‘Current Issues’ Speaker Series Brings Cutting Edge Concepts to Tuck Community

But there’s another category of content that deserves a place in an MBA program: the kind that’s more cutting-edge, experimental, and based on an expert analysis of recent developments in business and society.

Tuck is now bringing this to students via the Current Issues speaker series, which features regular talks on the Tuck campus from professors and visiting business leaders.

“These are new ideas, new trends, and new technologies that you could imagine in a few years’ time becoming embedded in a session of a core class or an elective,” says Joseph Hall, senior associate dean for teaching and learning.

The series kicked off on January 15 with a presentation by Tuck clinical professor Peter Fisher on negative interest rates. Fisher, who spent 16 years working at the Federal Reserve, led a conversation about how negative interest rates might or might not work as a means of conducting monetary policy.

The following week, professor of corporate communication Paul Argenti delivered a speech entitled “When to Speak Out,” where he discussed when it might make sense for a CEO to take a public stand on a social issue, offering a new framework that helped students think through the problem.

The third event, held on Wednesday, January 28, featured Brian Tomlin, senior associate dean for faculty and research, and the William and Josephine Buchanan Professor of Management, who discussed his research on Industry 4.0—shorthand for the fourth industrial revolution. In this session, Tomlin examined operations concepts behind Industry 4.0, paying particular attention to additive manufacturing (3D printing), the industrial internet of things, and recent advances in automation.

The series includes the following speakers over the next month:

• Thursday, February 6: Deval Patrick, presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor, will discuss the 2020 presidential campaign.
• Wednesday, February 12: John Lynch, former New Hampshire Governor and current Tuck clinical professor. Lynch will have a conversation on the New Hampshire primary with a political reporter from ABC News.
• Wednesday, February 19: Anant Sundaram, a clinical professor at Tuck, will lead a discussion on business and climate change.
• Wednesday, March 4: Geoff Parker, a professor of engineering at Thayer, will talk about economic platforms, the subject of his best-selling book The Platform Revolution.

All Current Issues events are free and open to the broader Tuck community.