Through the Presidential Lecture Series, Creighton University welcomes to campus and the Omaha-area community esteemed national speakers who foster insight into, and discussion about, issues of national and global import.

The upcoming lectures in the series will focus on race, in line with the University’s commitment to becoming an antiracist institution. Save the date to hear from the speakers below. Check back for registration information, plus related programming.   

The lecture series is presented in partnership with the Kingfisher Institute for the Liberal Arts and Professions, the Division of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and the Creighton Intercultural Center. Each talk will also be live-streamed unless otherwise noted. Please contact kingfisher [at] creighton [dot] edu for any questions.

Edwidge Danticat
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022 | 7 p.m.
Hixson-Lied Auditorium, Mike and Josie Harper Center

Edwidge Danticat is the author of numerous books, including Claire of the Sea Light, a The New York Times notable book; “Brother, I’m Dying,” a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” an Oprah Book Club selection; “Krik? Krak!,” a National Book Award finalist; “The Farming of Bones,” an American Book Award winner; “The Dew Breaker,” a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and winner of the inaugural Story Prize; and “Everything Inside,” a Reese’s Book Club pick and winner of the Story Prize. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times and elsewhere. She lives in Miami.

Damon Tweedy, MD
Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022 | Time TBD
Norton Ballroom, Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust Health Sciences Building
Creighton University Health Sciences Campus – Phoenix

Dr. Damon Tweedy, associate professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine and a staff psychiatrist at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health Care System, is the author of The New York Times bestseller “Black Man in a White Coat.”

Colson Whitehead
Tuesday, March 1, 2022 | 7 p.m.
Hixson-Lied Auditorium, Mike and Josie Harper Center

A versatile modern voice, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, Colson Whitehead is the author of, most notably, “The Underground Railroad” (recently adapted for Netflix) and “The Nickel Boys.”

Isabel Wilkerson
Tuesday, March 22, 2022 | 7 p.m.
Wayne and Eileen Ryan Athletic Center/DJ Sokol Arena

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, Isabel Wilkerson is the author of The New York Times bestsellers “The Warmth of Other Suns” and “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.”

Past Lectures