The Culver Lecture
The bipartisan Culver Lecture series is one of the highlights of the academic year for the John C. Culver Public Policy Center at Simpson College. The Center was established in 2010 to honor the service of John C. Culver, who served the people of Iowa for 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
Check back for the 2025 Culver Lecture speaker.
Past Culver Lectures
John Della Volpe delivered the 13th Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 4, 2024. Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics, where he has led the institute’s polling initiatives on understanding American youth since 2000. Della Volpe’s best-selling book, FIGHT: How Gen Z is Channeling Their Fear and Passion to Save America, has been called “the definitive account of America’s next great generation,” and “a great read with a tremendous amount of learning for anyone in the business of marketing, selling, or otherwise engaging with the most exciting generation in decades.”
Della Volpe received an Eisenhower Fellowship in 2008, for which he traveled extensively throughout Asia (including a supervised day in North Korea). Additionally, he served on the U.S. – Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission on Media (2011); was named a “Future Legend of Marketing” by the Ad Club of Boston (2013); received the Authur E. Hughes Award for Career Achievement from the University of San Diego (2018); appointed an SNF Ithaca Fellow at the Biden School of Public Policy & Administration at the University of Delaware (2022); and in 2023 was commencement speaker and Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree recipient at Stonehill College.
Della Volpe was pollster and advisor to President Biden’s 2020 campaign; he is currently an NBC and MSNBC Political Contributor and regularly appears on Morning Joe and the 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle. His essays are published in the New York Times, Washington Post, and his JDV on Gen Z+ on Substack.
Della Volpe worked with former Senator John C. Culver at the Harvard Institute of Politics during Culver’s tenure as interim director of the institute in 2010. Senator Culver continued to serve on the IOP senior advisory committee, which he initially joined in 1975, working with Della Volpe and others to expand programming and welcome new institutes of politics such as the John C. Culver Public Policy Center at Simpson College into a growing national network supported by the National Campaign for Political and Civic Engagement.
Mike Murphy delivered the 12th Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 11, 2023. Murphy is one of the Republican Party’s most successful political media consultants, having handled strategy and advertising for more than 26 successful gubernatorial and Senatorial campaigns, including 12 wins in “blue” states that have consistently voted Democratic in Presidential elections. He served as a top campaign advisor to John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with dozens of other GOP Senators, Governors and Members of Congress. Murphy has worked on five GOP Presidential campaigns and for foreign leaders in Europe and Latin America. He also advises several Fortune 500 corporations, as well as several Hedge Funds and Trade Associations. In 2020 he served as a key strategist for Republican Voters Against Trump.
Murphy is also a widely quoted pundit; he is a longtime top analyst for NBC News and MSNBC and he co-hosts the popular podcast Hacks on Tap with Democratic political consultant David Axelrod, who delivered the Fifth Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College in 2015. In the Hacks on Tap newsletter, Murphy and Robert Gibbs share insights you’ll only get from folks who have spent a lifetime in the political trenches of both parties. He’s written columns and op-ed pieces for TIME, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the Bulwark. Visit Murphy’s website to read his commentary: http://mikemurphycommentary.com.
Murphy is currently co-director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Political Future. He serves on the boards of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. He served as a longtime senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; focusing on the intersection of domestic politics and national security decision making. Murphy also works as a writer and producer in the entertainment industry with projects at HBO, CBS, and 20th Century Fox Studios.
Murphy was born in Detroit, Michigan and attended the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Journalist John Nichols delivered the 11th Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 14, 2022 in Hubbell Hall, Kent Campus Center.
John Nichols is a journalist, political commentator and pioneering political blogger. He is the author of fourteen books on American politics, including The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace’s Antifascist, Antiracist Politics. Nichols’ book draws heavily on Senator John C. Culver’s biography of Henry A. Wallace, American Dreamer: A Life of Henry A. Wallace. Simpson College has recognized both John C. Culver and Henry A. Wallace in the naming of the John C. Culver Public Policy Center and Wallace Hall. “In The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party, John Nichols illuminates the long shadow of Iowan Henry A. Wallace’s continuing influence on progressive politics in the U.S., adding significantly to the body of knowledge on Wallace collected by Senator Culver in American Dreamer,” said Seth Andersen, Director of the John C. Culver Public Policy Center at Simpson College. “Nichols’ book is essential reading for students of American political history and social movements.”In conjunction with the 11th Annual Culver Lecture, the Culver Center also hosted a screening of Joan D. Murray’s film tribute to her grandfather, Henry A. Wallace: An Uncommon Man.
Professor Larry J. Sabato delivered the 10th Annual Culver Lecture in a virtual format on October 14, 2020. Recognized as one of the nation’s most respected political analysts, Sabato is the founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He is a New York Times bestselling author, a four-time Emmy winner and a regular fixture on national TV channels, including FOX, CNN, MSNBC and CNN International. Sabato’s lecture focused on analysis of the impending 2020 General Election and a broad range of political trends affecting federal races nationwide.
Kristen Soltis Anderson delivered the Ninth Annual Culver Lecture on October 8, 2019. Anderson is a pollster, speaker, commentator, and author of The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up).
Kristen is the co-founder of Echelon Insights, an opinion research and analytics firm that serves brands, trade associations, nonprofits, and political clients. Through her work at Echelon, she regularly advises corporate and government leaders on polling and messaging strategy and has become one of the foremost experts on the Millennial generation. She is also a frequent speaker to corporate and political audiences about emerging public opinion trends.
Kristen is a regular presence on television news. She appears on Fox News as a regular contributor, offering political analysis on daytime and primetime programming, as well as on FOX News Sunday. She has served as an ABC News political analyst, participating in their election night coverage in 2016. She regularly appears on programs such as MSNBC’s Morning Joe, CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper and HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher.
Kristen is the host of SiriusXM’s “The Trendline with Kristen Soltis Anderson,” airing weekly on their POTUS politics channel. She also co-hosts the bipartisan weekly podcast, “The Pollsters,” featuring Democratic pollster Margie Omero. She is a regular columnist for The Washington Examiner and has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times and other outlets.
Symone D. Sanders delivered the Eighth Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on September 25, 2018. Symone D. Sanders is a Democratic strategist, communications consultant, CNN political commentator and a Spring 2018 Resident Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics.
Sanders’ entry into political life began early. At 16, she introduced former President Bill Clinton at a luncheon in her hometown of Omaha. “Symone spoke so well I really hate to follow her,” Clinton said.
At 25, Sanders became national press secretary for the presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, making her the youngest presidential candidate press secretary on record. Rolling Stone magazine included her in a list of 16 young Americans shaping the 2016 election.
She has been featured on NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, NBC, BET and TV One. She currently can be seen on CNN as a political commentator. She has been profiled in the Washington Post, the New Yorker, ESSENCE Magazine and ELLE.
Sanders draws from her experience on the national stage to provide perspective and analysis on political and social issues. Her lively presentations challenge the conventional wisdom that strong communities are only defined by what they have in common. Instead, she outlines the way our differences contribute to effective social movements.
Former Secretary of Defense and Republican U.S. Senator from Nebraska delivered the seventh annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on September 26, 2017.
Hagel served as the 24th Secretary of Defense from February 2013 to February 2015. He is the only Vietnam veteran and the first enlisted combat veteran to serve as Secretary of Defense.
In that Cabinet position, Hagel launched a comprehensive Strategic Choices and Management Review, managed the U.S. military response to growing instability in Syria and Ukraine and urged NATO allies to increase their resource commitments to common defense.
First elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996 from his home state of Nebraska, Hagel established a reputation as an independent-minded, defense-oriented Republican. He won re-election in 2002 and retired after his second term concluded in January 2009.
After retiring from the U.S. Senate, Hagel served as a professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, chaired the Atlantic Council, and co-chaired the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.
During the fall of 2016, Hagel served as a Joint Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Harvard Kennedy School.
Some of his current commitments include serving on the Board of Trustees of RAND and the Advisory Boards of Deutsche Bank America and Corsair Capital, Senior Advisor to Gallup and the McCarthy Group, and Distinguished Executive in Residence at Georgetown University. Hagel has also served on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Board of Directors.
Early in his public service career, Hagel served as Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration under President Reagan. He authored the book, America: Our Next Chapterand was profiled in Charlyne Berens’ 2006 book, Chuck Hagel: Moving Forward.
Elizabeth Drew, the journalist, author and presidential chronicler, delivered the Sixth Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 7, 2016.
Drew is the author of 14 books, including Senator, her behind-the-scenes chronicle of spending the summer of 1978 with U.S. Senator John Culver as he worked to forge bipartisan consensus behind amendments to strengthen the Endangered Species Act. The Culver Public Policy Center is named in his honor.
The Sixth Annual Culver Lecture consisted of a conversation between Drew and Senator Culver’s son, former Iowa Governor Chet Culver.
Elizabeth Drew began her storied career in journalism in 1959 as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly. A graduate of Wellesley College, Drew was a Phi Beta Kappa with a major in political science. She served as Washington correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly (1967-73) and The New Yorker (1973-92) and has also written for Rolling Stone. She was a frequent guest on “Agronsky and Company” and hosted her own PBS interview program from 1971 to 1973. Drew was a regular panelist on Meet the Press and guest on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. She questioned President Gerald Ford and Governor Jimmy Carter as a panelist for the first debate of the 1976 U.S. presidential election and moderated a debate among candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984.
Drew continues to appear on radio and television programs to share her insights on American politics and governance. She remains an active commentator and analyst in her sixth decade of covering politics, contributing in-depth articles on the 2016 presidential election campaign to The New York Review of Books.
Her 1975 book, Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon’s Downfall, was a groundbreaking account of the Watergate scandal that remains indispensable reading. The book was re-issued by Overlook Press in 2015 with a new afterword.
Drew’s other books include: Portrait of an Election: The 1980 Presidential Campaign; On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (1995); The Corruption of American Politics: What Went Wrong and Why (1999); Citizen McCain (2002); and Fear and Loathing in George W. Bush’s Washington (2004). Her most recent book is Richard M. Nixon (2007).
Drew was chosen to give the Knight Lecture at Stanford University in 1997. She is a former director of the Council on Foreign Relations (1972–77).
David Axelrod delivered the Fifth Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 14, 2015. Axelrod shared his reflections on forty years in politics and answered questions from members of the Simpson community.
Axelrod served as senior advisor to President Barack Obama and to the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition, as well as senior strategist to Barack Obama’s historic campaign for the presidency in 2008 and his reelection in 2012. He now serves as director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago and as a senior political analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. He was recently inducted into The American Association of Political Consultants’ Hall of Fame. His memoir, BELIEVER: My Forty Years in Politics, was published in February 2015.
During his time at the White House, Axelrod was the Administration’s most frequent presence on influential Sunday talk shows including NBC’s Meet the Press, ABC’s This Week, CBS’s Face the Nation, FOX News Sunday and CNN’s State of the Union. He also appeared several times on The Tonight Show, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Late Show with David Letterman.
Axelrod founded the Chicago consulting firm AKPD Message and Media in 1985, and was senior partner there until 2008. At AKPD, he managed media strategy and communications for more than 150 campaigns, with a focus on progressive candidates and causes.
In 2006, Axelrod ran the independent expenditure media program for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helping Democrats regain the majority in the House of Representatives. Axelrod also served as media adviser to Deval Patrick, who was elected Massachusetts’s first Democratic governor in 16 years and the state’s first-ever African American governor. In 2004, Axelrod helped then-State Senator Barack Obama win a challenging primary and go on to a landslide win in his U.S. Senate campaign.
Before entering politics in 1984, Axelrod spent eight years as a reporter for The Chicago Tribune, where he covered national, state and local politics. In 1981, he became the youngest political writer and columnist in the paper’s history. He also served as the Tribune’s City Hall bureau chief.
Active in charitable work in Chicago, Axelrod has supported Special Olympics and Misericordia. In 1998, he and his wife, Susan, helped found Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE), which has raised over $29 million so far for scientists searching for a cure.
Axelrod was born in New York City, and graduated from Stuyvesant High School and the University of Chicago. He served as an Adjunct Professor of Communication Studies at Northwestern University and has lectured on political media at Harvard University, the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania.
Former United States Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming delivered the Fourth Annual Culver Center Lecture on March 27, 2014. Simpson served in the United States Senate from 1979-1997, carving out a reputation as a strong, principled conservative voice for a balanced budget, veterans’ affairs and equal rights. He chaired the Veterans’ Affairs Committee (1995-97) and served as Republican Majority Whip (1985-87) and Republican Minority Whip (1987-1995).
In 2010, Simpson was appointed by President Obama to co-chair the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform with co-chair Erskine Bowles of North Carolina. The Simpson-Bowles Commission’s recommendations to address the national deficit and debt received significant national attention, but have not advanced in Congress.
George S. McGovern passed away in October 2012 at the age of 90.
Linda Greenhouse delivered the Third Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on March 19, 2013. Greenhouse’s lecture reflected on her experience covering the United States Supreme Court for The New York Times from 1978 to 2008. She continues to author regular opinion columns on law and the Court for The New York Times. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1998 and the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University’s Kennedy School in 2004. Greenhouse authored a biography of Justice Harry A. Blackmun, Becoming Justice Blackmun and Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court’s Ruling (with Reva B. Siegel). In 2012, she authored The U.S. Supreme Court, A Very Short Introduction, published by Oxford University Press.
Greenhouse currently serves as the Knight Distinguished Journalist in Residence and Joseph M. Goldstein Senior Fellow at Yale Law School, where she teaches courses on The Institutional Supreme Court, Warren Burger’s Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic. She is one of only two non-lawyer honorary members elected to the American Law Institute. Greenhouse received her B.A. in Government from Radcliffe College (Harvard) and a Master of Studies in Law from Yale Law School in 1978.
Mark Shields delivered the Second Annual Culver Lecture at Simpson College on April 11, 2012. Shields is best known for his work as a political columnist and television commentator on Inside Washington and the PBS NewsHour. His counterparts on the NewsHour have included conservative commentators David Brooks, David Gergen, Paul Gigot, and the late William Safire. For nearly 20 years he was also moderator and panelist on CNN’s Capital Gang. He became an editorial writer for The Washington Post in 1979 and has published a nationally-syndicated column ever since. Shields authored On the Campaign Trail, a book about the 1984 presidential campaign.
After graduating from Notre Dame and serving in the United States Marine Corps, Shields became an aide to Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire in 1965. He worked for Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign and later for the campaigns of Edmund Muskie and Morris Udall. He served as political director for Sargent Shriver when he ran for vice president on the Democratic ticket in 1972. Shields’ extensive political experience included managing state and local campaigns in three dozen states over the course of a decade.
Shields has taught American politics and media studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Public Policy. He was a fellow at the Harvard Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School of Government.
George S. McGovern, former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, delivered the Inaugural Culver Lecture on April 7, 2011. McGovern served in the U.S. Senate with John C. Culver of Iowa; the two forged a close bond as principled liberal reformers from neighboring states.
A native of Mitchell, South Dakota, McGovern flew 35 missions over German-occupied Europe as a B-24 Liberator pilot. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross for safely landing his damaged plane and saving his crew. After his service in World War II, he earned degrees in history from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northwestern University and became a history professor. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1956 and the U.S. Senate in 1962, where he served until 1981.
McGovern helped to reform the Democratic Party’s presidential nominating process by adding more primaries and caucuses, while reducing the influence of party insiders. He rose to national prominence as a strong voice against the Vietnam War. His insurgent candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972 was captured in Hunter S. Thompson’s classic collection of articles, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.
McGovern lost to incumbent Republican President Richard Nixon in a landslide, but continued his lifelong commitment to public service. In addition to his leadership of the anti-war movement, McGovern pioneered progressive approaches to agriculture, food security, nutrition, and hunger. He became the first director of the Food for Peace program in 1961 and helped to create the United Nations’ World Food Programme. He chaired the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs and issued the “McGovern Report,” which helped spur the creation of comprehensive nutritional guidelines for Americans. McGovern served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture and was the first UN Global Ambassador on World Hunger. He was named World Food Prize co‑laureate in 2008.
