic Worker Movement
Independent Radio Producer
Hala Taweel
President and co-founder, The Center for Higher Education in the Middle East, Inc.
Larry Tye
Head, Health Care Coverage Fellowship, journalist & Author of Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Rise of the Black Middle Class
Virak Uy
Fidelity Investments and
Survivor, Khmer Rouge labor camp
Liz Walker
Host & Executive Producer of WBZ 4's Sundays with Liz Walker & Co-founder, My Sister's Keeper
Joan Wallace-Benjamin
President & CEO, The Home for Little Wanderers;
Former President & CEO of the Urban
League of Eastern Massachusetts
Sonia Weitz
Poet, Holocaust survivor and Director, Holocaust Museum of the North Shore, MA
Dr. Ellen Winner
Professor, Psychology
Boston College
Dr. Alan Wolfe
Director, Boisi Center for Religion & American Public Life
Boston College
