July 1, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
An Innmate Roundtable: First, let’s hear about an event or accomplishment that left a mark in your life—something in your career or outside it, something that made a difference for you or that gives you particular pride or satisfaction. And second, tell us what book(s) or article(s) you’ve read in recent months, or in your lifetime, that had the greatest impact on you. What was the impact? Did your thinking, or feelings, change in some way?
July 5, Tuesday Quarterback Luncheon on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m
Alan Penziner is our Quarterback.
July 8, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is David Laibson. His topic—Present Bias, Self-regulation, and Paternalism: A Behavioral Economist Peers into the Retirement Savings Gap.
A majority of non-retired adults report that they don’t feel on track in saving for retirement—that they’re in the gap between what they have and what they may need in retirement savings. Even with good intentions, they may lack the knowledge, the confidence, the determination that could help them close that gap. Behavioral economists work keenly to understand the tendency to be present-minded rather than future-oriented in making financial decisions, along with the role of self-control and the effects of paternalist strategies to steer or regulate individual decision-making. Their research provides information and insight that can benefit workers, employers, and policymakers by improving retirement plan participation and outcomes.
David Laibson joins us with a fatherly welcome from Innmate Peter Laibson. David is the Robert I. Goldman Professor of Economics and Faculty Dean of Lowell House at Harvard, and he leads the university’s Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative. His research focuses on behavioral economics, with emphasis on intertemporal choice, self-regulation, behavior change, finance, macroeconomics, and biosocial science. He is a member of the National Bureau of Economic Research, where he directs the National Institute of Aging Roybal Center for Behavior Change in Health and Savings, and he serves on Harvardʼs Pension Investment Committee. As a board member of the Russell Sage Foundation, he chairs the finance committee. He also serves on the advisory boards of the Pension Research Council, the Social Science Genetics Association Consortium, and the Consumer Finance Institute of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
David holds degrees from Harvard (AB), the London School of Economics (MSc), and MIT (PhD). He received his PhD in 1994 and has taught at Harvard since then. His awards and honors: Marshall Scholarship recipient; election as Fellow of the Econometric Society; election to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance, and the National Academy of Sciences; two-time recipient of the TIAA-CREF Paul A. Samuelson Award for Outstanding Scholarly Writing on Lifelong Financial Security; and recipient of Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
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July 12, Zoom Quarterback Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Palmer Hartl is our Quarterback.
July 15, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Madeline Miller. Her topic—Circe’s Side: A Tale for the 21st Century.
Madeline Miller loved the classics from the time her namesake mother began reading them to her as childhood bedtime tales. She will speak about her imaginative venture that linked this early fascination with later studies of the classics to fulfill her hope of becoming a published writer. Circe (2018) and The Song of Achilles (2011) are her novels that tell tales from The Iliad and The Odyssey as she made them—but not without anxiety. She was retelling revered texts. Why mess with the classics? Fortunately, the books give us an answer: Why not? The canon of Western literature thrives on the work of countless authors who dared it. Notably, Shakespeare. Madeline loves the bard’s work, too. She has The Tempest in her sights for her next novel.
Novelist, classics scholar, and teacher Madeline Miller earned her BA and MA in classics at Brown University. She also studied dramaturgy at the Yale School of Drama, where she focused on adapting classical texts to modern forms. She has taught and tutored Latin, Greek, and Shakespeare at the high school level for more than 15 years. Both of her novels topped the New York Times bestseller list. She received the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction for The Song of Achilles. For Circe, she received multiple awards, and the book is currently being adapted for an HBO Max series. Her books have been translated into more than 25 languages, including Greek! Her essays have been published in the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Telegraph, and Lapham’s Quarterly, and on NPR.org.
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July 19, Zoom Quarterback Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Michael Brooks is our Quarterback.
July 22, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
An Innmate Roundtable: Let’s hear what book(s) or article(s) you’ve read in recent months, or over the years, that had the greatest impact on you. What was the impact? Did your thinking, or feelings, change in some way?
July 26, Zoom Quarterback Roundtable – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Alina Macneal is our Quarterback.
July 29, Thursday Luncheon Roundtable on Zoom – 12:30 to 1:45 p.m.
Speaker is Kathryn Ott Lovell, Commissioner of Philadelphia Parks & Recreation. Her topic—Reimaginning the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Since her 2016 appointment by Mayor Kenney, Kathryn Ott Lovell has overseen the 3,000-plus employees, 10,200 acres, 500 buildings, 250 playgrounds, 166 miles of trail, and thousands of programs and events of the city’s parks and recreation system. And she commissioned the first strategic plan for the system, setting out to move this urban marvel forward as a well-maintained, equitably enriching asset that connects us to the natural world and to each other. This leads to thoughts of how the Ben Franklin Parkway, the grand avenue the connect Fairmount Park and the city, serves those goals.
The Commissioner previously served as executive director of the Fairmount Park Conservancy and chief advancement officer of Mural Arts Philadelphia. She was recognized nationally in 2019 as one of seven Public Spaces Fellows named by the Knight Foundation as “leaders, experts, and practitioners who have created or influence great public space that strength community engagement and connection.”
Video: To see a recording of this presentation, click on Play Event. Click on the play button at the bottom left of the screen that comes up to see the presentation. Put your computer into full screen mode to get the best image.