Course

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences

57 Lectures

  • The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences presents William Fischel, the Patricia F. and William B. Hale '44 Professor in Arts and Sciences, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College  "Making the Grade: The Economic Evolution of American School Districts"   

  • The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences Co-Sponsored with the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding presents Dr. Paul Stockton '76 Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security and Americas' Security Affairs "When the Worst Things Happen - Preparing for Catastrophes"

  • The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social Sciences presentsA Constitution Day ProgramRonald G. ShaikoProfessor, Senior Fellow and Associate Director,Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social ScienPetitioning Governement: Interest Groups, Lobbying and the First Amendment

  • Debtor Nation: The Threat to America's FuturePanel DiscussionModerator, Marjorie Rose, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Dartmouth CollegePanelists:James Poterba, President and CEO National Bureau of Economic Research; Mitsui Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyAndrew Samwick, Director, Nelson A. Rockefeller Center; Professor of Economics, Dartmouth CollegeJonathan S. Skinner, John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor in The Social Sciences; Department of Economics, Dartmouth College; Professor, Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy

  • Why does America have the Constitution of 1787? New Historical PerspectivesPanel DiscussionModerator, Joseph Cullon, Professor of History, Dartmouth CollegePanel:Pauline Maier, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of History, MITJack Rakove, Co Professor of History and American Studies and Professor of Political Science, Stanford UniversityWoody Holton, Associate Professor of History and American Studies, University of RichmondMax Edling, Research Fellow, History Department, University of Uppsala, Sweden

  • David Leonhardt's column on economics and business appears on Wednesday in The New York Times. David has been writing about economics for The Times since 2000. He was one of the writers who produced the paper's recent series on social class in the United States. He has written frequently about economic policy, real estate and the job market, as well as about the corporate scandals of recent years. In 2004, David founded an analytical sports column, called Keeping Score, which runs on Sundays. Since joining The Times in 1999, he has also written about culture, science and travel. David previously worked for Business Week magazine, in Chicago and New York, and for the metro desk of The Washington Post. A New York native, he studied applied mathematics at Yale.

  • Post Election Observations by Dartmouth ExpertsOutcomes of the 2008 ElectionEvent Introduction by Ronald Shaiko, Senior Fellow, The Nelson A. Rockefeller Center and Associate Director for Curricular and Research ProgramsInstitutional Consequences, Challenges, and RecommendationsLinda Fowler, Government - New Congress Interaction; Sonu Bedi, Government - Federal Courts; Dean Lacy, Government - Key Cabinet PositionsPolicy Consequences, Challenges, and RecommendationsAndrew Samwick, Economics - Fiscal Policy; Denise Anthony, Sociology - Healthcare Policy; Lee Lynd, Thayer School of Engineering - Energy Policy; Daryl Press, Government - Foreign and Defense Policy; Annelise Orleck, History - Social Welfare and Poverty Policy; Doug Irwin, Economics - Trade Policy

  • Andrew Samwick, Professor of Economics and Director, Rockefeller Center - Moderator, Nancy Marion, Professor of Economics, Bruce Sacerdote, Vice-Chair and Professor of Economics, and Eric Zitzewitz, Associate Professor of Economics. These four economists will discuss the root causes of the financial crisis, the details of bailout plans and other policy responses, as well as the consequences for economic growth, the labor market, and oil prices.

  • Richard Parsons, Chair of the Board and former CEO of Time Warner, discusses the roll of entrepreneurship in the digital age. He explains how the Internet has opened up the marketplace to entrepreneurship allowing for more innovation without the necessity for a huge amount of capital.

  • Ron Schram '64, Trustee Emeritus and current chair of the board of visitors of the Rockefeller Center.Moderator.Scott Creelman '64, Retired CEO of Spaulding Sports and captain of the 1963 IVY champion football teamAndrew Samwick, Director of The Rockefeller CenterJr Santo '10, Rockefeller Center Leadership FellowDerikka Mobley '10, Rockefeller Center Leadership FellowA diverse panel will discuss the way leadership has traditionally been developed in the past, how we are developing it today and what we need to do to be ready for the leadership challenges of the future. This will include a comparison of the lessons of leadership across generations.

  • The Rockefeller Center for Public Policy and the Social SciencesCo-sponsored with The Dartmouth Legal Studies Faculty Group and The Dartmouth Lawyers Association presentThe Roger S. Aaron '64 LectureNancy RosenblumSenator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics and Government Theory,Harvard University"Partisanship and Independence: The Moral Distinctiveness of 'Party-ID'"

  • America is at a critical crossroads. The choices that U.S. elected officials make in connection with the role of government and its finances over the next 5 years will largely determine whether America's collective future will be better than its past. What are America's fiscal facts?What are sensible solutions to America's fiscal challenges?How will these solutions work to make America stay great?How can the American Dream stay alive for today's families and future generations of Americans? Presidential candidates have been invited. David Walker is the Founder, President, and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative (CAI), where he leads CAI's efforts to promote fiscal responsibility and sustainability by engaging the public and assisting key policymakers on a nonpartisan basis to help achieve solutions to America's federal, state, and local fiscal imbalances. Previously, he served as the first President and CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. Walker served as the seventh U.S. Comptroller General and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (1998-2008). This was one of Walker's three presidential appointments, each by different Presidents during his 15 years of total federal service. He also has more than 20 years of private sector experience, including as a Partner and Global Managing Director of Human Capital Services for Arthur Andersen LLP. He has authored three books, with the latest one entitled Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (2010). He is a frequent writer and media commentator, and is a subject of the critically acclaimed documentary I.O.U.S.A.  

  • A Rockefeller & Dickey Center Lecture by Erica Chenoweth, Asst. Professor of Government & Founder, Program on Terrorism & Insurgency Research, Wesleyan UniversityProfessor Erica Chenoweth will discuss her book, co-authored with Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, which argues that between 1900 and 2006, campaigns of nonviolent resistance were more than twice as effective as violent insurgencies. Nonviolent resistance presents fewer obstacles to moral and physical involvement, information and education, and participator commitment, leading to enhanced resilience, a greater probability of tactical innovation, increased opportunity for civic disruption, and shifts in loyalty among opponents' erstwhile supporters. Moreover, nonviolent resistance movements tend to usher in more durable and internally peaceful democracies.Presented by the Rockefeller Center and Dickey Center as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration and Black History MonthSpeaker BioErica Chenoweth, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of government at Wesleyan University and director of Wesleyan's Program on Terrorism and Insurgency Research. She also currently serves as a visiting scholar at both the Institute of International Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. Previously, she has held fellowships at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, UC-Berkeley, and the University of Maryland.Chenoweth is an authority on terrorism, nonviolent resistance, and counterterrorism. She has written three books: Why Democracy Encourages Terrorism (under contract with Columbia University Press); Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict (Columbia University Press, 2011) with Maria J. Stephan of the U.S. State Department; and Rethinking Violence: States and Non-State Actors in Conflict (MIT Press, 2010) with Adria Lawrence of Yale. The author of dozens of scholarly and popular articles, she hosts the blog Rational Insurgent and is an occasional blogger at The Monkey Cage and Duck of Minerva. Chenoweth teaches courses on international relations, terrorism, civil war, and contemporary warfare. She was honored as the 2010 recipient of the Carol Baker Memorial Prize for junior faculty excellence in teaching and research at Wesleyan

  • Dr. Peter OrszagVice Chairman of Global Banking, Citigroup, Inc.Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign RelationsContributing Columnist, Bloomberg ViewFormer Director, Office of Management and Budget, Obama AdministrationPeter R. Orszag is Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup, Inc., and a member of the Senior Strategic Advisory Group there. He is also a Contributing Columnist at Bloomberg View and an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Prior to joining Citigroup in January 2011, he served as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Contributing Columnist at The New York Times. Dr. Orszag previously served as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama Administration from January 2009 until July 2010. In that Cabinet-level role, he oversaw the Administration's budget policy, coordinated the implementation of major policy initiatives throughout the federal government, and reviewed federal regulatory action, among other responsibilities. From January 2007 to December 2008, Dr. Orszag was the Director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), supervising the agency's work in providing objective, nonpartisan, and timely analyses of economic and budgetary issues. Under his leadership, the agency significantly expanded its focus on areas such as health care and climate change. Prior to CBO, Dr. Orszag was the Joseph A. Pechman Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he also served as Director of The Hamilton Project, Director of the Retirement Security Project, and Co-Director of the Tax Policy Center. During the Clinton Administration, he was a Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and, before that, a staff economist and then Senior Advisor and Senior Economist at the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Orszag has also founded and subsequently sold an economics consulting firm.

  • America's health care future lies in the balance, and Virginia's Solicitor General E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., is one of the key figures in the legislative battle surrounding "Obamacare." The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the subject of numerous lawsuits; Getchell was instrumental in the Commonwealth of VA v. Sebelius case, where the State of Virginia claimed the new health care bill infringed on states' rights. Getchell speaks of the current litigation between the 28 states, including Virginia, and the U.S. Government.  

  • Democracy at the Local Level: 25 Years of Lessons and Some Questions. Brian Walsh is the former Chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Hanover, NH. He served on the Board from 1996 to 2011. In his business career, he was the founder and original CEO of three technology start-ups including Fujifilm Dimatix (originally Spectra, Inc) of Lebanon, NH. Currently he is a Director of Americans for Campaign Reform and the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies as well as the Community Member of the Quality Council at Dartmouth Hitchcock. He has also served on the Hanover Planning Board, and numerous other boards of for profit and not-for-profit organizations. He is an inventor on a number of patents and has authored numerous proprietary papers. Walsh is a painter. As an artist, through his watercolor paintings, he seeks to portray the beauty of our earth's special times and places: 10 percent of the proceeds from the sale of his works is donated to non-profit organizations working to protect the environment.

  • Eric RauchwayProfessor of History, University of California-DavisWhy does the United States pick the head of the World Bank instead of the International Monetary Fund? Does a high ranking US Treasury official who was feeding information to the Soviet Union have something to do with it? Professor Rauchway will discuss his forthcoming book on the origins of the Bretton Woods system, the framework governing the world economy from the late 1940s untill the early 1970s, which was negotiated at the New Hampshire resort in 1944.