Key Conversations with Phi Beta Kappa

As a college student, Professor Paula Stephan fell in love with economics as a way to understand and influence systems that impacted many people's lives. Years of documenting and analyzing the role of gender in academic performance and the impact of monetary and status incentives on scholars and universities have led her to startling conclusions. In this episode, PBK's Fred Lawrence asks the Georgia State University’s to go beyond the research. 

Ayanna Thompson specializes in Renaissance drama and issues of race in performance. She discusses the universality of Shakespeare while honing in on how he would have reacted to racialized readings of his work. Would he recognize that race plays a role in his plays? Would he agree with Thompson that one of his characters delivers “the first Black-Power speech in English”?

In our first episode, Fred Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, chats with his longtime friend, professor Harold Hongju Koh from Yale Law School. Professor Koh is a distinguished former diplomat and a renowned authority on public and international law. Their intimate and revealing conversation covers Koh’s expansive knowledge of foreign affairs, his views on the state of our nation, and the lasting influence of a father whose curiosity and capacious mind still inspire him. 

Her passion for Middle East studies was ignited during a college course with an intense teacher. She immersed herself in the region’s history and language--and has never looked back. For this episode, Prof. Anderson retraces her growing enthusiasm for and deepening knowledge of the Arab world, which saw her break scholarly ground in Libya, take up residence as a professor at American University Cairo, and eventually landed her in the president’s office mere weeks before the upheaval of the Arab Spring.

In this special extended episode, Phi Beta Kappa Secretary and CEO Fred Lawrence invites two experienced colleagues to a frank discussion about the unfolding college admission scandal that has rocked higher education. There are no easy answers, and responsibility is spread around generously, but the exchange is one that will certainly spark discussions at home, in the classroom, and in vaulted academic halls around the country.

A Pulitzer Prize winner, Larson tears the pages of history to offer insight into what made these presidents tick. And what today's leaders can learn from them.

Stephan has spent years documenting and analyzing the role of gender in academic performance and the impact of monetary and status incentives on scholars and universities. In this episode she shared some startling conclusions.

Jefferson, Adams, Washington. Their names are synonymous with the bold experiment that was the United States in the late 1700s. But there is so much more to these men who wrestled with the notion of building a nation and battled one another politically. A Pulitzer Prize winner, Larson tears teh pages of history to offer insight into what made these presidents tick. And what today's leaders can learn from them.

In this episode, Fred Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, welcomes professor Amy Cheng Vollmer from Swarthmore College. A microbiologist whose research centers on how bacteria react to different types of stresses, discusses her ongoing fascination with bacteria, why failure is important in her field, the need for STEAM, not just STEM, and what it means to her to be a Chinese-American woman in the sciences.

Fred Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, welcomes professor Ayanna Thompson who specializes in Renaissance drama and issues of race in performance. She discusses the universality of Shakespeare while honing in on how he would have reacted to racialized readings of his work.

In our first episode, Fred Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, chats with his longtime friend, professor Harold Hongju Koh from Yale Law School. Professor Koh is a distinguished former diplomat and a renowned authority on public and international law. Their intimate and revealing conversation covers Koh’s expansive knowledge of foreign affairs, his views on the state of our nation, and the lasting influence of a father whose curiosity and capacious mind still inspire him.

A podcast that features intimate and in-depth conversations with scholars and experts across many fields, including international law, Shakespeare, microbiology, economics of science, and astronautics. Listeners get a seat at the table to learn about the featured scholar’s background, research, and how their respective paths have led them to where they are today.