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Whether tight on cash or short on time, many us understand the concept of scarcity. Although scarcity is often analyzed through the lens of economics, Sendhil Mullainathan, professor of economics at Harvard University, has added the lens of psychology to his work. Co-author of Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, he explained the major concepts of his work to an overflowing Chapel audience on Oct. 23.

Returning to the Hill for the first time in more than a decade, economist Robert Frank spoke on Nov. 5 about the relationship between success and luck. A prolific author and co-director of the Paduano Seminar in business ethics at NYU’s Stern School of Business, Frank gave a lecture that was an engaging mélange of economic theory, personal anecdotes and examples from well-known cultural events. Drawing on these, he asserted that success in life is 100 percent dependent on luck.

More than half of working-age African American men in the United States have a criminal record. This statistic does not include those who are currently in jail or prison, who have effectively lost their voice and their status as individuals of worth. On April 17, Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University, presented a lecture on mass incarceration and her bestselling book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The visit was presented by The Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center, the Chief Diversity Officer and the Days-Massolo Center.

Author and University of Pennsylvania professor Annette Lareau came to Hamilton to lecture on her study of social stratification in America.  Lareau is the Stanley I. Shear Professor of Sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn. 

Author and University of Pennsylvania professor Annette Lareau will give a lecture titled “Unequal Childhoods” on Wednesday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m., in the Fillius Events Barn.  Lareau is the Stanley I. Sheer Professor of Sociology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Penn.  The lecture, part of the Levitt Center’s Inequality and Equity series, is free and open to the public.

In his Levitt Speaker Series lecture on April 5, Peter Demerath, a University of Minnesota professor of organizational leadership, policy and development, discussed educational inequality and the reproduction of class status. Demerath drew on four years of personal research experience at a public high school in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio.

“With the backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street Protests, it’s not as hard to draw people into a discussion of inequality,” said Jacob Hacker in his lecture on Nov. 14.  Hacker, the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University and director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies, gave a lecture for the Levitt Center’s Inequality and Equity Series.

Ronald Ferguson, one of the foremost scholars on the racial achievement gap, spoke to the Hamilton community as part of the Levitt Center Program on Inequality and Equity. The senior lecturer for the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School discussed “Educational Excellence with Equity: a Social Movement for the 21st Century.”