History of the Whelen Lectureship
 The Whelen Visiting Lectureship was established in 1986 through a bequest from a distinguished alumnus of the University of Saskatchewan, Dr. Myron Whelen.
Dr. Whelen came from the small farming community of Birch Hills in northeastern Saskatchewan. He was very much aware of the lack of opportunity in such locations to hear and benefit from people - artists, scientists, public servants and teachers - who have an international reputation in their field. The University of Saskatchewan, established as a provincial university, has worked hard to enhance learning opportunities beyond the campus. Thus, the very broadly-based mandate of the Whelen Lectureship— to bring to this campus an internationally-recognized authority in a discipline taught at this University — has given a major impetus to our educational outreach.
In keeping with the spirit of Dr. Whelen’s bequest and in the tradition of the University of Saskatchewan, the program for the Whelen Visiting Lectureship is designed with a very broad spectrum of the Saskatchewan public in mind: students, teachers; all professional groups whose mandate is related to the area of expertise of the Whelen Lecturer; interest groups; where possible, an audience living in an outlying community; and interested citizens, as well as the university community.
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Past Whelen Lectures
The Whelen Visiting Lectureship has made it possible to bring the following lecturers to the University of Saskatchewan for a residency of several days:
1987-Lorin Hollander, American concert pianist
1989-Jonathan Miller, director of the Old Vic Theatre in London
1991- Germain Greer, Shakespearean scholar and well-known for her contribution to feminist theory
1992-Rosalyn Yalow, Nobel prize-winning medical physicist
1994-Stephen Schneider, American scientist in the area of climate and global warming
1997-Martyn Symons, inorganic physical chemist and water-colourist
1998-John Ralston Saul, author and essayist
2000-Mary B. Mahowald, geneticist
2003-Michael Ignatieff, award winning author and historian
2005-John Borrows, Aboriginal law scholar
2006-Brian Dippie, historian of the old West
2007-Steven Shapin, historian of science
2008-Norman Myers, Recipient of Time Magazine's 2007 "Hero of the Environment"
2010-Margaret Visser, Internationally best-selling historian and anthropologist
2011-Raj Patel, Best-selling writer, activist and academic
The Whelen Lecture is the major public event of the residency and is published and video taped to provide a permanent record of the visit to the University of Saskatchewan.
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