Speakers Bureau | Hammond Institute

Hammond Institute Speakers Bureau

The Hammond Institute for Free Enterprise at Lindenwood University comprises a number of faculty members and staff who are available for external speaking engagements. For your easy reference, below is a complete list of individuals including their specific presentation topics and areas of expertise.

If you have any interest in scheduling a speaker from the Hammond Institute, please contact:

Carol Felzien
Director of Administration
CFelzien@lindenwood.edu
636-627-2915

Carol Felzien

Public Relations and Marketing

BIO

Carol Felzien

Director, Hammond Institute Administration

Presentation Topics & Areas of Expertise:

Public Relations
- Make best use of free publicity opportunities; personalize your approach.
Marketing
- Look for ways to maximize exposure cost-effectively, expand your reach.
Media Relations
- Planning for and responding to interview inquiries; preparedness tips.
Social Media
- Coordinating your organization’s brand across multiple platforms.
Event Planning
- Wow your audience with a laser focus on attention to detail.

Craig Felzien

Entrepreneurship and Business Skills

BIO

Craig Felzien

Director, Duree Center for Entrepreneurship

Presentation Topics & Areas of Expertise:

What is Entrepreneurship?
- A discussion on how to have an entrepreneurial spirit in everything you do - Mindset
Executive Presence
- How to talk, dress and act with presence
The Art of Persuasion
- How to get people to “YES”
Interviewing Skills
- Surprise them with key phrases

Rachel Ferguson

Ethical Bases for Liberty and Freedom

BIO

Rachel Ferguson

Director, Liberty and Ethics Center
Co-Chair, Honors College
Professor of Philosophy

Presentation Topics & Areas of Expertise:

“What Explains the Great Enrichment? Two Institutions and One Attitude”
- Right around the year 1800, we began to see a dramatic uptick in income and life expectancy, and in the last several decades in particular, abject poverty has plummeted from 40% of the world’s population to 10%. What explains these dramatic and exciting changes? Two institutions, private property and the rule of law, are wildly important, but can’t explain it all. The missing piece is our attitude toward business people and what they do for us.
“A Classical Liberal Account of the Systemic Oppression of African-Americans”
- Progressives lump ‘capitalism’ in with other forms of oppression, while conservatives are tempted to deny that ‘systemic oppression’ exists. Reviewing five major examples of violations of property rights and government blocks to asset accumulation in the African-American community, I argue that systemic oppression is real on conservatives’ own assumptions, while progressives should consider that it is exclusion from, not subjection to free markets that we should be worried about when we worry about the oppressed.
“Dante, the Seven Vices, and the Seven Virtues”
- Dante’s Divine Comedy has been praised as the greatest poem ever written. He organizes his fanciful journey through the after-life around the medieval lists of vices and virtues: Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust are combatted by Faith, Hope, Love, Wisdom, Justice, Courage, and Temperance. In an age of few good habits and little introspection, Dante has much to teach us about how to live a good human life.
“Mass Incarceration: Causes and Effects”
- The incarcerated population of the United States has quintupled in the last 40 years, while crime remains low. Even the most retributive accounts of justice can’t account for it; meanwhile, the explosion of the prison system is busting budgets and devastating communities. Demographic issues converge with perverse incentives to make this snowball effect difficult to walk back, but in recent years, left and right have come together to reform the criminal justice system.