Endowed lectureships enable the college to bring to campus guest speakers of national stature: the Bays Blackwell Lectureship (statesmanship and public service); the Richard Joshua Reynolds Lectureship (humanities and the arts); the Staley Distinguished Christian Scholar Lectureship (religion); the Marcus A. and Mary E. Talbert Lectureship (science); and the Robert B. Platt III Lectureship on Contemporary Ecological Perspectives (environmental studies). Lectureships have also been established in English, honoring Daniel G. Leidig, and in biology, honoring Nancy Pence Groseclose.
The Iron Mountain Review, published annually by the English Department, reprints the proceedings of the college's annual literary festival, along with some new writing by that year's featured author and a bibliography on his or her work. Each year since 1982 the literary festival has celebrated the achievement of a writer with strong ties to the Appalachian region, including such notable figures as James Still, Fred Chappell, Lee Smith, Jim Wayne Miller, Wilma Dykeman, Mary Lee Settle, Robert Morgan, Charles Wright, Gurney Norman, and Denise Giardina.