List of past Liberty University graduation speakers

There’s a discussion going on among Liberty alumni on LinkedIn about who should be the 2011 graduation speaker at Liberty. In summary, most of the nominations are either Fox News personalities, politicians (mostly right of center, natch), or Christian authors. My suggestion that former Moral Majority lieutenant and Liberty dean and professor Ed Dobson would make a good selection did not meet with universal approval, partly because of Dobson’s appearance on Good Morning America in 2008:

Here’s a list of Liberty graduation speakers from 1985 on; I’d appreciate any help in filling gaps

• 1985 Senator Bill Armstrong, R-Colorado
• 1986 Donald Hodel, Secretary of the Interior
• 1987
• 1988 Lt. Col. (Ret.) Oliver North
• 1989 W. A. Criswell
• 1990 President George H. W. Bush
• 1991 Rep. Newt Gingrich
• 1992 Pat Buchanan
• 1993 Dr. James Dobson
• 1994
• 1995 Sen. Phil Gramm
• 1996 Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas
• 1997 Billy Graham
• 1998 Dr. John Borek Jr. (outgoing President of the school)
• 1999
• 2000
• 2001
• 2002
• 2003
• 2004 Karl Rove
• 2005 Sean Hannity
• 2006 Sen. John McCain
• 2007 Rep. Newt Gingrich
• 2008 Chuck Norris
• 2009 Ben Stein
• 2010 Glen Beck

I think it’s interesting to note that during the heyday of Moral Majority the speakers were relatively minor figures; it’s important to note that during those days Liberty was still a school of less than 6000 students. Resident enrollment has doubled since then, and total enrollment has increased eight-or-nine-fold. It’s also interesting to note that the three speakers selected since Jerry Sr. died have all been commentators and entertainers. I have no idea what that means.

Among the names above only two are preachers: Criswell and Graham, so I’d be really surprised to see Liberty select another high-profile Christian preacher or author who isn’t also involved in politics somehow for 2011.

Video for the 1996, 2004, and 2006 addresses are available at C-SPAN [search].

Finally: it’s interesting to note that of the twenty or so names commonly mentioned as possible 2012 Republican Presidential nominees, only Newt Gingrich is listed above. That may or may not be significant; I do think it’s interesting that Mike Huckabee isn’t on that list. Mitt Romney not so much.