About the Beall-Russell Lectures

The Beall-Russell Lectures in the Humanities were established in 1982 with a financial gift from Virginia B. Ball of Muncie, Indiana. She named the lecture series in honor of her mother, Mrs. John A. Beall, and Lily Russell, former dean of women at Baylor, both Baylor alumnae of the Class of 1910. The purpose of the lectures is to provide an opportunity for Baylor students and faculty to meet and hear speakers renowned in the humanities. 

Dr. Helen Hennessy Vendler of Boston University delivered the first Beall-Russell Lecture in the Humanities on October 6, 1982. Vendler, winner of the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Criticism in 1981, spoke on “Keats’ Autumn Ode.”

Past lecturers have included poet Maya Angelou, journalist Bill Moyers, historian David McCullough, documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, musician Wynton Marsalis and Nobel Prize for Literature winner Czeslaw Milosz. The full list of past lecturers is available at the Past Lecturers page. 

Mrs. Ball subsequently funded the establishment of the Beall Poetry Festival at Baylor University in 1993, encouraging contemporary poetry. She died in 2005, but her legacy continues through the ongoing generosity of the Ball family, whose gifts benefit both the University and the greater Waco community.