Illinois College still seeking speaker for annual Phi Alpha lecture

By Gary Scott on July 29, 2016 at 3:30pm

It appears as though Illinois College has received some unfortunate news regarding their annual Phi Alpha lecture.

The school had been in talks with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersch about arrangements to speak at the series. However, according to IC’s dean of faculty Adam Porter, it appears that Hersch is no longer available.

“He’s a political writer, he’s an investigative journalist. I think with the election coming up, his schedule has gotten really crazy. We had been talking about having him come to give the Phi Alpha lecture. Phi Alpha is one of our literary societies. We try and get a speaker to come some time during the academic year.,” says Porter.

Porter continues to have discussions with Hersch and hopes the award-winning journalist is available to visit Illinois College at a later date.

Given the past success of the Phi Alpha speaker series, Porter remains confident in landing a big name for the annual lecture.

“We’ve a lot of important speakers. We’ve had a number of different politicians, journalists come. Helen Thomas was a women who was in the White House press core for thirty-plus years, quite a significant journalist as well. Dick Durbin, I believe, spoke but that would’ve probably been ten years ago. We’ve had a number of people whose names you’d recognize. I have every reason to think that we’ll get somebody else to come do the Phi Alpha lecture,” Porter says

No official date has been set for the annual lecture, though it is tentatively scheduled to take place in September.