Six times a year, BYU invites experts in their fields, noted public officials and even sometimes our rivals, to come to campus to deliver a Forum address on campus. Due to the diversity of experience and backgrounds, these illustrious speakers address students and the wider campus community on a variety of topics.
Forum lectures are held on Tuesdays at 11:05 a.m. in the Marriott Center on the BYU campus. They are free and open to the public, often broadcast live on BYUTV and BYUtv.org and archived at speeches.byu.edu.
Here's the 2014-2015 Academic Year Forum Schedule:
Mickey Edwards
Constitution Day Speaker
September 23, 2014
A former congressman from Oklahoma, Mickey Edwards is a founding trustee of the Heritage Foundation and national chairman of the American Conservative Union. He taught at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School and was a regular commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. Edwards has also authored numerous books and articles. His most recent efforts include Reclaiming Conservatism: How a Great American Political Movement Got Lost—And How It Can Find Its Way Back.
Dr. Vali Nasr
October 21, 2014
One of the leading American experts on Islamic world and Middle East policies, Vali Nasr is a best-selling author, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings Institution and contributor to Bloomberg View. He is the author of the book The Dispensable Nation (2013), which takes a hard look at strategic risk of a shrinking American role on the global stage.
Governor Mitt Romney
November 18, 2014
Former Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney is the founder of Bain Capital and served as chair of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, UT. Romney received his B.A., with Highest Honors, from Brigham Young University in 1971. In 1975, he was awarded an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was named a Baker Scholar, and earned a J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School.
Ed Catmull
January 27, 2015
President of Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, Ed Catmull is a computer scientist who has contributed to many landmark developments in computer graphics and received numerous prestigious industry awards. Catmull was made Pixar’s Chief Technical Officer in 1986 by founder Steve Jobs. At Pixar, Catmull was a key developer of the RenderMan rendering system used in films such as Toy Story and Finding Nemo, for which he was given his first Academy Scientific and Technical Award.
Jim Leach
February 24, 2015
Former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim Leach is a former member of congress from Iowa. Prior to his appointment as NEH chairman, Leach was the John L. Weinberg Visiting Professor of Public and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University. He also served as the interim director of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency which promotes excellence in the humanities.
Dr. David Pershing
March 24, 2015
President of the University of Utah, Dr. David Pershing is a gifted teacher and prolific researcher. A professor of chemical engineering, President Pershing is the recipient of the University of Utah’s Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Research Awards and the U’s Rosenblatt Prize for Excellence. He has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications, won more than 20 research grants totaling approximately $60 million, and earned five patents. He was named Engineering Educator of the Year by the Utah Engineering Council in 2002 and is a winner of the Governor’s Medal for Science and Technology.
