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Past Distinguished Speakers at Elon
Elon University places students and the local community in the same room with world leaders and scholars to inspire, to create bold ideas and to motivate new thinking. This type of learning is at the heart of Elon’s innovative experiential learning model. Together, we learn how to be our best.
Madeleine Albright
U.S. Secretary of State and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Buzz Aldrin
NASA astronaut
Maya Angelou
Poet and author
Oscar Arias
President of Costa Rica, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Arthur Ashe
First African-American U.S. Open tennis champion
Ehud Barak
Prime Minister of Israel
Dave Barry
Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist
Michael Beschloss
NY Times Bestselling Author
Benazir Bhutto
Prime Minister of Pakistan
Ben Bradlee
Executive editor, The Washington Post
George H.W. Bush
President of the United States
David Cameron
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Jimmy Carter
President of the United States
Shirley Chisholm
First African-American U.S. Congresswoman
Bill Clinton
President of the United States
Billy Collins
U.S. Poet Laureate
Anderson Cooper
Emmy Award-winning CNN journalist
Walter Cronkite
Pioneering CBS News anchor
Alan Dershowitz
Legal commentator, political analyst and attorney
Maureen Dowd
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Olympia Dukakis
Academy Award-winning actress
Chris Economaki
First television auto-racing commentator
Bob Edwards
National Public Radio broadcaster
Paul Ehrlich
Groundbreaking scientist on population studies
Gerald Ford
President of the United States
Thomas Friedman
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Millard Fuller
Founder and President of Habitat for Humanity International
Bill George
Medtronic CEO and author
David Gergen
Advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton
Charles Gibson
ABC News Anchor
John Glenn
Pioneering NASA astronaut, U.S. Senator from Ohio
Jane Goodall
Primatologist and conservationist
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
Stephen Jay Gould
Paleontologist and author
Gilbert Grosvenor
President and photo journalist, National Geographic Society
David Halberstam
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Walter Isaacson
President and CEO of Aspen Institute
F.W. de Klerk
President of South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Jonathan Kozol
Educator and author
Nicholas Kristof
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Madeleine L’Engle
Newberry Medal-winner author
Terry Labonte
Stock car race driver and NASCAR TV Commentator
James Lovell
NASA astronaut
Frank McCourt
Pulitzer Prize-winning author
David McCullough
Pulitzer Prize-winning author
Edmund Morris
Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer
Kary Mullis
Nobel Prize-winning chemist
Dee Dee Myers
Presidential press secretary and political analyst
Ralph Nader
Consumer advocate, political activist
The Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Itzhak Perlman
Virtuoso Violinist
Gen. Colin L. Powell
U.S. Secretary of State, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
Reynolds Price
Novelist, poet, essayist
Hal Prince
Tony Award-winning Broadway producer-director
The Honorable H.M. Queen Noor of Jordan
Queen of Jordan
Anna Quindlen
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Sen. Alan Simpson
Former member of the United States Senate, State of Wyoming
Gloria Steinem
Author, lecturer, political activist and feminist organizer
Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Jeffrey Toobin
CNN legal analyst
Nina Totenberg
National Public Radio legal affairs correspondent
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Astrophysicist and author
Sander Vanocur
Veteran journalist and host of the History Channel’s “Movies in Time” and “History’s Business”
Lech Walesa
President of Poland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
Cornel West
Author and civil rights activist
Christine Todd Whitman
EPA Administrator, Governor of New Jersey
Elie Wiesel
Nobel Peace Prize laureate
George Will
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist
Edward O. Wilson
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and biologist
Bob Woodward
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author
Steve Wozniak
Co-Founder, Apple Computer
Steve Young
NFL Hall of Fame quarterback