The Fall 2026 Honors Program Speaker Series invites the Asbury community and public to engage important questions about what it means to live, love, choose, and flourish.
The Asbury University Honors Program will welcome two distinguished scholars to campus this fall for its Honors Program Speaker Series. The Fall 2026 lineup brings sociologist Dr. Brad Wilcox and philosopher Dr. Jeff Koperski to Asbury for two evenings of learning and dialogue.
The series begins Monday, October 5, 2026, with Dr. Brad Wilcox’s lecture, “Mammon or Marriage? How to Find Fulfillment in Life & Love” from 7–8 p.m. in the Shaw Collaborative Learning Center (CLC) Auditorium. This event is co-sponsored by the T.W. Lewis Center at Asbury University.
Wilcox will examine the significant decline in dating, marriage, and childbearing among today’s young adults and consider what these trends mean for individuals, families, and society. His lecture will explore why young men and women increasingly struggle to form lasting relationships and what communities can do to help young adults date, marry, and start families.
Wilcox serves as Distinguished University Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, where his research focuses on marriage, family life, fatherhood, and the cultural and economic forces shaping American families.
By bringing leading scholars to campus, the Asbury University Honors Program gives students and the wider community opportunities to wrestle with some of today’s most consequential questions through rigorous intellectual inquiry and Christian thought.
The series concludes Monday, November 2, 2026, with Dr. Jeff Koperski’s lecture, “Free to Choose? Science, Determinism, and the Image of God,” from 7–8 p.m. in the Kinlaw Library Board Room.
Koperski will explore one of philosophy’s enduring questions: Are human beings truly free to choose? His lecture will consider challenges to free will from physics, neuroscience, and classical theology. While each field can appear to support determinism, Koperski will examine why those conclusions remain contested and what the debate means for understanding human beings as creatures made in the image of God.
Koperski serves as Professor of Philosophy at Saginaw Valley State University. His academic work explores the philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, and the relationship between scientific and theological questions.
Both events are free and open to the campus community and the public.
Learn more about the Asbury University Honors Program and the Honors Program Speaker Series.
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