Past Speakers Timeline

1963 to 1975

March 1963 - Harrison Salisbury, Pulitzer prize winner. Returned Sept. of 1971 as an assistant editor of The New York Times.

March 1963 - Norman Mailer, American novelist and journalist. Returned Oct. 1972.

April 1970 - Arthur Clarke, Sci-fi author. His work influenced Stanley Kubrick's 2001, A Space Odyssey.

Nov. 1971 - Bill Russell, basketball athlete. Won several championships with the Celtics.

Dec. 1971 - Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, the first doctor to perform an open-heart transplant.

March 1971 - Ann Landers, from the infamous "Dear Abby" syndicated column.

March 1972 - Dick Gregory, a man who became famous for fasting for 11 months to protest the war in Indochina.

June 1972 - Kathleen Kennedy, eldest daughter of Sen. Robert Kennedy.

Sept. 1972 - Sen. Edward Kennedy.

Nov. 1972 -Arthur Schlessinger, Vietnam historian and author. Returned again 20 years later as a part of SA's Distinguished Speaker series.

Nov. 1972 - Stephen Rowan, local newscaster for WBEN.

Sept. 1973 - Jack Anderson, Washington columnist and Pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter.

Oct. 1973 - Bill Bradley, No. 24, basketball world champion with the New York Knicks. He later became a senator.

Oct. 1973 - Rod Serling, an actor from The Twilight Zone and President of the Television Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Oct. 1973 - Allen Ginsberg, poet. He returned in March 1988.

Nov. 1973 - Lester Maddox, Georgia's then Lieutenant Governor and host of The Lester Maddox Show. He was ill received by students, who threw black paper airplanes at him. He became angry and threw one back.

Nov. 1973 - William Ruckelshaus, former assistant attorney general.

Nov. 1973 - Jonathan Kozol, author and educator. Asked students to fast on Thanksgiving in protest of uneducated children in the ghetto.

Dec. 1973 - Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek's Mr. Spock.

Sept. 1974 - Moe Howard, from the Three Stooges. He was 77 years old.

Feb. 1974 - David Williams and Harvey Yazijian, members of the assassination information bureau, revealed their findings that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone.

1976 to 1986

Nov. 1976 - William Shatner, actor.

Nov. 1976 - Cheech and Chong, the famous movie duo.

Feb. 1977 -Simon Wiesethal, Nazi hunter who went undercover to catch former Nazi officials. Also known as the Jewish James Bond.

Sept. 1977 -James Doohan, Scotty from Star Trek.

Jan. 1978 - Jim Bouton, author, former sportscaster and then minor league ball player.

April 1978 - Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet and novelist.

Sept. 1978 - Hunter S. Thompson, the "gonzo guru" of journalism. He arrived drunk an hour late.

Sept. 1980 - Andrew Young, former UN ambassador.

Oct. 1981 - Michael Manley, former prime minister of Jamaica.

Oct. 1982 - Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Road Runner.

Dec. 1983 - Tony Brown, journalist and star of Tony Brown's Journal.

1987 to 1997, The start of the SA Distinguished Speakers Series

Nov. 1987 - John Tower, former US Senator who was chosen by Reagan to lead the Iran-Contra scandal investigation.

April 1988 - Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman vice presidential candidate on a national party ticket. She returned March of 1991 and spoke on the needs of aging people.

Sept. 1988 - Gerald Ford, former US president.

Nov. 1988 - John Demjanjuk, defense attorney for a convicted Nazi war criminal.

Dec. 1988 - Lesley Stahl, a CBS new national affairs correspondent.

Dec. 1988 - Rev. Al Sharpton.

Jan. 1989 - Desmond M. Tutu, Anglican Archbishop in South Africa.

May 1989 - Jimmy Carter, former US president.

May 1989 - Tom Brokaw, anchor for NBC News came.

Feb. 1990 - Ellen Schulman Baker, former UB graduate and astronaut on space shuttle Atlantis.

Oct. 1991 - Dennis Miller, comedian.

Oct. 1991 - Jay Leno, comedian and nightly talk show host.

Sept. 1991 - Peter Arnett, Pulitzer prize winner and CNN correspondent well known for interviewing Saddam Hussein.

Feb. 1992 - Cheryl Miller, an ABC sports and ESPN commentator, as well as leading scorer for the 1984 gold medal-winning US Olympic basketball team.

Oct. 1992 - Carl Djerass, invented the birth control pill.

Oct. 1992 - Ross Perot, presidential candidate.

Nov. 1992 - Lisa Williamson, stage name "Sister Souljah" of the rap group Public Enemy.

Sept. 1993 - Dick Cheney, former US Secretary of Defense and later Vice President of the United States.

Feb. 1993 - Spike Lee, African American filmmaker.

Oct. 1994 - The McLaughlin Group, members of a PBS political talk show.

Oct. 1994 - Steven Wright, comedian.

Oct. 1994 - Billy Baldwin and Robert Kennedy Jr, politicians.

Oct. 1995 - Rita Dove, the youngest and first African American woman Poet Laureate (served 1993 to 1995).

April 1996 -Danny Glover and Felix Justice, award winning actors.

Feb. 1997 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, NBA hall of famer.

April 1997 - Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature.

Oct. 1997 - Carol Burnett, comedian/actress.

April 1998 - Maya Angelou, author.

Sept. 1998 - General Colin Powell, former US Secretary of State and presidential adviser and author. Came again in Oct. 2005.

Feb. 1999 - Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr. and President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

April 1999 - Tommy Lasorda, former manager of the LA Dodgers and member of the Baseball hall of fame.

Oct. 1999 - George Bush, former president of US.

March 2000 - George Stephanopoulos, political scientist.

Oct. 2000- John Glenn, American Legend.

Nov. 2000 - Mary Higgins Clark, best selling mystery author.

April 2002 - Ken Burns, celebrated filmmaker.

April 2002 - Bill Clinton, former US president.

March 2001 - Sidney Poitier, Oscar winning author and actor.

Oct. 2001 - Jane Goodall, who studied chimpanzees for over 30 years.

Nov. 2001 - Madeleine Albright, 64th secretary of state

Oct. 2002 - Katie Couric, former co-anchor of NBC's Today Show.

Nov. 2002 - Rudy Giuliani, 107th mayor of New York City.

Sept. 2003 - Antwone Fisher, Hollywood Producer, screenwriter and author.

Oct. 2003 - Wolf Blitzer, CNN news anchor and UB alumnus.

Nov. 2003 - Bill Cosby, comedian, actor and author.

March 2004 - Joyce Carol Oates, best selling and critically acclaimed author.

April 2004 - Tim Russert, NBC senior vice president, producer moderator of Meet the Press.

Sept. 2004 - Donald Trump, chairman and president of The Trump Organization, producer and star of the Apprentice.

March 2005 - Janet Reno, former US Attorney General debated columnist and political commentator Ann Coulter.

April 2005 - Salman Rushdie, internationally acclaimed novelist and public intellectual.

April 2006 - Conan O'Brien, comedian and host of Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Feb. 2006 - Tavis Smiley, host of The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS.