Lecture Series

The Friends of the University of Alberta provide a number of lecture series including:

Henry Marshall Tory Lectures

Named after one of the founders and the first president of the University of Alberta, the Henry Marshall Tory Lecture is a free public lecture featuring outstanding local, national and international speakers, to engage the broader community on academic and societal topics while providing a connection between the community and the University.

At the University’s first convocation address in 1908, President Henry Marshall Tory insisted that the University be connected “as closely as possible to the life of the people,” and that the “uplifting of the whole people shall be its final goal.” Tory closed his remarks with a pledge “to the people of this province to unite in heart and soul to administer this trust for the public good.”

Since 1956, The Friends have met Tory’s charge to uplift the whole people by presenting the Henry Marshall Tory Lectures.

2023 Samantha Nutt
“Leading Change in a Complex World”
2022 Arno Kopecky
“The Tyranny of Freedom”
2021 W. Andy Knight
“Governing Disorder in our Intermestic World”
2020 Dan Riskin
“Making Science Accessible to Canadians in the Age of COVID-19”
2019 Chantal Hébert
“Canada’s post-election landscape: a harbinger of turbulence to come on the unity front”
2018
(Autumn)
Jim Hole
“Cannabis, the Plant Not the Politics”
2018
(Spring)
The Right Honourable Kim Campbell
“Preparing 21st Century Leaders”
2017 The Honourable Russell Brown
Supreme Court of Canada
“Judicial Review: Why the Fuss?”
2014 Dr. Ibolja Cernak
Professor and Chair of the Canadian Military and Veterans’ Clinical Rehabilitation
“Responsibility for Soldiers as a Measure of Societal Maturity”
2012 Don Tapscott
Authority on innovation, media, and the economic and social impact of technology
Delivered the lecture at the Festival of Ideas: Shifting Tectonic Social Plates
2011 Ambassador David Jacobson
29th United States Ambassador to Canada
“Neighbors, Friends, Partners and Allies: Strengthening our Bilateral Relationship”
2010 Tim Flannery
Author, Scientist
“How Man is Changing the Climate: What it Means for Life on Earth”
2008 Edward O. Wilson
Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology, Harvard University
“How the hand of evolution shapes every aspect of life”
2007 Ambassador David H. Wilkins
28th United States Ambassador to Canada
Canada-U.S. Relations
2005 Professor Margaret MacMillan
Provost and Vice-Chancellor, Trinity College, University of Toronto, author of the award-winning Paris 1919
“The Art of Peace”
2002 The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin
Chief Justice of Canada
“Putting it All in Context – Judicial Reasoning in a Complex World”
2000 Dr. Jaroslav Pelikan
Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University
“My Library was Dukedom Large Enough: The Tenacity of the Humanistic Tradition”
1997 Professor John Mueller
University of Rochester
“The Art of Fred Astaire”
1996 The Right Honourable Ramon John Hnatyshyn
Governor General of Canada 1990 – 1995
“Reflections on a Public Life”
1994 Dr. Roberta Lynn Bondar
Astronaut, Neurologist, Researcher
“Where Out of this World Are We?”
1993 Derek Brewer
Professor Emeritus, Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England
“In Search of Chaucer”
1992 Helen Forrester
Novelist and autobiographer
1989 Stephen Lewis
Former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations
1987 Her Excellency the Right Honourable Jeanne Sauve
Chancellor, University of Manitoba
Governor General of Canada
1984 Lord Asa Briggs
Provost, Worcester College, Oxford
1982 Dr. Harold Masursky
United States Geological Survey
1981 Mr. James J. MacDonell FCA, FMC
Chairman, Board of Governors of the
Canadian Comprehensive Auditing Foundation, Ottawa
1979 Professor Sir William Hawthorne CBE, FRS
Professor of Applied Thermodynamics,
University of Cambridge, England
1978 Professor H. Northrop Frye
University of Toronto
1977 Sir Harold Mitchell B.T.
Chief Executive, Luscar Ltd., Zermatt, Switzerland
1976 His Excellency Thomas O. Enders
19th United States Ambassador to Canada
1975 Commissioner S. M. Hodgson
Northwest Territories, Yellowknife
1974 Professor F. R. Hayes
Professor of Biology, Dalhousie University
1973 Professor Phillip Tobias
Head of the Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
1972 Professor Zelman Cowen
Vice-Chancellor, University of Queensland, Australia
1971 Dr. Claude Bissel
Former President, University of Toronto
1970 The Honourable Mr. Justice W. G. Morrow
Judge of the Territorial Court of the Northwest Territories
1969 Dr. A. W. Trueman
Chancellor, University of Western Ontario
1968 Lord Hankey
British Diplomat
1967 Professor James Barrington
Visiting Professor of International Relations,
University of Alberta
1966 Chester Ronning
Canadian Diplomat, expert on China
1965 Blair Fraser
Newspaperman and journalist
1964 Dr. Wilder Penfield
Neurosurgeon, Royal Victoria and Montreal General Hospitals
1963 C. Northcote Parkinson “East and West”, “Parkinson’s Laws”
Author, historian and journalist, President of Parkinson Institute
1962 Mr. Justice Samuel Freedman
Judge, Manitoba Court of Appeal,
Chancellor, University of Manitoba
1961 Ezra Taft Benson
United States Secretary of Agriculture
1960 James M. Minifie
CBC Washington Correspondent
1959 Sir Grantley Adams
First Prime Minister of the Federation of West Indies,
Founder and leader of Barbados Labour Movement
1958 Sidney E. Smith
Secretary of State for External Affairs, Dean of Law,
Dalhousie University, President, University of Manitoba, President, University of Toronto
1957 Sir Alan P. Herbert
Author, former M.P.
1956 Lewis W. Douglas
United States Ambassador to Great Britain

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Annual Dinner Lectures

Presented by The Friends of the University of Alberta

2019 Dr. Lee Foote, Director, University of Alberta Botanic Garden
2018 Dr. Steven Penney, professor from the Faculty of Law
2017 Douglas Stollery, Chancellor, University of Alberta
2016 Dr. David Turpin, President and Vice Chancellor, University of Alberta
2015 Dr. Jonathan Schaeffer, Dean of Science, University of Alberta
2014 Dr. Joseph Doucet, Dean, Alberta School of Business, University of Alberta
2013 Katy Campbell, Dean, Faculty of Extension, University of Alberta
2012 Allen Berger, Dean, Augustana College, University of Alberta
2011 Lesley Cormack, Dean of Arts, University of Alberta
2010 Sean Price, Executive Director, Alumni Association, University of Alberta
2009 Linda Hughes, Chancellor, University of Alberta
2008 Dr. Rosalind Sydie, Executive Director Centenary 2008, University of Alberta
2007 Brian Heidecker, Chair Board of Governors, University of Alberta
2006 Indira Samarasakera, President, University of Alberta
2005 Eric Newell, Chancellor, University of Alberta
2004 Dr. Carl Amhrein, Provost, University of Alberta
2003 Daniel Woolf, Dean of Arts, University of Alberta
2002 Dr. Doug Owram, Provost, University of Alberta
2001 John Ferguson, Chancellor, University of Alberta
2000 Kenneth Norrie, Dean of Arts, University of Alberta
1999 Lois Hole, Chancellor, University of Alberta

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Hurtig Lectures on the Future of Canada

supported by The Friends of the University of Alberta

2013h2013 Ms. Armine Yalnizyan, Senior Economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA)
and Vice President of the Canadian Association for Business Economics
“The Future of Canada. Why inequality is a problem in Canada and what we can do about it.”
2012h2012 George Elliott Clark, 2005 Trudeau Fellow
2011h2011 Lawrence Martin, Canadian journalist and author
2010 Mary Simon, President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
2009 Neil Macdonald, Canadian journalist2009 10 03 4th Hurtig Lecture
2008 Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist2008 10 01 3rd Hurtig Lecture
2007 Heather Mallick, Canadian columnist, author and lecturer
2006 Peter C. Newman, Canadian journalist and writer

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