The Paul Lyons Memorial Lecture Series
Faculty band, '95.
The Paul Lyons Memorial Lecture Series was established by Stockton University in 2010 following the untimely death of our beloved colleague and “quintessential Stockton Professor,” Dr. Paul Lyons.
Supported by the University and by Paul Lyons Memorial Fund – established by Paul’s wife, Mary Hardwick – the Lyons Lecture marked its 15th anniversary in 2024.
Each year, the lecture continues its mission to advance interdisciplinary study in the Humanities and Social Sciences by hosting leading regional, national, and international scholars in American Studies, the area in which Paul undertook most of his interdisciplinary work.
The Paul Lyons Memorial Lecture Series welcomes students and faculty from every program, and the campus community.
Past Speakers:
Elizabeth Ellis, Associate Professor of History and Indigenous Studies, Princeton University
Greta LaFleur, Associate Professor of American Studies; Chair, graduate American Studies, Yale University
Donald Yacovone, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University
Michael Rothberg, 1939 Samuel Goetz Professor of English and Chair, Dept. of Comparative Literature, UCLA
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, disability rights activist & Professor of English, Emory University
Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Professor of Environmental Sciences, Africana Studies, American Studies; Director, Center for Place, Culture, and Politics, CUNY Graduate Center
W.D. Ehrhart, Master Teacher, The Haverford School; Vietnam War poet and memoirist
Lonnie Bunch, 14th Secretary of the Smithsonian and (former) Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture
Priscilla Wald, Duke University, on her book Contagious: Cultures, Carriers, and the Outbreak Narrative
David Treuer (Ojibwe), University of Southern California
Michael Rockland, Professor of American Studies, Rutgers
Amy Kaplan, Edward W. Kane Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania
Robin D.G. Kelley, Gary B. Nash Professor of American History, UCLA
Eric Foner, Professor of History (Emeritus), Columbia University
About Paul Lyons
Paul Lyons (1942–2009) was a teacher, historian, writer, activist, and musician whose career embodied the ideals of engaged interdisciplinary scholarship so highly valued at Stockton.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, into a working-class Jewish family, he graduated from Weequahic High School, earned his undergraduate and master’s degrees in history from Rutgers University, and his Ph.D. in Social Work from Bryn Mawr College in 1980. Although he began his postgraduate as a law student, Paul changed course after hearing civil rights leader Bayard Rustin speak, dedicating himself instead to teaching and social activism.
After earning his Ph.D., Paul joined Stockton University, where he spent the rest of his career. At Stockton, he was deeply involved in faculty union work, helped co-found the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Research Center, and played saxophone and sang in the Stockton Faculty Band, a fixture of the Stockton community throughout much of its history. Performing for more than 40 years at orientations, holiday and retirement parties, campus events, and local venues, “SFB” has raised more than $60,000 for student scholarships – carrying on Paul’s institutional legacy of student support.
Paul Lyons published five influential books in his academic career: Philadelphia Communists, 1936–1956 (1982); Class of ’66: Living in Suburban Middle America (1994); New Left, New Right, and the Legacy of the Sixties (1996); The People of This Generation: The Rise and Fall of the New Left in Philadelphia (2003); and American Conservatism: Thinking It, Teaching It (2009). His scholarship examined the shifting dynamics between liberalism and conservatism in postwar America and reflected his belief in the classroom as a space for where civic responsibility was practiced in fair and empathetic ways.
Paul’s essays appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Education, The Observer, and The Journal of the Historical Society. He and Mary Hardwick had three children – Max Lyons, Jenn Zelnick, and Nate Zelnick.
Paul passed away in 2009 at the age of 67, leaving behind a legacy of intellectual curiosity, compassion, and commitment to public scholarship. One of his General Studies courses, “The Sixties,” is still taught regularly by Professor John O’Hara, with the original Stockton Faculty Band often appearing for O’Hara’s students’ to celebrate Paul and his lifelong passion for music.
Faculty band, '05 (Lyons back row left).
The Stockton Faculty Band honored Paul Lyons at an event in 2002 with a parody of the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
VERSE:
It’s time to stand and deliver my friends
Let’s work for peace to make amends
By teaching students to believe
They’ll change the world
You know that love will never end
CHORUS:
Let me take you back – ‘cause we’re going to
the Sixties Again
I tell you my friends
That history repeats itself.
Paul Lyons Tribute Page
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