A selection of fascinating figures will be profiled during this year’s William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series at the University of Mary Washington. The 22nd season of the popular series was announced Tuesday evening at a presentation that welcomed over 160 supporters, donors and sponsors to UMW’s Jepson Alumni Executive Center.
This year, bestselling biographers will shine a light on senator and civil rights leader John Lewis, broadcast journalist Barbara Walters, controversial baseball great Pete Rose, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and over a dozen other notable individuals from history and culture.
Yet, of all the larger-than-life personalities highlighted on Nov. 12, the one that drew the most applause was series founder and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History William Crawley, who announced his retirement. His co-director, Scott Harris ’83, executive director of UMW Museums, will oversee the series – the latest installment of which starts on Jan. 21, 2025 – moving forward.
UMW students and the local community have been the beneficiaries of Great Lives, Crawley said, which began as an academic course offered by UMW’s Department of History and American Studies with a free public lecture series.
John and Mary Lou Chappell, the founding donor and his wife, who are long-time supporters of Great Lives, enabled the series to attract biographers who provide insight into the lives of the world’s most prominent personalities. In 2016, the program was renamed the William B. Crawley Great Lives Lecture Series. Numerous local organizations, corporations and individuals throughout the Fredericksburg area sponsor lectures and support the series.
“No one has benefited perhaps more than I have, because [Great Lives] has allowed me to interact with some of the most interesting and preeminent writers and scholars of our time … including a number of Pulitzer Prize winners,” Crawley said. Under his leadership, the series has featured more than 325 subjects in the last two decades, with many of the lectures later broadcast on C-SPAN.
“Bill, you are a wonderful representative and role model for our students today,” UMW President Troy Paino said. “You’ve started something that brings together the community, and I want to thank you for making the Great Lives series possible.”
Harris, who was one of Crawley’s students and has served as Great Lives co-director for the past year, earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in history and historic preservation from Mary Washington and a master’s in history and museum administration from the College of William and Mary.
He has been employed at UMW since 2011 and has served in his current role since 2018, overseeing Gari Melchers Home and Studio at Belmont, the James Monroe Museum and the Papers of James Monroe. He is past president of the Virginia Association of Museums and is an editorial advisor and frequent contributor to the White House Historical Association’s journal, White House History Quarterly.
“Bill, you have been my teacher, my colleague and my friend,” Harris said. “It’s been a privilege to work with you over this past year on Great Lives, and I’m more honored than I can say to succeed you.”
This year’s series kicks off Jan. 21, with New York Times bestselling author and reporter Liza Mundy’s The Sisterhood: The Secret Women of the CIA, spotlighting the female operatives who have gathered intelligence for the United States over the last century. Mundy is also the author of Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, which she brought to UMW in 2018.
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Physics Bulent Atalay will delve into the world’s most brilliant brains in a lecture titled “Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein.” A scientist, writer and artist, Atalay is the author of Beyond Genius: A Journey Through the Characteristics and Legacies of Transformative Minds.
Other lectures will chronicle the lives of Twilight Zone creator and host Rod Serling, enslaved African American poet Phillis Wheatley, First Lady Pat Nixon, starlet and inventor Hedy Lamarr and even Jay Gatsby, referring to both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous novel and its titular character. Audiences will also have the chance to learn about the unlikely friendship between astronaut John Glenn and baseball legend Ted Williams, Confederate general James Longstreet, President James A. Garfield and Captain James Cook.
Great Lives lectures are held Tuesdays and Thursdays through the end of March 2025. All are open to the public free of charge and begin at 7:30 p.m. in George Washington Hall’s Dodd Auditorium.
Dates, topics, speakers and sponsors for 2025 are:
Jan. 21
Women of the CIA, presented by Liza Mundy. The Chancellor’s Village Lecture.
Jan. 23
Pete Rose, presented by Keith O’Brien. The John and Linda Coker Lecture.
Jan. 28
Rod Serling, presented by Anne Serling. The Russell Mait and Barbara Stone Mait ’79 Lecture.
Jan. 30
Barbara Walters, presented by Susan Page. The Gemini 3 Group Lecture.
Feb. 4
John Glenn and Ted Williams, presented by Adam Lazarus. The Davenport & Company Lecture.
Feb. 6
Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, presented by Mark Lee Gardner. The Synergy Periodontics and Implants Lecture.
Feb. 13
John Lewis, presented by Raymond Arsenault. The Irene and Curry Roberts Lecture.
Feb. 18
Captain James Cook, presented by Hampton Sides. The Stephen Gaske and Patricia Powers Gaske ’75 Lecture.
Feb. 20
James A. Garfield, presented by C.W. Goodyear. The Yuh Prosthodontics Lecture.
Feb. 25
Da Vinci, Shakespeare, Newton, Beethoven, and Einstein, presented by Bulent Atalay. The Coldwell Banker Elite Lecture.
Feb. 27
Phillis Wheatly: America’s First Black Poet, presented by David Waldstreicher. The UMW Museums Lecture.
March 11
James Longstreet, presented by Elizabeth Varon. The Walter Jervis Sheffield Lecture.
March 13
Pat Nixon, presented by Heath Hardage Lee. The Jubilation by Silver Companies Lecture.
March 18
Hedy Lamarr, presented by Stephen Michael Shearer. The Roxanne M. Kaufman Lecture.
March 20
Jay Gatsby, presented by Bob Batchelor. The UMW Dining Lecture.
For information on Great Lives sponsorships, please contact Jeremy Vaughn ’08 in the Office of University Advancement at jvaughn@umw.edu or 540-654-2063.
