Frances White Ewbank pioneered the study of C. S. Lewis at Taylor University. More than thirty years ago, she began to assign readings from Lewis’s works as the basis for writing assignments in an honors writing class. Her work inspired her colleagues as well as her students and ultimately led to the study of C. S. Lewis at Taylor today. In 1997, David Neuhouser and the Lewis and Friends Committee decided to name the colloquium in honor of this outstanding scholar and teacher.

At our previous Ewbank colloquia, we have extended the idea of “Lewis and Friends” in a number of ways. Of course, we are interested in the works of C. S. Lewis and his “friends,” — his contemporaries and his influential mentors (like George MacDonald). Also, across the distances of space and time, we extend our friendship to these authors. Finally, because of our common love for these men and women, we are friends of each other. We are friends in the sense that, to use George MacDonald’s words, we are “alike enough to understand each other, and unlike enough to interest and aid each other.”

Our highly-participatory colloquium exists to promote meaningful conversations among “friends,” whether scholars or not, both inside and outside the scheduled sessions. Many of us find the conversation continuing for a lifetime.