The University was host to some 350 visiting speakers during the academic year 2006–07.

Nations represented: 32

Foreign nation most represented: Germany, with 12

Runners-up: Canada, with 7, Ireland and China, with 6 each

Universities represented: 108

Physical, organic, inorganic, bioorganic, biochemical, medicinal, chemical biological, and molecular biological chemists: 47

Physicists: 32

Television, radio, and print journalists: 26

Members of the clergy: 28

Members of the legal profession: 23 (who addressed civil rights: 13)

Corporate CEOs and presidents: 22

U.S. congressmen and senators: 8 (who were Boston College alumni: 3)

Novelists: 5 (poets: 3)

Filmmakers: 2

Former marines who authored books about their wartime experiences in Iraq I or Iraq II: 2

International aid organizers: 2

MacArthur “genius grant” recipients: 3

Ones of a kind: astronaut, member of the British House of Lords, survivor of electrocution, Major League Baseball umpire, stand-up comic

Talks on the Middle East: 24

Talks on global warming: 2

Also discussed: “How do supercontinents form?” “Hip-hop and the blues tradition,” “Interactions of moving charges with 2D strongly coupled dusty plasmas,” “Erotic spirituality and the Book of Jonah”

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