The Harold Hotelling Memorial Lecture Series was founded to honor an esteemed scholar and colleague. Harold Hotelling (1945 – 2009) joined Lawrence Tech as an associate professor of economics in 1989 and taught courses in business law, business ethics, constitutional law, urban social issues, law and economics. His life was marked by an unwavering dedication to his family, his church, his students, and his profession. Everyone who knew him benefited from his keen intellect, tireless devotion, quick wit, and wonderful sense of humor. Hotelling’s contributions to Lawrence Tech will always be remembered, but more importantly, he will be remembered as a great person and a dear friend.
Speaker: Hanifa Nakiryowa, Human Rights Activist
Lecture: 5 p.m.
Reception: 4 p.m.
Location: Mary E. Marburger Science and Engineering Auditorium (S100)
Presented by the College of Arts and Sciences
A Multidisciplinary Examination of Acid Attack Violence: Raising awareness, advancing justice, and empowering survivors.
Acid attacks remain a devastating form of gender-based and interpersonal violence in Uganda, leaving survivors with lifelong physical, psychological, and social consequences. This lecture series seeks to provide a comprehensive exploration of this issue, addressing the prevalence, causes, and multifaceted impact of acid violence. Through the integration of survivor narratives, medical case studies, legal analysis, and social research, the series highlights the human, institutional, and societal dimensions of these attacks.
Participants will gain insight into the physical and mental health challenges faced by survivors, the gaps in legal protections and law enforcement responses, and the sociocultural factors that perpetuate such violence. The series also emphasizes prevention strategies, community engagement, and advocacy efforts, offering actionable pathways for policy development and support systems. By fostering dialogue among scholars, practitioners, and community members, the lecture series aims to raise awareness, advance justice, and empower survivors, ultimately contributing to a more informed, compassionate, and proactive society.
Hanifa Nakiryowa is an acid attack survivor originally from Uganda and represents womenโs voices on different platforms both locally and internationally. She is a passionate human rights activist who founded the center for Rehabilitation of Survivors of Acid and burns Violence (CERESAV) a nonprofit headquartered in Uganda to raise voices against human rights violations and abuses and to mobilize resources to support the medical care and rehabilitation of acid attack survivors, support the education of their children and promote their economic livelihoods.
Hanifa is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs with a masterโs degree in international development and human security studies. She is also a graduate of the University of Nairobi with a masterโs degree in economics. Hanifa services on different boards including the Executive Advisory Council of the University of Dayton Human Rights Center. She is a proud mother of two daughters who keep her on her toes.
Jongeun You, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Political Science & Public Administration
Northern Michigan University
Policy decisions are related to diverse levels of conflict. However, the degree and variance of conflict remain largely unspecified. This study examines how types of energy infrastructure and characteristics of project location are associated with the distribution of conflict around the energy infrastructure siting process. By examining gas pipelines, electricity transmission lines, and solar and wind power projects across the U.S. in 2018, this study finds differences in the distribution of conflict intensity within and between these energy infrastructure types, with gas pipelines and wind power projects presenting relatively higher conflict intensities. Characteristics of project locations that are positively associated with high conflict intensity include the proportion of Democratic voters and the level of urbanization in the places where projects are sited. In contrast, the proportion of Black or Hispanic residents is negatively associated with high conflict intensity.
Dr. Jongeun You is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Northern Michigan University. He received a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from the University of Colorado Denver and a Master of Public Policy and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability from the University of Michigan. Dr. You was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Hydrologic Science and Engineering Program at the Colorado School of Mines and previously worked for SK Engineering & Construction.
Benjamin J. Pauli, Ph. D.
Associate Professor of Social Science
Kettering
Dr. Ben Pauli reflects on the influence that local environmental justice struggles in Flint have had on current state and national efforts to address environmental injustice. Most notably, the Flint water crisis, approaching its 10th anniversary, has inspired a number of policy changes as well as major investments in water infrastructure, with an unprecedented focus on equity in the distribution of resources. Flint’s influence has not stopped there, however. In recent years, Flint activists have also played a leading role in pushing for cumulative impact assessment and civil rights enforcement in environmental permitting decisions. In these and other ways, Flint offers a powerful lens through which to consider the newest frontiers of environmental justice policy and practice.
Dr. Pauli is Associate Professor of Social Science at Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. He is the author of Flint Fights Back: Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Flint Water Crisis (MIT Press 2019), acting chair of the Flint Water System Advisory Council, president of the board of the Environmental Transformation Movement of Flint (etmflint.org), and a member of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council to the US Environmental Protection Agency (NEJAC). In his role with NEJAC, Dr. Pauli has worked on policy recommendations around PFAS remediation, water infrastructure, water treatment, water utility communications, and cumulative impacts.
Keith N. Hampton
Professor
Department of Media and Information
Michigan State University
Divides in Internet access and digital skills have broad implications for young people. Findings from two recent studies of secondary and post-secondary rural Michigan students highlight how digital inequalities compare to traditional inequalities related to race, gender, and geography for outcomes including classroom grades, standardized exams, educational aspirations, career interests, self-esteem, and social tolerance. While the COVID-19 pandemic has reanimated policy makers’ focus on fixing gaps in broadband availability, addressing inequalities in access is only the first step in achieving better outcomes in relation to young people’s academic performance and well-being. Improved outcomes are dependent on addressing traditional inequalities, enhancing digital skills, and augmenting the environment created by parents and teachers in relation to the opportunities and constraints they impose on young people’s everyday use of digital media.
Keith N. Hampton is a Professor in the Dept. of Media and Information at Michigan State University, where he is also the Director for Academic Research at The Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law. He received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Toronto. Before joining MSU, he held faculty positions at Rutgers, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focuses on how the use of communication and information technology is related to the structure of people’s personal networks. Past work includes studies of neighboring, democratic engagement, digital inequality, and the urban environment. He has studied the outcomes of persistent contact and pervasive awareness through social media, including stress, depression, tolerance, social isolation, exposure to diverse points of view, and willingness to voice opinions. He teaches courses in social network analysis, technology and society, and research methods. In 2022, he received the Willian F. Ogburn Career Achievement Award from the Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology of the American Sociological Association and in 2017, he was elected a member of the Sociological Research Association.
Sam G. Huszczo
Chartered Financial Analyst
A current look into the psychology behind investing Survivalist behavior patterns such as “fight or flight” have helped humans evolve, climbing to the top of the food chain. Cooperative social behaviors have advanced societies. These practices are hard wired into our psychology. However, when it comes to the stock market, these actions can have an adverse effect, causing us to make bad investment decisions. Through an entertaining examination of psychological studies we can pinpoint the weaknesses of investor sentiment and find tangible ways to use these internal shortcomings to our advantage.
Join Chartered Financial Analyst Sam G. Huszczo as he explores how these behavioral biases are amplified in the post-COVID world of investing and learn how to avoid being your own worst enemy.
Dr. Scott E. Page
John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management
University of Michigan
Complex phenomena are difficult to describe, explain and predict. Confronted with a complex task, no single person or model will likely be correct. We therefore must apply multiple ways of thinking–diverse perspectives, algorithms, categories, heuristics, and models. That is especially true in an era of abundant data. Using a diverse collection of models does more than reduce the risk of bad outcomes, even informal models, explains the increased use of teams generally and the growth of interdisciplinary teams in the academy.
Page’s research focuses on the function of diversity in complex social systems. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as a fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. In 2011, he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of more than 90 research papers in a variety of fields including: game theory, economics, political theory, formal political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy, physics, public health, geography, computer science, and management.
Douglas Harris
Schleider Foundation Chair in Public Education and Professor of Economics
Tulane University
The changes in New Orleans schools after Hurricane Katrina represent the most radical school reform in the nation’s history. The state took over almost all schools and turned them over to independent charter school operators working under performance-based contracts. Teachers no longer worked under union contracts or with tenure protections. School attendance zones were eliminated. These market-based school reforms increased accountability, school autonomy, and parental choice in ways not seen in more than a century of American public schooling. Harris will show that the reforms led to considerable improvement in a wide range of student outcomes. He will also explain how the lessons for other cities, and for the role of markets and governments, are more complicated than these results might suggest.
Daniel R. Carroll
Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Central to the identity of the United States is that it is a โLand of Opportunityโ where anyone, regardless of their circumstances, can rise as far as their ingenuity and effort will take them. Over the past four decades, this image has come under increasing scrutiny as income and wealth has grown more and more unequally distributed across our economy. This lecture will review the income and wealth data and discuss some of the important factors driving the increase in their dispersion. Additionally, we will examine new research on income and wealth mobility. How likely is an individual who starts with less to move up from โrags to richesโ and join the top wealth holders? What policies can facilitate greater opportunity in our society?
Julianne Smith
Senior Fellow and Director, Strategy and Statecraft, Center for a New American Security
Former Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President of the United States
The next president will inherit a daunting set of national security challenges. Active conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Eastern Ukraine will demand early attention, as will ongoing worldwide counter-terrorism efforts. Regional tensions โ in the South China Sea, on the Korean Peninsula, and across the broader Middle East โ all have the potential to generate significant shocks. As adversaries develop new tactics to counter U.S. interests, there will be enormous pressure to develop new capabilities and policy tools. The United States continues to have a number of unique strengths that will help the next president cope with such challenges. But there are a number of reasons to be concerned. The growth of extremist terrorist movements like ISIS continues to pose challenges. Julianne Smith will discuss how the next president might navigate such a rich international agenda.
Alan Deardorff
John W. Sweetland Professor of International Economics and a Professor of Economics and Public Policy
University of Michigan.
(TPP) being negotiated between the United States and 11 other countries on both sides of the Pacific is billed as a โ21st-century trade agreement.โ Encompassing nearly 40 percent of the worldโs gross domestic product, the agreement almost eliminates tariffs and other barriers to international trade among the 12 countries and includes protections for patents and other intellectual property rights, provisions intended to improve environmental and labor standards, and a mechanism for investors to initiate and settle disputes with host-country governments outside of any national courts. The TPP will inevitably meet huge opposition within the U.S. Congress, but each of its provisions will create winners and losers. Alan Deardorff will present what is known about the agreement and discuss its pros and cons.
Paul Traub
Senior Business Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago – Detroit Branch
The economic recession that started in December 2007 was the greatest single contraction in the U.S. economy since the Great Depression forcing the Federal Reserve into an extraordinary monetary policy response. It has now been over 5 years since the start of the current economic recovery and the U.S. is still struggling to get back to its full potential. With the average economic expansion since 1961 running 71 months, what are the concerns that a normal business cycle contraction will prevent the U.S. from reaching its output potential during this business cycle? Mr. Traub’s discussion compareD this recovery to past post-recession expansions and addressed some recent economic developments for the U.S. and Michigan. The topics covered included an analysis of consumption, independent investment, global trade and federal and local government consumption and investment together with the Federal Reserve Banks role in helping the U.S. achieve a full economic recovery.
Dr. Stephen Josiah Spurr, JD
Professor and Chair
Department of Economics, Wayne State University
In his lecture, Dr. Spurr explored a variety of topics on the current economic climate in the U.S. and abroad. He addressed how married couples can juggle careers, housework, and childcare; how well U.S. workers are doing compared to the rest of the world, how the growth of the U.S. economy compares with other countries and whether we are still an upwardly mobile society. Is the U.S. still a land of opportunity or can you expect that your annual earnings will be largely determined by the earnings of your parents? As women across the world become more career-oriented, how does this affect the number of children they have and the division of household work?
Dr. Michael Belzer
Associate Professor of Economics
Wayne State University
It’s no secret that the Detroit region needs a tune-up. Michael Belzer proposes a solution: take advantage of our proximity to Canada and access to North America’s only two transcontinental railroads to create an inland port similar to Chicago. This “Great Lakes Global Freight Gateway” would concentrate intermodal freight transport assets and transform the area into one of America’s pre-eminent transport centers, proving regional business with low-cost and quick access to global markets.
While the value proposition for business is great, Belzer estimates it’s even greater for the region: $11 billion annually in new economic activity, 150,000 new jobs, and more than $1.3 billion in taxes to reenergize state and municipal governments.
Michiganโs manufacturing-based economy was a powerhouse in the middle of the 20 th century. But manufacturing has accounted for a shrinking portion of the economy for half a century. As a result, while incomes in Michigan were above the national average throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, they have fallen below the national average in most years since then. This is partly because Michigan lags behind the national average in many aspects of educational attainment. If Michigan is to realize its potential for a brighter economic future, it will need to increase the skills of its workforce. Professor Ballard discussed the policies that will help to achieve that brighter future.
After describing trends in U.S. health care spending and health outcomes, Miron Stano provides an overview of cost-utility analysis. To many health care analysts, cost-utility analysis provides the conceptual framework for allocating dollars to alternative treatments including preventive measures. Although our current health care delivery system contains significant barriers to increased acceptance and adoption of preventive care, some preventive measures are not cost-effective. This presentation will focused on the various issues that relate to these barriers, the role of cost-utility analysis in preventive care, and recommendations for improving the efficiency of our health care system.
In Humanities, Social Sciences, and Communication, we explore what makes us uniquely human. Through ancient and modern texts, social norms, and communication, we uncover how these fields are essential to all careers and human endeavors.
In a world of programming, proofs, and unending figures and unfeeling facts, is there room for a touch of magic? Data drives discovery, innovation redefines intelligence, and when curiosity meets logic, mathematics can be miraculous.
Curiosity drives discovery in biology, chemistry, and physics, guiding us from molecular interactions to chemical reactions and the fundamental laws of nature. Explore what makes you curious.
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