2024 Speakers

SEARCY, Ark. (Jan. 18, 2024) — Harding University's American Studies Institute is pleased to welcome three upcoming speakers as part of its ASI Distinguished Lecture Series, including retired NASA astronaut Dr. Jerry Linenger as well as conservative legal scholar Robert George and leftist social critic Cornel West. Drs. George and West are committed to fostering civil discourse about the nation's most challenging political, legal and social issues.

The event featuring West and George will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024, at Harding's Benson Auditorium. Linenger's lecture will be held on Monday, April 8, 2024, beginning at 7:30 p.m. in Benson Auditorium, located at 201 S. Blakeney in Searcy, Ark. Both events are free and open to the public.

"Harding is proud to host these and other incredible individuals as part of our ASI series," said Mike Williams, president of Harding University. "These two events are sure to be thought-provoking and offer our guests fodder for deep conversations."

Dr. Jerry Linenger is a retired U.S. Navy flight surgeon and NASA astronaut who holds doctorates in both medicine and research methodology. During his career as an astronaut, Linenger spent almost five months aboard Russia's Mir space station, becoming the first American ever to undock from the station in a Russian Soyuz space capsule and helping contain the most extensive fire ever experienced on an orbiting spacecraft. In 2008, Linenger was awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Medal, the highest award conferred by the space agency.

The author of more than 20 books, outspoken leftist social philosopher Dr. Cornel West currently serves as the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at New York City's Union Theological Seminary. A professor emeritus at Princeton University and former professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University, West is a celebrated speaker, writer, critic and commentator who frequently addresses the intersection of ethics, politics and social responsibility in a variety of media.

West will appear at Harding with Dr. Robert George, conservative American legal scholar. The McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, George is a frequent visiting professor at Harvard Law School. He has served as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, as a presidential appointee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and as a judicial fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court. He is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on civil liberties, ethics and the law.

For more information about Harding's American Studies Institute or the Distinguished Lecture

Series, visit Harding.edu/ASI or call 501-279-4497.