Economist Christina Romer gave a talk titled “What Do We Know About Fiscal Policy? Separating Evidence From Ideology” on Nov. 7 as a guest of the Levitt Center.  Romer was chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) in the Obama administration, from Jan. 2009 until Sept. 2010. Currently, she is the Class of 1957 Garff B. Wilson Professor of Economics at the University of California Berkeley.

Christina Romer, former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration (2009-2010) will give a lecture titled “What Do We Know about the Effects of Fiscal Policy? Separating Evidence from Ideology,” on Monday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m., in the Chapel. The lecture is sponsored by the Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center and is free and open to the public.

A panel discussion, “Creating Sustainable Urban Communities in Syracuse and Utica,” will be hosted by the Levitt Center on Thursday, Oct. 27, at 7 p.m., in the Taylor Science Center’s Kennedy Auditorium. The discussion is free and open to the public.

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.”

Ronald Ferguson, senior lecturer in education and public policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School, will present a lecture titled “Educational Excellence with Equity:  A Social Movement for the 21st Century," on Monday, Oct. 10, at 7:30 p.m., in the  Fillius Events Barn. The lecture,  part of the Levitt Center’s Inequality and Equity series, is free and open to the public.

The U. S. has been involved in many debates about the merits and detriments of its involvement in overseas democracies. Currently, this subject is coming to a head with regard to Libya. On Sept. 27, Cornell University Professor Valerie Bunce  gave a lecture titled “When U.S. Democracy Assistance Works,” which provided insight into the complex world of U.S. involvement in the color revolutions in post-Soviet countries.

Valerie Bunce, the Aaron Binenkorb Professor of International Studies and Professor of Government at Cornell University, will present a lecture titled “When U.S. Democracy Assistance Works” on Tuesday, Sept. 27, at 7:30 p.m., in the Fillius Events Barn. The lecture, which is part of the Levitt Public Affairs Center’s fall series on security, is free and open to the public.

When it comes to hydraulic fracturing, or “hydrofracking,” New York State has taken a “think first, drill later” approach. To engage the Hamilton community in the thinking and learning phase of this process, two panelists explained the basics of hydrofracking in New York at a discussion sponsored by the Levitt Public Affairs Center on Sept. 23.