Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to speak at MSU Denver
The trailblazing economist will join President Janine Davidson for a public conversation about the economy, higher education and lessons from a historic career in public service.
At a time of rapidly shifting economic conditions — from persistent inflation and changing interest rates to an evolving labor market — Americans are confronting questions about the economy that affect everything from household budgets to career decisions.
Few people have had a closer view of the forces shaping those conditions than Janet Yellen, Ph.D.
The former U.S. Treasury secretary and Federal Reserve chair will visit Metropolitan State University of Denver on Oct. 29 for a public conversation with MSU Denver President Janine Davidson, Ph.D., about the economy, the challenges facing current and future generations and what Yellen has learned from a career spent at some of the highest levels of public service.
The event is free and open to the public.
President’s Speaker Series featuring Janet Yellen
When: Oct. 29, 1:30-2:30 p.m.
Where: King Center Recital Hall
“She is an icon in economics and public service, a trailblazer and a role model for so many of us,” Davidson said. “One of the most important roles of a university is to help people make sense of the world around them, especially at a time when so much is changing so quickly.”
Davidson added that opening her President’s Speaker Series to the broader community gives people an opportunity to ask questions and learn from someone who has spent decades studying and navigating the complex economic forces affecting people’s lives today.
Yellen is the first person in U.S. history to have led all three of the country’s most influential economic institutions: the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. She also broke barriers as the first woman to chair the Federal Reserve and the first woman to serve as Treasury secretary.
During her career in public service, Yellen helped guide economic policy through periods that included the Great Recession, the recovery that followed and the economic upheaval of the Covid-19 pandemic. Her academic work has similarly focused on questions with direct consequences for people’s lives, particularly unemployment, labor markets and macroeconomic policy.
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That combination of scholarship and firsthand policymaking experience will inform a wide-ranging conversation with Davidson. The discussion will also explore Yellen’s experiences as a woman in a historically male-dominated field and her approach to leadership.
Yellen currently serves as a distinguished fellow in residence with the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution and is professor emerita at the University of California, Berkeley.
The event is part of MSU Denver’s President’s Speaker Series, which brings prominent leaders and thinkers to Denver to engage the University community and the public in conversations about consequential issues.
