past speakers
Fall Convocation opens each academic year at Case Western Reserve University with an inspiring keynote speaker, usually the author of the university’s Common Reading whose experiences and achievements can speak to a theme for the year and goals for a lifetime.
Recent speakers at Fall Convocation include:
2008: David Quammen
Quammen is a science journalist, nonfiction author, and (former) novelist who has spent most of his life in Montana. He travels on assignment for various magazines, usually to jungles, deserts, or swamps. His accustomed beat is the world of field biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and conservation, though he also occasionally writes about travel, history, and outdoor sports.
2007: President Barbara R. Snyder
Barbara R. Snyder, who began her academic career in higher education in the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, was elected president of Case Western Reserve in December 2006 and began her tenure as the first woman to hold the office on July 1, 2007. Her official investiture ceremony as president was part of the university's Fall Convocation 2007.
2006: Michael Ruhlman
Ruhlman was born in 1963. He grew up in Ohio and graduated from the University School in Cleveland in 1981. He is a chef himself and has written a number of books dealing with food and cooking. A writer of nonfiction books, he also focuses on the search for perfection in a number of different fields and crafts.
2005: Tracy Kidder
Kidder was born in New York City in 1945 and attended Harvard College, where he earned an A.B. in 1967. He served as first lieutenant in Vietnam and was awarded a bronze star. After his tour of duty, Kidder obtained an MFA from the University of Iowa, where he participated in the Writers' Workshop, a program known for the literary luster of both its staff and alumni. His writing has been prolific and outstanding, earning a Pulitzer and a National Book Award in 1982 and the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award in 1989.
2004: Helen Thomas
Thomas defined the way modern reporters cover presidents, from the glowing months of John F. Kennedy's Camelot, through the dark years of Watergate, all the way up to the dawn of the new millennium and the Internet age. A Hearst newspaper columnist who served for 57 years as a correspondent for United Press International and White House bureau chief, Thomas reached the White House by sheer will: she marched into the press room on Kennedy’s Inauguration Day and never left. And it was during this first White House assignment that Helen began closing presidential press conferences with "Thank you, Mr. President."
2003: Oliver Sacks, M.D.
Sacks, dubbed the “poet laureate of medicine” is an explorer of the human mind. A physician and scientist, he has made a career of probing into the most puzzling, troubling—and extraordinary—corners of neurology. His work describing and treating patients suffering from conditions ranging from color blindness to Tourette’s syndrome has generated valuable insight into the human brain and its limitless capacity for adaptation. Dr. Sacks has written nine books on his life and work, including the international bestsellers Awakenings and The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat.