Betsy K. McCreight Lecture in the Humanities

The Board of Directors of the West Virginia Humanities Council established the annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities to honor the leadership of Betsy Keadle McCreight, who died in 1985. McCreight was a founding board member, serving the Council as treasurer, vice president, and president. She believed that the humanities were at the heart of a democratic society, a necessary source of wisdom and vision.

Presented each October, the McCreight Lecture affords West Virginians the opportunity to hear nationally respected scholars and public intellectuals on a variety of humanities topics. McCreight Lecturers have included Ken Burns, Joyce Carol Oates, Joseph Ellis, Sylvia Nasar, Henry Louis Gates, Elaine Pagels, Gordon Wood, James McPherson, Edmund Morris and Annette Gordon-Reed.

Award-winning journalists and bestselling authors James and Deborah Fallows are the featured speakers at the McCreight Lecture at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 20. The Fallows are the creative minds behind the HBO documentary Our Towns, which is drawn from their 2018 New York Times bestselling book Our Towns: A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America. The lecture will be held in Riggleman Hall at the University of Charleston. The event is free and open to the public.