The Covid pandemic forced us to look once more deeply into politics, and to seriously reflect on what we expect from our leaders. The political community is the overarching community and thus political leaders necessarily must attend to a broader array of circumstances than any other leaders (scientific, academic, economic). That makes prudence, or good decision making, all the more difficult and necessary. Dr. Kevin Roberts’s experience in politics and government will help us come to grips how different priorities and responsibilities did - and sometimes didn't - factor into decisions during as Covidtide unfolded. About our guest speaker: Dr. Kevin Roberts, Executive Director of Texas Public Policy Foundation Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., has twenty years of experience as a teacher, professor, headmaster, and college president, and has been involved in a number of education reform initiatives around the country. Roberts’s love for Lone Star liberty began during his days as a conservative graduate student in Austin. After earning his Ph.D. in American history from The University of Texas, Roberts served as a history professor in New Mexico before starting his own K-12 school, John Paul the Great Academy, in his hometown of Lafayette, Louisiana. Most recently, Roberts served as president of Wyoming Catholic College, which the New York Times described as being full of “cowboy Catholics” for refusing federal student loans and grants. Both schools led by Roberts have earned regular recognition for being among the top Catholic schools in the nation. About this year's theme for our programs: Prudence: a Word, a Virtue, a Theme The focus of our fall programming is on the most underestimated and yet most needed virtue of prudence. All in-person and/or online programming conform to current health guidelines.

Especially today, we find that the virtue of prudence is particularly needed to manage the challenges we are facing, both in our private and in our public lives, but that it is sorely lacking. Come hear Dr. Stuart explore the meaning of this forgotten virtue, address the main causes of its disappearance and suggest ways to bring it back to our daily lives. ---------- About our scholar: Dr. Kevin E. Stuart, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family & Culture Dr. Stuart received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin where he studied public law and political philosophy, and was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge. He earned a Master of Sciences from the London School of Economics and Political Science after receiving undergraduate degrees in history and English literature from Louisiana State University. He is the editor of the Catholicism & Society book series for the Society for Catholic Social Scientists (Franciscan University Press). ---------- About this year's theme for our programs: Prudence: a Word, a Virtue, a Theme This year, following the requests of our students, the Austin Institute has developed its academic programming around a common theme that will unify the activities of the semester. For the fall, the focus of our lectures, seminars, and reading group will be on a most underestimated and yet most needed virtue--even more so at the time of COVID: Prudence. Prudence will also guide our practical choices for our programs. Our in-person and/or online programming will adapt with the most current health guidelines. We want to keep everyone safe while providing program opportunities during this pandemic.

Do the benefits of gentrification for policymakers outweigh the costs for displaced residents? Cities and neighborhoods have undergone significant changes in their cost and character over the past two decades, a process entrenched in the public’s mind as gentrification. As a new class of residents have entered underdeveloped neighborhoods, rents and housing values have increased, feeding fears of displacement and creating a growing dilemma for policy makers and the public. Dr. Eric van Holm is a postdoctoral research fellow of C-STEPS, ASU. His research interests include urban and economic development, community-led change and governance, innovation, science and technology policy, and social entrepreneurship. His current projects include studying the effect of minor league baseball stadiums on downtown redevelopment and the experiences of foreign-born faculty working in American universities.