past Seasons
Omnibus
A stage for visionaries and authorities.
Some of the world’s greatest thought leaders have been coming to Purdue Fort Wayne since 1995. See who we have hosted in the past.
Our Speakers
Michael Barbaro
“The Moment Demands an Explanation—The Daily Is on a Mission to Find It”
Michael Steele
“The Political Scene According to Steele”
Moogega “Moo” Cooper
“Limitless”
Scott Dikkers
“The Funny Story behind the Funny Stories”
George Takei
“Where No Story Has Gone Before: An Evening with George Takei”
Daymond John
“5 Shark Points of Success”
Mike Eruzione
“Going for the Gold”
Loretta Lynch
“A Conversation with the Honorable Loretta Lynch”
CANCELED
Brian Lamb and Mitch Daniels
“A Conversation with Brian Lamb and Mitch Daniels”
CANCELED
Rick Steves
“Travel as a Political Act”
CANCELED
Lilly Ledbetter
“Grace and Grit: How I Won My Fight at Goodyear and Beyond”
Wes Moore
“From Troubled Teen to Rhodes Scholar: The Transformative Power of Education”
Robert Edsel
“The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
Captain Mark Kelly
“Endeavour to Succeed”
James Carville and Mary Matalin
“All’s Fair: Love, War, and Politics“
Bill McKibben
“The Climate Fight Reaches Its Crucial Stage”
Eric Olson
“The World at Night”
Jim Clifton
“The Coming Jobs War”
Jeanette Walls
“The Glass Castle: Demon Hunting and Other Life Lessons”
The Capitol Steps
“MOCK in Democracy”
Diane Ravich
“Education Reform”
Michele Norris
“If You Meant It, Then You Should Have Put a Stamp on It”
Martha Raddatz
“Global Hotspots from Yemen to Afghanistan and the Arab Spring in Between”
William Dunkelberg
“Unemployment - How Can We Fix It?”
Mitch Daniels
“Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans”
Christopher Buckley
“An Evening with Christopher Buckley”
Neil LaBute
“Changing Course: The Serpentine Road to Success”
Jamaica Kincaid
“Reading and Growing up under Colonial Rule”
Andrew Sullivan
“Friendship: The Forgotten Relationship”
James Galbraith
“The Great Financial Crisis at Two Years”
Marlee Matlin and Henry Winkler
“A Conversation with Marlee Matlin and Henry Winkler”
Daniel Glaser
“National Security and the International Financial System”
Jerry Greenfield
“An Evening of Entrepreneurial Spirit, Social Responsibility, and Radical Business Philosophy”
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“Genealogy and Genetics and the African-American Experience”
Samantha Power
“The Age of Genocide”
Carl Bernstein
“Dysfunction: The State of American Politics and Journalism Today”
Cheech Marin
“An Interpretation of a Culture through Chicano Art”
Liz Murray
“From Homeless to Harvard”
Luis Rodriguez
“Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times”
Tavis Smiley
“An Evening with Tavis Smiley”
Jean Chatzky
“Talking Money with Jean Chatzky”
Boots Randolph
“Living the Music”
Mitch Albom
“From Morrie to Heaven: Searching for a Meaningful Life”
Joyce Carol Oates
“Readings and Commentary with Joyce Carol Oates”
Richard Rodriguez
“The Brown Round World: Beyond Multiculturalism and Diversity”
B. D. Wong
“All the World’s a Stage: Supporting the Transformation from Exclusion to Inclusion”
Winona LaDuke
“Politics, Motherhood, and Environmental Justice from a Native Perspective”
Ben Vereen
“An Evening with Ben Vereen”
P. J. O’Rourke
“The Politics of Worry”
Christy Haubegger
“An Evening with Christy Haubegger: The Making of Latina Magazine”
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“The Best of the Best”
Dale Chihuly
“Chihuly on Chihuly”
John Updike
“John Updike: On Writing and His Recent Work”
Cornel West
“The War Against Parents”
Rulon Gardner
“Overcoming Obstacles”
Dinesh D’Souza and Nadine Strossen
“Affirmative Action Debate”
Eleanor Clift
“Inside Politics”
Alan Page
“The Importance of Mentoring Youth”
Edward Albee
“The Playwright vs. the Theatre”
Bianca Jagger
“The Power of One”
Beverly Sills
“Conversation on the Arts”
Jean-Michel Cousteau
“Designing Our Future”
Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Weddington
“Gender Issues Debate”
Douglas L. Wilder
“Social and Political Challenges of the 21st Century”
Joy Harjo
“The Woman Who Fell from the Sky”
Edward James Olmos
“We Are All in the Same Gang”
Molly Ivins
“Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”
Dick Gregory
“An Evening with Dick Gregory”
Daniel J. Boorstin
“Heroes of the Unexpected”
Harry Wu
“China Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”
Studs Terkel
“Coming of Age”
Robert Heilbroner
“After the Millennium: Prospects for 21st Century Capitalism”
Ralph Nader
“Corporate Responsibility in a Global Economy”
Rainn Wilson
“An Evening with Rainn Wilson”
Theresa Payton
“How AI/ChatGPT Is Shaping the Cyber Landscape”
Donna Brazile
“Political Outlook: A Comprehensive Picture of What’s Going On in Washington”
Sarah Thomas
“Breaking Through: My Journey to Becoming the First Female NFL Official”
Michael Beschloss
“What History Can Predict about Our American Political Future”
Tom Nichols
“Defending Experts in an Anti-Factual Age”
Ashley C. Ford
“Somebody’s Daughter”
Monica Lewinsky
“The Price of Shame”
Frank Abagnale
“Catch Me If You Can: An Evening with Frank Abagnale”
Amy Tan
“An Evening with Amy Tan”
Jim Lucas
“Reflections: The Life and Times of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Jeff Corwin
“Tales from the Field with Jeff Corwin”
Bennet Omalu, M.D.
“Don’t Break the Rules: Change the Game!”
Mark Emmert
“College Sports as a Pathway to Opportunity”
Charlie Savage
“Power Wars: Obama, Bush, and the Post 9/11 Presidency”
Jeb Bush
“Leadership, Redefined: An Evening with Jeb Bush”
Garrison Keillor
“An Evening with Garrison Keillor”
Anthony Chan
“The Global Economy”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“This Just In: Latest Discoveries in the Universe”
Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Leadership Lessons of History: Doris Kearns Goodwin on the American Presidents”
Susan Orlean
“My Encounters with Extraordinary People”
Grant Imahara
“Engineering in Entertainment”
Naomi Tutu
“Hard Conversations: Talking about Race and Racism”
Jon Meacham
“Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power”
Jeffrey Toobin
“Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court”
Mia Farrow
“With Knowledge Comes Responsibility: The Darfur Crisis”
Tom Rush and Country Joe McDonald
“Activism: Then and Now”
Patrick Henry Hughes
“Achieving Your Potential”
Rick Steves
“Perspective on Adventure, Culture, and a Changing World”
Andrew Ross Sorkin
“Too Big to Fail”
Ken Auletta
“Googled: The Future of Media”
Sean Astin
“On Acting, Leadership, and Other ‘Very Important’ Stuff”
Sandra Day O’Connor
“And Justice for All”
A. J. Jacobs
“My Year of Living Biblically”
Hal Holbrook
“Mark Twain Tonight!”
David Baldacci
“From Thriller to Tradition: Balancing Between Deadly Suspense and Wistful Southern Fiction”
Eugene Robinson
“Politics and the Nation”
John L. Esposito
“The United States and the Muslim World: What the Next President Should Know”
Gail Sheehy
“New Passages: Finding a Dream for the Second Half of Your Life”
Eric Schlosser
“Fast Food Nation”
Bobby Moresco
“One on One with Bobby Moresco”
Alfre Woodard
“Who Are These Americans?”
Seymour Hersh
“American Foreign Policy”
Azar Nafisi
“Reading Lolita in Tehran: An Evening with Dr. Azar Nafisi”
Janie Fricke
“The Reality of Fame and Stardom”
David Brooks
“The Landscape of American Politics”
Nikki Giovanni
“An Evening with Nikki Giovanni”
Deepak Chopra
“An Evening with Deepak Chopra”
James Earl Jones
“Freedom Through Literacy”
The Capitol Steps
“The Lighter Side of Politics”
Henry Cisneros
“America’s Role in the World: Globalization and the Clash of Cultures”
Barbara Ehrenreich
“Nickel and Dimed”
Barbara Buhler Lynes
“Solving Puzzles, Discovering O’Keeffe: the Georgia O’Keeffe Catalogue Raisonné”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Our Environmental Destiny”
Charlie Trotter
“An Evening with Charlie Trotter”
Jules Feiffer
“My Life and Funny Times”
Wendy Wasserstein
“A Life in the Theatre”
Brent Staples
“The Crisis in Education”
David S. Broder
“What’s Next in American Politics?”
Mitzi Gaynor
“An Evening with Mitzi Gaynor”
Jim Hightower
“If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates”
William Kristol
“A Republican Future?”
Amy Hempel
“Short, Short Prose, Poems, or ‘Couldn’t Finish’”
Joe Clark
“Lean on Me”
Judy Chicago
“Overview: From the Sixties to the Nineties”
Clarence Page
“Race Relations for the New Millennium”
Wolf Blitzer
“The Clinton White House: A Firsthand Report”
Lynne V. Cheney
“Saving Our Schools”
Johnnetta B. Cole
“Trials and Triumphs of African-American Women: Can I Get a Witness?”
Betty Friedan
“Restructuring Family Values”
James R. Hansen, Hans Mark, and Mark N. Brown
“NASA: Present, Past, and Future”
Michael Barbaro
“The Moment Demands an Explanation—The Daily Is on a Mission to Find It”
Rainn Wilson
“An Evening with Rainn Wilson”
Theresa Payton
“How AI/ChatGPT Is Shaping the Cyber Landscape”
Donna Brazile
“Political Outlook: A Comprehensive Picture of What’s Going On in Washington”
Sarah Thomas
“Breaking Through: My Journey to Becoming the First Female NFL Official”
Michael Beschloss
“What History Can Predict about Our American Political Future”
Michael Steele
“The Political Scene According to Steele”
Moogega “Moo” Cooper
“Limitless”
Scott Dikkers
“The Funny Story behind the Funny Stories”
George Takei
“Where No Story Has Gone Before: An Evening with George Takei”
Tom Nichols
“Defending Experts in an Anti-Factual Age”
Ashley C. Ford
“Somebody’s Daughter”
Monica Lewinsky
“The Price of Shame”
Daymond John
“5 Shark Points of Success”
Mike Eruzione
“Going for the Gold”
Loretta Lynch
“A Conversation with the Honorable Loretta Lynch”
CANCELED
Brian Lamb and Mitch Daniels
“A Conversation with Brian Lamb and Mitch Daniels”
CANCELED
Rick Steves
“Travel as a Political Act”
CANCELED
Frank Abagnale
“Catch Me If You Can: An Evening with Frank Abagnale”
Amy Tan
“An Evening with Amy Tan”
Jim Lucas
“Reflections: The Life and Times of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Jeff Corwin
“Tales from the Field with Jeff Corwin”
Lilly Ledbetter
“Grace and Grit: How I Won My Fight at Goodyear and Beyond”
Wes Moore
“From Troubled Teen to Rhodes Scholar: The Transformative Power of Education”
Robert Edsel
“The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History
Captain Mark Kelly
“Endeavour to Succeed”
Bennet Omalu, M.D.
“Don’t Break the Rules: Change the Game!”
Mark Emmert
“College Sports as a Pathway to Opportunity”
Charlie Savage
“Power Wars: Obama, Bush, and the Post 9/11 Presidency”
Jeb Bush
“Leadership, Redefined: An Evening with Jeb Bush”
James Carville and Mary Matalin
“All’s Fair: Love, War, and Politics“
Bill McKibben
“The Climate Fight Reaches Its Crucial Stage”
Eric Olson
“The World at Night”
Garrison Keillor
“An Evening with Garrison Keillor”
Anthony Chan
“The Global Economy”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
“This Just In: Latest Discoveries in the Universe”
Doris Kearns Goodwin
“Leadership Lessons of History: Doris Kearns Goodwin on the American Presidents”
Jim Clifton
“The Coming Jobs War”
Jeanette Walls
“The Glass Castle: Demon Hunting and Other Life Lessons”
Susan Orlean
“My Encounters with Extraordinary People”
Grant Imahara
“Engineering in Entertainment”
Naomi Tutu
“Hard Conversations: Talking about Race and Racism”
Jon Meacham
“Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power”
Jeffrey Toobin
“Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court”
Mia Farrow
“With Knowledge Comes Responsibility: The Darfur Crisis”
The Capitol Steps
“MOCK in Democracy”
Diane Ravich
“Education Reform”
Michele Norris
“If You Meant It, Then You Should Have Put a Stamp on It”
Martha Raddatz
“Global Hotspots from Yemen to Afghanistan and the Arab Spring in Between”
William Dunkelberg
“Unemployment - How Can We Fix It?”
Mitch Daniels
“Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans”
Tom Rush and Country Joe McDonald
“Activism: Then and Now”
Patrick Henry Hughes
“Achieving Your Potential”
Rick Steves
“Perspective on Adventure, Culture, and a Changing World”
Andrew Ross Sorkin
“Too Big to Fail”
Ken Auletta
“Googled: The Future of Media”
Sean Astin
“On Acting, Leadership, and Other ‘Very Important’ Stuff”
Christopher Buckley
“An Evening with Christopher Buckley”
Neil LaBute
“Changing Course: The Serpentine Road to Success”
Jamaica Kincaid
“Reading and Growing up under Colonial Rule”
Andrew Sullivan
“Friendship: The Forgotten Relationship”
James Galbraith
“The Great Financial Crisis at Two Years”
Marlee Matlin and Henry Winkler
“A Conversation with Marlee Matlin and Henry Winkler”
Sandra Day O’Connor
“And Justice for All”
A. J. Jacobs
“My Year of Living Biblically”
Hal Holbrook
“Mark Twain Tonight!”
David Baldacci
“From Thriller to Tradition: Balancing Between Deadly Suspense and Wistful Southern Fiction”
Eugene Robinson
“Politics and the Nation”
John L. Esposito
“The United States and the Muslim World: What the Next President Should Know”
Daniel Glaser
“National Security and the International Financial System”
Jerry Greenfield
“An Evening of Entrepreneurial Spirit, Social Responsibility, and Radical Business Philosophy”
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
“Genealogy and Genetics and the African-American Experience”
Samantha Power
“The Age of Genocide”
Carl Bernstein
“Dysfunction: The State of American Politics and Journalism Today”
Cheech Marin
“An Interpretation of a Culture through Chicano Art”
Gail Sheehy
“New Passages: Finding a Dream for the Second Half of Your Life”
Eric Schlosser
“Fast Food Nation”
Bobby Moresco
“One on One with Bobby Moresco”
Alfre Woodard
“Who Are These Americans?”
Seymour Hersh
“American Foreign Policy”
Azar Nafisi
“Reading Lolita in Tehran: An Evening with Dr. Azar Nafisi”
Liz Murray
“From Homeless to Harvard”
Luis Rodriguez
“Hearts and Hands: Creating Community in Violent Times”
Tavis Smiley
“An Evening with Tavis Smiley”
Jean Chatzky
“Talking Money with Jean Chatzky”
Boots Randolph
“Living the Music”
Mitch Albom
“From Morrie to Heaven: Searching for a Meaningful Life”
Janie Fricke
“The Reality of Fame and Stardom”
David Brooks
“The Landscape of American Politics”
Nikki Giovanni
“An Evening with Nikki Giovanni”
Deepak Chopra
“An Evening with Deepak Chopra”
James Earl Jones
“Freedom Through Literacy”
The Capitol Steps
“The Lighter Side of Politics”
Joyce Carol Oates
“Readings and Commentary with Joyce Carol Oates”
Richard Rodriguez
“The Brown Round World: Beyond Multiculturalism and Diversity”
B. D. Wong
“All the World’s a Stage: Supporting the Transformation from Exclusion to Inclusion”
Winona LaDuke
“Politics, Motherhood, and Environmental Justice from a Native Perspective”
Ben Vereen
“An Evening with Ben Vereen”
P. J. O’Rourke
“The Politics of Worry”
Henry Cisneros
“America’s Role in the World: Globalization and the Clash of Cultures”
Barbara Ehrenreich
“Nickel and Dimed”
Barbara Buhler Lynes
“Solving Puzzles, Discovering O’Keeffe: the Georgia O’Keeffe Catalogue Raisonné”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Our Environmental Destiny”
Charlie Trotter
“An Evening with Charlie Trotter”
Christy Haubegger
“An Evening with Christy Haubegger: The Making of Latina Magazine”
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
“The Best of the Best”
Dale Chihuly
“Chihuly on Chihuly”
John Updike
“John Updike: On Writing and His Recent Work”
Cornel West
“The War Against Parents”
Rulon Gardner
“Overcoming Obstacles”
Jules Feiffer
“My Life and Funny Times”
Wendy Wasserstein
“A Life in the Theatre”
Brent Staples
“The Crisis in Education”
David S. Broder
“What’s Next in American Politics?”
Mitzi Gaynor
“An Evening with Mitzi Gaynor”
Jim Hightower
“If the Gods Had Meant Us to Vote They Would Have Given Us Candidates”
Dinesh D’Souza and Nadine Strossen
“Affirmative Action Debate”
Eleanor Clift
“Inside Politics”
Alan Page
“The Importance of Mentoring Youth”
Edward Albee
“The Playwright vs. the Theatre”
Bianca Jagger
“The Power of One”
Beverly Sills
“Conversation on the Arts”
William Kristol
“A Republican Future?”
Amy Hempel
“Short, Short Prose, Poems, or ‘Couldn’t Finish’”
Joe Clark
“Lean on Me”
Judy Chicago
“Overview: From the Sixties to the Nineties”
Clarence Page
“Race Relations for the New Millennium”
Jean-Michel Cousteau
“Designing Our Future”
Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Weddington
“Gender Issues Debate”
Douglas L. Wilder
“Social and Political Challenges of the 21st Century”
Joy Harjo
“The Woman Who Fell from the Sky”
Edward James Olmos
“We Are All in the Same Gang”
Molly Ivins
“Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?”
Wolf Blitzer
“The Clinton White House: A Firsthand Report”
Lynne V. Cheney
“Saving Our Schools”
Johnnetta B. Cole
“Trials and Triumphs of African-American Women: Can I Get a Witness?”
Betty Friedan
“Restructuring Family Values”
James R. Hansen, Hans Mark, and Mark N. Brown
“NASA: Present, Past, and Future”
Dick Gregory
“An Evening with Dick Gregory”
Daniel J. Boorstin
“Heroes of the Unexpected”
Harry Wu
“China Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”
Studs Terkel
“Coming of Age”
Robert Heilbroner
“After the Millennium: Prospects for 21st Century Capitalism”
Ralph Nader
“Corporate Responsibility in a Global Economy”