The MSC Wiley Lecture Series was founded in 1982 to bring some of the world’s most renowned public leaders, policy officials, and academic experts to Texas A&M University. To this day, Main Program remains the central fixture of this mission.

Presented once a year, Main Program takes the form of a lecture or panel discussion presented in a large forum at Texas A&M. In the 40 years since its creation, Main Program is has welcomed a long list of notable figures, including U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, and Mike Pompeo; former British Prime Ministers Edward Heath, James Callaghan, Margaret Thatcher, and David Cameron; Mexican Presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón; and other noteworthy personalities, such as Mikhail Gorbachev, William F. Buckley, and Walter Kronkite.

Between German chancellors, NASA administrators, network journalists, and international spies, Wiley has welcomed all manner of remarkable individuals to the podium for Main Program, each sharing their unique perspectives and powerful ideas with Texas A&M students.

In recent years, the reach of the MSC Wiley Lecture Series has gradually expanded outside of the City of College Station. While Main Program typically boasts an in-house audience of around 2500 students and local community members, the event also receives widespread media coverage. The scope of the event itself has also grown; in its current form, Main Program usually involves an official Speaker Welcome, Student Leader Q&A, and other affairs.

In 2020, Wiley hosted its first virtual Main Program, The Final Frontier, in lieu of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was followed by 2021’s U.S.-China Relations, featuring Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In 2022, Main Program returned to its traditional in-person setting with A Conversation with David Cameron.