Announcing the Spring 2026 Speaker Series
Malone University is pleased to announce its Spring 2026 Speaker Series, a dynamic lineup of nationally recognized leaders, scholars, authors, and practitioners who will engage the campus and community in thoughtful dialogue on timely and relevant issues shaping faith, leadership, culture, and society.
Running from January through May, the series will feature keynote addresses, lectures, Community Worship services, student Q&A sessions, and special events designed to encourage learning, reflection, and meaningful conversation. Speakers will address topics including immigration, adaptive leadership, women in ministry, sexuality and faith, virtue and character, education, family and marriage, and spiritual formation.
“We are excited to welcome all of these speakers to Malone who bring with them a wide range of perspectives and expertise,” said President Greg Miller, Ph.D. “These voices will engage our students and community in conversations around relevant and timely issues, encouraging thoughtful dialogue that is grounded in faith, scholarship, and a commitment to living out our Christian convictions.”
Many of the events are open to the public and provide opportunities for students, faculty, staff, and community members to interact directly with speakers through Q&A sessions, lectures, and book signings.
Matthew Soerens, U.S. Director of Church Mobilization and Advocacy, World Relief; National Coordinator, Evangelical Immigration Table
Keynote Speaker: Immigration in America [Johnson Center Dining Room at 6:30 p.m.]
Bio:
Matthew Soerens helps evangelical churches to understand the realities of refugees and immigration so they can respond in ways guided by biblical values. He also serves as the National Coordinator for the Evangelical Immigration Table, a coalition that advocates for immigration reforms consistent with biblical values.
Tod Bolsinger, Ph.D., Co-Founder & Principal at AE Sloan Leadership Inc.
10:05–10:45 a.m. – Community Worship / Keynote Address [Johnson Center Worship Center]
12–1 p.m. – Lunch with Students & Faculty [Brehme CC / Hoover Dining Commons]
1–2 p.m. – Student Q&A Session [Brehme CC / Conference Center]
5 p.m. – Book Signing and Q&A: Canoeing the Mountains [Johnson Center Dining Room]
Bio:
Tod Bolsinger is the co-founder and principal at AE Sloan Leadership Inc., the executive director of the DePree Center Church Leadership Institute, a Senior Fellow of the De Pree Center for Leadership and associate professor of leadership formation at Fuller Seminary. He has extensive experience with church, nonprofit, university, and marketplace leadership consulting and executive coaching, and writes weblogs on church and leadership formation. He is the author of Canoeing the Mountains and Tempered Resilience.
Rev. Nicole Massie Martin, D.Min., Founder & Executive Director of Soulfire International Ministries, President & CEO of Christianity Today
10:05–10:45 a.m. – Community Worship / Keynote Address [Johnson Center Worship Center]
12 – 1 p.m. – Lunch with Students & Faculty [Brehme CC / Hoover Dining Commons]
1–2 p.m. – Student Q&A Session [Brehme CC / Conference Center]
5 p.m. – Book Signing and Q&A: Nailing It [Johnson Center Dining Room]
Bio:
Nicole Massie Martin is the founder and executive director of Soulfire International Ministries which accelerates thriving for pastors, churches, and younger leaders. A gifted writer and author of numerous articles including two books: Made to Lead: Empowering Women for Ministry and Leaning In, Letting Go: A Lenten Devotional. Her latest book, Nailing It, was written to help you to discover why successful leadership demands suffering and surrender. She is also the newly appointed CEO & President of Christianity Today.
Juli Slattery, Psy.D., President & Co-Founder of Authentic Intimacy
Community Worship Keynote Address [Johnson Center Worship Center at 10 a.m.]
Bio:
Juli Slattery is a recognized expert in the integration of biblical truth and sexuality. She is a clinical psychologist, author, and speaker. In 2012, she co-founded Authentic Intimacy with Linda Dillow. She hosts a weekly podcast (Java with Juli), blogs, speaks, and writes about the intersection of sexuality and the Christian life.
Annual Woolman Lecture Series
Featuring Lanta Davis, Ph.D., Professor of Honors Humanities and Literature, Indiana Wesleyan University
“A Mirror for the Soul: Learning to See Our Vices” – March 25 at 7 p.m. in the Johnson Center Worship Center
Monsters lurk in our soul, but they are so good at wearing disguises that we have a hard time recognizing them. Art can act as a mirror that helps us peer into our souls. Through the imagination, we not only can see pride, envy, and wrath, but better understand why they’re so dangerous.
“The Art of Virtue” – March 26 at 7 p.m. in the Johnson Center Worship Center
We use words like ‘courage,’ ‘wisdom,’ ‘justice,’ and ‘hope’ all the time, but do we really know what they look like? How, for instance, is Christian hope different from hoping for good weather, or Christian justice different from the Supreme Court’s justice? Art and poetry introduce us to the virtues so that we can see them, know them, and then begin practicing the art of living virtuously.
Bio:
Lanta Davis teaches courses that invite students to explore beauty, rhetoric, and great texts with curiosity and wonder. She holds her terminal degree in Religion and Literature from Baylor University and is the author of Becoming by Beholding: The Power of the Imagination in Spiritual Formation, a Christianity Today Book Award finalist. Her interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on imagination, spiritual formation, and the arts, and her writing has appeared in publications such as Christianity Today, Smithsonian Magazine, and National Geographic.
Jason Spodnik, President and Head of School, Cuyahoga Valley Christian Academy
Community Worship Keynote Address [Johnson Center Worship Center at 10 a.m.]
Bio:
As a 1988 graduate of CVCA, Jason Spodnik has been a student, an athlete, a teacher, a coach, a parent, an administrator and — since spring 2016 — president/head of school at his alma mater. His desire is to follow Christ’s purpose for his life by making a Kingdom impact on teens as they begin to truly “own” their personal relationship with Christ and maximize the gifts He has given each one.
Brad Wilcox, Ph.D., Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation Distinguished University Professor
10:05–10:45 a.m. – Community Worship / Keynote Address [Johnson Center Worship Center]
12–1 p.m. – Lunch with Students & Faculty [Brehme CC / Hoover Dining Commons]
1–2 p.m. – Student Q&A Session [Brehme CC / Conference Center]
5 p.m. – Evening Lecture & Open Q&A [Johnson Center Dining Room]
Bio:
Brad Wilcox is Melville Foundation Jefferson Scholars Foundation University Professor of Sociology and Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Future of Freedom Fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. The author of Get Married: Why Americans Should Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families and Save Civilization (Harper Collins, 2024), Wilcox studies marriage, fatherhood, and the impact of strong and stable families on men, women, and children.
Dr. Curt Thompson ‘84, Founder/ Being Known, LLC
Friday, May 8 — Book Talk / Q & A Session at 3 p.m.
Saturday, May 9
Malone University 2026 Commencement [Johnson Center / Worship Center at 10 a.m and 2 p.m.]
Bio:
Curt Thompson, M.D., is a psychiatrist in private practice in Falls Church, Virginia and the founder of Being Known, LLC, and The Center for Being Known, an organization that develops resources to educate and train leaders about the intersection between interpersonal neurobiology, Christian spiritual formation, and vocational creativity. Curt hosts a podcast (Being Known).