Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker Series

Thank you to everyone who attended the 2023 Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker Series events featuring Poverty, by America author Dr. Matthew Desmond. Stay tuned for the 2024 speaker announcement!

About the series

The Martha Jean Lemon Distinguished Speaker Series features annual events that enrich the academic environment for the University and the surrounding community. Programs may relate to the arts and sciences, business, dance and entertainment, law, music, nursing, theater or religious topics.

The lecture series is supported through an endowment gift from Lynette Lemon Wert and Larry H. Lemon in 2010 on behalf of the Lemon family of Oklahoma City, in honor of Martha Jean Lemon, who graduated from OCU in 1968 with a degree in history and worked as an independent comparative religion scholar.

This series continues OCU’S tradition of the Distinguished Speakers Series which has included speakers such as David Brooks, Marian Wright Edelman, Henry Louis Gates, Jane Goodall, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jonathan Kozol, Rabbi Harold Kushner, N. Scott Momaday, Bill Moyers, Sister Helen Prejean, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Andrew Weil, Fabian Cousteau, Reza Aslan and David Grann, as well as Nobel Laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, Wangari Maathai and Jody Williams.