The Office of the President is pleased to present the 2022 Distinguished Faculty Lecture, “What the Calderwood Seminars Teach Us About Our Students and Ourselves,” delivered by David Lindauer, Stanford Calderwood Professor of Economics. A reception in Davis Plaza will follow.

This in-person event is open to Wellesley students, faculty, and staff in the College’s testing protocol. We ask that you please pre-register to attend the lecture in person, which will also be livestreamed for those who cannot attend in person.

Since joining Wellesley’s Department of Economics in 1981, Professor Lindauer has taught principles of microeconomics, the foundational course in economics, as well as development economics, trade policy, and others. He received the Pinanski Teaching Prize in 2001. His innovative economic journalism course, which focuses on public writing in economics, led to the creation of Calderwood Seminars in Public Writing at Wellesley, whose unique pedagogy can be applied to all disciplines. These seminars are taught as capstone courses, mostly to juniors and seniors, and challenge students to synthesize material they have learned in their other courses through carefully structured writing assignments intended to be read by a non-specialist audience.

Since building Wellesley’s Calderwood program, now in its ninth year, Professor Lindauer has introduced the seminars at over a dozen colleges and universities across the nation; now, 125 faculty offer seminars to over 2,200 students. The widespread adoption of the Calderwood seminar model is a rare example of a curricular innovation originating on one campus, then taking root and flourishing on many others. In this lecture, Professor Lindauer will reflect on the elements of this program that have led to its success and that can be incorporated in other courses and settings.

Beyond the classroom, Professor Lindauer has published widely on labor market issues in developing nations including skill mismatches in Belize, labor relations in Korea, worker productivity in Ethiopia, and ethnic affirmative action in Malaysia. He is a co-author of Economics of Development, a leading textbook in the field of development economics, and has served as an advisor to the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the United States Agency for International Development, and the World Bank. 

Sponsored by the Office of the President, the Distinguished Faculty Lecture was established in 1999 to provide an opportunity for the College’s accomplished and respected faculty members to deliver a public lecture that allows the community to reflect on the meaning of a liberal arts education.