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:
Dr. Marcia Angell
Sr. Lecturer, Social Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Paula Apsell
Award-winning Senior Executive Producer
NOVA (WGBH-TV)
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
Sheila Cavanaugh
Vice President of Internal Communications
Fidelity Investments
Martha Coakley
Attorney General of Massachuestts
& former Middlesex District Attorney
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. Judah Folkman
Director, Vascular Biology Program,
Children’s Hospital, Boston;
Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery
And Professor of Cell Biology,
Harvard Medical School
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
Resident Scholar
Women’s Studies Research Center
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
Karim Kawar
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
Consultant, Catholic Medical Mission Board and
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 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 CEO
Xerox Corporation
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
Ron Rubin
Vice President
Center for Higher Education in the Middle East, Inc.
Scott Schaeffer-Duffy
Catholic Worker Movement
President, 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 of CBS4-TV'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