There are easier things to pin down. “Generally, as a field, economics is very focused on the ‘hard’ things,” such as wages and benefits, said Souther, now a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. “You have to be very careful to tease out the impacts of something like autonomy.”

To do that, he would need to design and conduct an experiment of his own. Luckily, he had received a Fordham scholarship that provided funding for just such a thing.

Leveraging Talent

Souther was one of the inaugural recipients of the Cunniffe Presidential Scholarship, created by a $20 million gift from Maurice J. (Mo) Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, and Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., GSAS ’71, two of the most generous donors in Fordham’s history and supporters of its current fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student.

Their presidential scholarship has had 43 recipients to date, including 25 current students. It is meant to leverage the abilities of the most talented students, helping them succeed while also making an impact on the world. It funds tuition and living expenses but also academic enrichment—“probably the most important part” of the scholarship because it empowers recipients to pursue an interest, “be really good at it, and through that, make a contribution,” Mo Cunniffe said.

For Souther, this academic enrichment funding proved crucial: it enabled him to attend a summer workshop in behavioral economics at the University of Alabama, pay 400 people to take part in an experimental exercise during his senior year, and buy statistical software needed for analyzing the data.

Benefits of Autonomy

That study, as well as a follow-up study he conducted with two Fordham economics professors, Subha Mani and Utteeyo Dasgupta, shed light on the impact of giving employees a say in the work they perform. The interpersonal aspect proved important—for instance, when an “employer” participant let other participants choose their preferred tasks, they worked harder than when they got their preferred tasks as a result of a random assignment. They were also more likely to give back to the group by contributing to a communal fund.

It’s possible that employees are more appreciative “if you know that there’s a human being explicitly making a decision to … give you the autonomy,” Souther said.

Such under-studied questions are timely, especially in light of conversations about workers’ autonomy that arose out of the pandemic, he said.

“A lot of us spend at least eight hours a day at work for almost our entire life, and understanding the conditions that make work meaningful and motivating and interesting are absolutely crucial for having a productive and engaging and equitable economy,” he said.

Today, he’s getting close to submitting the research to an academic journal. He said the Cunniffe scholarship did more than propel this project.

“What it also did was allow me to go to Fordham. And that itself has had countless effects on my career and my life.”

Learn about opportunities to invest in the Fordham student experience via the University’s $350 million fundraising campaign, Cura Personalis | For Every Fordham Student.

“Racism, sexism, and other ‘isms’ are not simply irrational prejudices, but long-leveraged, strategic mechanisms for exploitation that have benefited some at the expense of others,” he said.

Hamilton, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and founding director of the Institute on Race and Political Economy at The New School, noted that in a just world, one’s race, gender, or ethnicity “would have no transactional value as it relates to material outcomes.” The pandemic made it abundantly clear that is not the case.

“We should recognize that the biggest pre-existing condition of them all is wealth itself,” he said.

Hamilton’s lecture, “A Moral Responsibility for Economists: Anti-Racist Policy Regimes that Neuter White Supremacy and Establish Economic Security for All,” was the second distinguished economics lecture, which was launched last year by the economics department’s climate committee as a way to enhance diversity and inclusion.

‘Dysfunctional Concentration of Wealth and Power’

Hamilton began by pointing out that even before the pandemic, the United States was afflicted by an “obscene, undemocratic, dysfunctional concentration of wealth and power.” Currently, the top .1% of earners in this country—defined as those earning $1.5 million a year—own as much of the nation’s wealth as the bottom 90 percent of earners. The bottom 50 percent of earners own 1% of the nation’s wealth, he said.

This has affected Black people and other people of color disproportionately, as they’ve been denied economic opportunity through official policies such as redlining in the 1950s and events such as the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. But the narrative of why Black Americans have been unable to attain wealth has not reflected this history, he said.

The Narrative is Wrong

“Much of the framing around the racial wealth gap, including the use of alternative financial service products, focuses on poor financial choices and decision-making on the part of largely Black, Latino, and poor borrowers. The framing is often tied to and derived from a culture of poverty thesis, in which Blacks are presumed to have a low value for and desire for education,” he said.

“The framing is wrong; the directional emphasis is wrong.”

The idea that education alone is the path to prosperity is itself belied by what Hamilton called the “property rights,” which are the advantages that whites have been granted through history by the government.

Disparities in Education and Health

Black college students today are saddled with an average of $53,000 in debt, while white students graduate with an average debt of $33,000. Black college graduates are actually overrepresented in graduate education, relative to their share in the population, he said, but this is not enough. On average, a Black family with a head of the household who dropped out of college still has less wealth than a white family where the head dropped out of high school, he said.

“The fact that a Black expectant mother with a college degree has a greater likelihood of an infant death than a white expectant mother who dropped out of high school, and a Black man with a college degree is three times more likely to die from a stroke than a white man who dropped out of high school—these are all examples of property rights in whiteness,” he said.

Hamilton said that reparations are a necessary remedy but would only be a start. Only by implementing a program such as baby bonds, where government creates investment accounts for infants that give them access to capital when they turn 18, would we get the bold, transformative, anti-racist, anti-sexist policies that are long overdue.

“We need a deeper understanding of how devaluing, or othering, individuals based on social identities like race relates to political notions of deserving and undeserving,” he said.

“The structures of our political economy and race go well beyond individual bigotry as a matter of course.”

Eye-Opening for Students

Andrew Souther, a senior majoring in economics and math at Fordham College at Rose Hill, said that the talk was eye-opening for him, as his senior thesis is focused on behavioral economics, where biases and discrimination are key concepts.

“The language that Dr. Hamilton used in basically describing racism as this very strategic collective investment, as one group strategically investing in this identity of whiteness which has a return and also extracts from other people—that is a really, really powerful concept,” he said.

“It really cuts at something much deeper and much more radical than just conversations about behavioral biases, which of course are important too.”

Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., a professor of economics, said Hamilton’s perspective was an example of a topic students at Fordham might not otherwise be exposed to in the course of their studies, a key goal of the series.

“At a time of extreme polarization in the United States, Dr. Hamilton’s scholarship and anti-racist policy proposals are more important than ever,” she said.

“He powerfully prompted us to think about the need to move from an economy centered on markets and firms to a sustainable moral economy, an economy with, at its core, economic rights, inclusion, and social engagement.”

The full lecture can be viewed here.

The gathering, held Oct. 19 at Cunniffe House, brought together six first year students from Fordham’s three undergraduate colleges, faculty and administrators, and Maurice J. (Mo) Cunniffe, FCRH ’54, and Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe, Ph.D., GSAS ’71, whose transformative $20 million gift last fall created the scholarship program.

In his remarks to the students, Cunniffe spoke of one’s personal history and of leverage. Students’ families had shaped their character thus far, he said, and college would do the same. Even if the end result is that they are simply kind people, Fordham will have succeeded.

Once you reach a certain level of success, however, and you’ve satisfied your obligations to your immediate and extended family, you start to think of other ways to leverage that success, Cunniffe said.

“We thought if we fund the best and brightest for 10 years, we’ll have 60 really bright people. We know that out of all those people, there will be people who make the world a better place,” he said.

“Your obligation—as the best and brightest of your generation—is to leave something that’s better.”

Carolyn Dursi Cunniffe said it was a joy to finally meet in person the students whose biographies she’d become so familiar with on paper.

“We are thrilled to be here, we wish you well, we know you will go out in the world and do good,” she said.

The six inaugural awardees were chosen for their excellence in academics and extracurricular activities, and demonstration of leadership in their personal and academic lives. They are Fordham College at Rose Hill freshmen Ashley Conde and Andrew Souther; Fordham College at Lincoln Center freshmen Natalie Grammer, Rose O’Neill, and Lucie Taylor; and Gabelli School of Business freshman Erin O’Rourk.

Taylor, a native of Virginia, grew emotional when she spoke about how the scholarship has made it possible to explore fields as varied as physics, psychology, and international relations before committing to one area.

“I love that Fordham has encouraged me to explore all of that, and is going to help me, no matter what I choose, [to]use my skills to help other people,” she said.

O’Rourk, a native of Spokane, Washington, echoed the sentiment.

“I have a lot of things that I really love, but none of them connect. I’m passionate about music, but I’ve always been really good at math. I feel like Fordham is the perfect place for me to discover my passion,” she said.

Thursday’s gathering was the first time O’Rourk and her mentor, Gayane Hovakimian, Ph.D., met in person. Hovakimian, an associate professor of finance and business economics in the Gabelli School, said she sees her role as making sure O’Rourk leaves Fordham with no regrets.

Frank Boyle, Ph.D., director of the honors program at the Lincoln Center campus, said the Cunniffes’ scholarship program stands out because of the additional resources it provides for a student who might want to study beyond the curriculum—say, learn a language that is not offered at Fordham.

“When the mentors, the students, and the deans decide there is something important for the students to do, we will have the resources to get [it]to the students directly,” said the professor of English. Boyle will mentor to the Lincoln Center Cunniffe scholars until they’re paired up with someone who matches their interest.

“Matching exceptional students with professors happens all the time in the honors program, and it’s really great. This scholarship is a genius way of building on what’s already a University strength.”