Most Religious Studies lectures are sponsored under the auspices of the Lyman Coleman Fund. The Rev. Lyman Coleman was a Lafayette professor. To learn more about him, read A Sermon Commemorative of the Life and Character of the Rev. Lyman Coleman, D.D.

Past Lyman Coleman Lectures have included Wole Soyinka, Nigerian recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature; Elie Wiesel, Nobel prize winner and Holocaust survivor; Wendy Doniger, an expert on Indian religions; Andrew Greeley, Catholic priest, sociologist, and novelist; and John Updike, acclaimed novelist, short-story author, and poet.