Since 1958, the Liberal Arts Forum has brought distinguished guests to Elon and sparked meaningful conversations around the humanities and social sciences.
Elon University’s Liberal Arts Forum has elevated bold questions, centered innovative voices and served as a catalyst for transformative dialogue for more than six decades.
In October 1958, during a time when the liberal arts were undergoing a national renaissance, James P. Elder Jr. ’60 proposed a Liberal Arts Forum. Elder’s vision, supported by the Elon University Student Legislature, was to bring speakers and panelists to campus that would instill humanities and social sciences into the heart of campus conversations.
In the Forum’s formative stages, controversial ideologies around liberal arts sparked funding debates, according to headlines from the Maroon and Gold student newspaper. With continued student advocacy and ambition at the forefront, the Forum received enough funding to launch the series, leading to its successful span across decades.
The Forum’s mission to foster intellectual curiosity via accessible programming evolved from a single spring symposium into a robust year-round series featuring scholars, artists, policymakers and thought leaders. Early speakers included Ivy League historians and then-House Minority Leader and future President Gerald Ford, whose 1966 keynote, themed “The Changing Image of Man,” contributed to the Forum’s growing reputation.
Elder returned to Elon as a professor in 1963. He served as the Liberal Arts Forum adviser until his departure in 1973. During his tenure, Elder played a pivotal role in strengthening the Forum’s infrastructure, from organizing events and guiding student leaders to spearheading fundraising efforts and securing prominent guest speakers. In recognition of his lasting contributions, he was honored as Elon’s Outstanding Alumnus in 1983. In 2006 a new lecture series was named The James P. Elder Lecture in honor of Elder’s contributions to the Liberal Arts Forum.
Throughout the decades, the Elon University Liberal Arts Forum continued to welcome notable speakers such as former Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm (1983), filmmaker Spike Lee (1990), former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias (2000), environmentalist David Orr (2019), Broadway actor Bryan Terrell Clark (2020) and Olympic athlete Alexi Pappas (2024), each adding a new depth to the Forum’s mission of encouraging honest, and often challenging, conversations.
What began as an ambitious student initiative flourished into a legacy of inquiry and discovery. Today, the Liberal Arts Forum is an integral part of Elon’s academic culture and is now a credit-bearing academic course where students take an active role in researching speakers, shaping themes, managing logistics and facilitating events. It remains rooted in the value of meaningful dialogue that has power to bridge divides, cultivate a sense of community, and inspire leadership embedded in empathy and understanding while continuing to evolve in a rapidly changing world.