All events are admission-free, and doors open 30 minutes prior to the beginning of each one. All facilities are accessible without climbing stairs, and audio-description services and interpreter requests will be accommodated, as time allows. Please request these services as early as possible to provide us adequate time to make the necessary arrangements. Requests and other questions can be directed to wittseries@wittenberg.edu.
- Directions & Campus Maps
- Audio-description services and foreign language and ASL interpreters will be provided with sufficient notice prior to each event. Questions may be sent to wittseries@wittenberg.edu.
2025-2026 Wittenberg Series Events
Opening Convocation
Christian M. M. Brady, DPhil (Oxon.)
President, Wittenberg University
10 a.m., Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025
Weaver Chapel
- Presentation Title: “Hope”
- Event Program
A transformational administrator, respected scholar, author, and Episcopal priest, Dr. Christian M. M. Brady serves as the 16th President of Wittenberg University. Having navigated profound grief, Dr. Brady authored Beautiful and Terrible Things and has since forged a unique public theology that defines his work and community engagement.
Musical Performance
Lindsay Deutsch and Jason Stoll
Violin and Piano Duo
7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025
Weaver Chapel
This powerhouse duo takes the crowd on a whirlwind journey through the hits of the centuries, expressing a variety of musical styles from classical to jazz to the popular hits of today. Trained at the world’s top conservatories, Lindsay Deutsch on violin and Jason Stoll on piano showcase their dazzling technique as they perform masterpieces by the rockstars of yesteryear such as Bach and Beethoven and draw parallels to the entertainers that audiences grew up with including Frank Sinatra, Elton John, and Billy Joel. Spiced with humor and laughs and a bit of history, audiences everywhere rave about these unique artists and their diverse and entertaining programming.
Lessons and Carols for Advent & Christmas
7:30 p.m. Friday, December 5, 2025
Pre-service music begins at 7 p.m.
Weaver Chapel
As the Advent season unfolds, this annual tradition offers a time of music and reflection. Music will be provided in collaboration with Wittenberg students, alumni, and the Springfield Symphony Choir.
Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation
Christopher Thompson ’94
Founder & Executive Coach, CORE INCLUSIVE CONSULTING LLC
11 a.m. Monday, January 19, 2026
Weaver Chapel
- Presentation Title: “The Light We Find, The Light We Carry”
- Event Program
Christopher Thompson ’94 is an executive advisor, keynote speaker, author, and leadership coach who equips leaders to strengthen the core of who they are so their impact lasts. Thompson is the founder of CORE Inclusive Consulting, a leadership and development firm that helps organizations build cultures where people grow, teams thrive, and leaders operate with clarity, courage, and confidence. He is the author of the upcoming book Strong Core: The Inner Work That Grows Lasting Leaders.
William A. Kinnison Endowed Lecture in History
Benjamin H. Irvin, Ph.D.
Social and Cultural Historian of Early America and the U.S.
7 p.m., Monday, Feb. 23, 2026
Bayley Auditorium, Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center
- Presentation Title: “I Still Have an Independent Spirit: Disabled Veterans and Pension Assistance after the Revolutionary War”
Benjamin H. Irvin, associate professor of history at Indiana University and past executive editor of the Journal of American History, is a historian of the American Revolution. His book Clothed in Robes of Sovereignty: The Continental Congress and the People Out of Doors (Oxford, 2011), which examines the fraught relationship between Congress and the American people, was named a 2011 Choice Outstanding Academic Title and a finalist for the 2012 George Washington Book Prize. Irvin’s current project – tentatively entitled Independent Spirit: Revolutionary War Veterans and Disability in the Early United States – reconstructs the efforts of sick and wounded soldiers to eke their subsistence from state and federal disability pensions.
Kenneth H. Sauer Luther Symposium
Ralph Keen, Ph.D.
Author and Historian of Early Modern Europe
7 p.m., Monday, March 16, 2026
Weaver Chapel
Fred R. Leventhal Family Lecture
Jeff Hobbs
New York Times Bestselling Author
7 p.m., Tuesday, April 14, 2026
Bayley Auditorium, Barbara Deer Kuss Science Center
- Presentation Title: “Race, Class, and Identity in American Universities: How Students Experience School – And One Another”
Jeff Hobbs is the author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace (2014), which was a New York Times bestseller, winner of the LA Times Book Award, finalist for the Carnegie Medal and PEN Award in biography, and adapted into the 2024 film ROB PEACE. He is also the author of Show Them You’re Good (2020), Children of the State (2023), and Seeking Shelter (2025), which was selected as a best book of the year by Amazon and The New Yorker. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and teaches nonfiction writing at Yale University.
Wittenberg Series Archives
- 2024-25 Wittenberg Series
- 2023-24 Wittenberg Series
- 2022-23 Wittenberg Series
- 2020-22 Wittenberg Series Events (limited due to pandemic restrictions)
- 2019-20 Wittenberg Series
- 2018-19 Wittenberg Series
- 2017-18 Wittenberg Series
Click here to see complete history of all Wittenberg Series performers/speakers since the program's inception in 1982.