On Tuesday, I have the great honor of giving the 28th Annual R. Dan Boulware Convocation at Missouri Western State University (MWSU). The keynote address, “Crisis of Faith: The Rise and Fall of Free Speech,” will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at the Complex Arena. Admission is free for the public.  The Convocation has had a diverse and distinguished line of speakers including the late Cokie Roberts, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Colin Powell, Bill Bradley, Martin Luther King III, and others listed below. It is a unique and long-standing program that brings together people of different viewpoints for civil discussions of the controversies of our times.  MWSU has long cultivated an environment of intellectual tolerance and diversity. The convocation is the pinnacle of that tradition.

The R. Dan Boulware Convocation on Critical Issues program began in 1993 under the presidency of Dr. Janet Gorman Murphy. It was named in honor of R. Dan Boulware, former president of the Board of Regents.

At the inaugural Convocation, R. Dan Boulware, declared:

“Today we start what we hope will become a tradition at Missouri Western State College. When students graduate from our college, if they have not been enlightened as to issues affecting our society and challenged to apply their skills and talents for the benefit of others, then somehow we will have missed the point of why they are here. If as faculty, administrators and educators, we do not strive to enhance our understanding of critical issues, we cannot properly educate our students and otherwise prepare and stimulate them to contribute to society. As citizens, if we do not deliberate upon the critical issues affecting our time, we cannot expect to understand them well enough to solve them.

These Convocations are intended to bring in learned and prominent national speakers to focus upon the critical issues of our time, stimulate thought and foster debate, to cause us to open our minds and consider for the moment, that which we may not have pondered and expand the horizons of our thought and knowledge. And in so doing, may we challenge one another to lift the educational process at this college to yet greater heights. Hopefully, these Convocations will become a focal point of our academic year for years to come and serve as a source of enlightenment to our entire community.”