The Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lectureship
New Opportunities for Enhancing Intellectual Life at Drake University
For more information on the Bucksbaum Lectures, contact Susan Breakenridge at 271-3994 or email susan.breakenridge@drake.edu.

Upcoming Lectures

An Evening with
Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951.  He went to Roosevelt High School and Drake University, but has spent much of his adult life in England, except for eight years spent in New Hampshire from 1995 to 2003.

His books have sold some ten million copies around the world and been translated into more than 20 languages.  A Short History of Nearly Everything won the Aventis Prize, administered by Britain’s Royal Society, and the European Union’s Descartes Prize.

He is Chancellor of the University of Durham, England’s third oldest university, and for four years was on the board of directors of English Heritage, the British government body responsible for England’s historic environment.

In 2006 he was awarded an honorary OBE (Order of the British Empire) by the British government and the President’s Prize by Britain’s Royal Society of Chemistry.  In 2007, the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, gave him its annual Bradford Washburn Award, its highest award.

He is also the author of a charitable book, African Diary, which has so far raised over $500,000 for CARE International.  He is a longtime supporter of Conservation International, and in Britain he is a patron of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and the Friends of Durham Cathedral and is President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England.  He is also closely associated with the Woodland Trust and the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.

He lives in Norfolk, England, with his English wife, Cynthia.  They have four children, all living in England.

The Martin Bucksbaum Distinguished Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from Melva and the late Martin Bucksbaum.

Thursday, April 2nd, 2009, 7:30pm
Drake Knapp Center, Drake University

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Also of interest...

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid will be performed at the Des Moines Playhouse June 12-28.

Bestselling reminiscence by Des Moines' own Bill Bryson, will have its World Stage Debut at The Playhouse. Warm, funny and ultimately universal, Bill's story shares his youthful adventures at a simpler time in a place familiar to many of us: Des Moines in the 1950's and 1960's.

For additional information on this and other Bucksbaum Lectures, please call 515-271-4990 or e-mail sue.mcentee@drake.edu.

About the Bucksbaum Lectureship

Previous Lectures

Thomas R. Pickering
October 10, 2008
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Erik Peterson
April 9, 2008
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Nocholas Kristof
September 25, 2007
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Bob Costas
April 19, 2007
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Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield
“An Evening of Social Responsibility, Radical Business Philosophy and Free Dessert for All”
October 3, 2006
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David Chipperfield
April 6, 2006
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Dr. Jane Goodall
“Reasons for Hope ”
September 22, 2005
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Tim Russert
“Washington From the Inside Out”
April 26, 2005
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Sarah Jones
"Waking the American Dream"
October 6, 2004
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Salman Rushdie
"Step Across This Line"
March 30, 2004
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Wynton Marsalis
"Leadership: The Creative Process" & Concert
October 22, 2003
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Michael Beschloss
"Democracy in a Time of Crisis”
April 15, 2003
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Earvin 'Magic' Johnson
"A Perspective on Living with HIV"
December 3, 2002
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Ken Burns
"American Lives: Mark Twain, Frank Lloyd Wright and More"
April 10, 2002
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Bill Moyers
"The Aftermath of September 11"
Joined by Martin E. Marty, Moderated by James A. Autry.
November 12, 2001
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Martin Marty & Archbishop Rembert Weakland
"The Situation of Pluralism: Catholic Faith, Other Christian Faiths, and the Faith of Non-Christians"
March 28, 2001

Marian Wright Edelman
"By What Shall We Live?"
March 8, 2000

Senator Paul Simon
"Changing Places: Higher Education's Changing Responsibilities at the Turn of the Millennium"
October 19, 1999

Doris Kearns Goodwin
"The Moral Authority of the Presidency"
March 17, 1999

David McCullough
"History as a Source of Strength"
March 18, 1998

Ben Bradlee
"The Newspaper Business, Then and Now"
October 13, 1997

Thomas Friedman
March 12, 1997


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