<p>Jane Goodall and Richard Dawkins just this past year, both free. And Maya Angelou spoke at freshman commencement, like she does (almost) every year. The National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference was at Duke this year, which included a ton of speakers in that field (including the producer of House, who had a panel about the ethical qustions on the show). As far as major speakers that I didn’t see, there was Robert Gates, Salman Rushdie is coming up, and there’s probably more I’m not thinking of/wasn’t aware of. The key is to be aware, check the box office website and be on the lookout for fliers, because most major speakers sell out before word really gets out about them. If you do, the payoff is amazing - I mean, a first year biology student getting to listen to two of the top five living scientists ([The</a> top five most famous living scientists | SciGuy | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle](<a href=“http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/10/the_top_five_most_famous_living_scientists.html]The”>http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2009/10/the_top_five_most_famous_living_scientists.html)) for free? Where else do you get to do that?</p>