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Past Speakers
Robert Shiller
Robert J. Shiller, distinguished professor of economics at Yale University, came to SPU in spring 2009 for the annual Business Breakfast. Hailed as one of the world’s most far-seeing political economists, Professor Shiller has been recognized around the world for his brilliant forecasts of financial bubbles, his penetrating insights into market dynamics, and his bold and successful innovations in the emerging field of behavioral finance.
Shiller’s latest book, Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism, was coauthored with 2001 Nobel Prize-winning economist George A. Akerlof. In 2008, Shiller published The Subprime Solution, which explains the housing market’s collapse and broader impact, and proposes bold measures to solve both the current crisis and the underlying economic weaknesses that made it possible. His 2000 book, Irrational Exuberance, a New York Times best-seller, accurately predicted the dot-com bubble’s collapse.
Michael Ward
Michael Ward, internationally renowned C.S. Lewis scholar, came to SPU in fall 2008 to discuss his critically acclaimed book, Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis.
Ward presented a cogent and comprehensive claim that Lewis secretly based The Chronicles of Narnia on the seven heavens of the medieval cosmos.
Ward is an Anglican clergyman and a writer and speaker. From 2004 to 2008 he was Chaplain of Peterhouse in the University of Cambridge. Between 1996 and 1999 he lived and worked at The Kilns, C.S. Lewis's Oxford home.
Carly Fiorina
Carly Fiorina is one of the most recognized leaders in business who throughout her extraordinary career has successfully blazed new trails and defied odds.
After rising through the ranks of AT&T and Lucent Technologies, she became the first woman ever to head a Fortune 20 company, serving as chair and CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005.
She is the author of The New York Times best-seller Tough Choices: A Memoir, and a strategic advisor to business and government. An engaging speaker, an exceptional leader, and a person of great character and savvy, Fiorina shared lessons she learned on leadership, globalization, competition, and organizational change during SPU's 2008 Downtown Business Breakfast and again on campus during an afternoon public lecture in April 2008.
The Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
Seattle Pacific welcomed the Most Reverend Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, one of the world’s foremost Orthodox Christian authors, teachers, and scholars, as the 2008 Palmer Lecturer in March, 2008.
He is best known for his books The Orthodox Church and The Orthodox Way. Born in England and raised an Anglican, he embraced the Orthodox faith in his mid-20s, becoming a monk, ordained priest, and bishop in the Greek Orthodox Church.
In 2007, he was elevated to metropolitan. For 35 years, he was the Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford University, and continues to be a leading translator of liturgical texts.
His eminence is a gifted speaker who frequently lectures on Eastern Christianity to Western audiences.This event was part of the Alfred S. Palmer Lecture Series.
George Weigel
George Weigel, one of America's leading commentators on religion and public life, came to SPU as the featured speaker for the President's Symposium on Knowing and Understanding Our World: A Christian Response to the 21st Century, in February 2007.A senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., Weigel is a much sought-after lecturer and media consultant. His nearly 20 books include The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God, and the acclaimed Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II.
This event was part of the ongoing series of symposia highlighting the signature commitments of SPU.
Perspectives on the Middle East: Vali Nasr
One of the world's leading voices on Middle East politics and the history of Islam, Vali Nasr visited SPU in April 2007. He is a senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School.The Wall Street Journal calls Nasr one of "the new generation of experts" on the Middle East, and he has briefed government officials from the White House to Congress. A frequent contributor and commentator for the major news organizations, Nasr authored several books, and the American Library Association's Booklist magazine says his book, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future, "is so enlightening and perspective-altering that no one concerned about the Middle East should miss reading it."