Student Perspectives
Below are some comments students made about their experience in this Reading Group.
"I love being able to analyze Stephen Levitt's Freakonomics with President Garner. We look at all aspects of Levitt's arguments and relate it to personal experiences while incorporating academics from a variety of disciplines. It's exciting to meet in President Garner's home and to get to test Katrina's new pound cake recipes, too." -- Maggie Rudick
"The Freakonomics Reading Group is truly representative of the Cornell Experience. Intellectually curious students, an accessible administration, and a truly extraordinary opportunity are typified as students critically discuss and challenge the premises of the book, in the home of President Garner, where he serves as an equal contributor to the debate." -- Amber Fricke
"The Freakonomics Reading Group is yet another unique opportunity offered at Cornell. We read the book in a group consisting majors such as economics, psychology, biochemistry, and politics, with each student contributing a special expertise and opinion." -- Mehrdad Zarifkar
Reading Group --- Day 1
Freakonomics Reading Group at President Garner's house. Everyone has their books and are ready to start.
Freakonomics
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Cornell students with Becker and Murphy
Cornell Students, President and Katrina Garner, Jim McWethy with Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy
Discussing a book with the author!
Author Steven Levitt talking to students about his book, Freakonomics
Discussing rogue economics
President Garner listens as student Chelsea Coyne discusses her thoughts on the book
Veronica Czastkiewicz with Steven Levitt
Veronica and Mehrdad discussing their favorite passages in the book
Amber Fricke with Steven Levitt
Students arrive at the University of Chicago
At the Becker Center's conference on Economics in Chicago and meeting with Steven Levitt
Audrey Saunders talking with Nobel Laureate Gary Becker
Saunders asks Becker what made him get into the field of economics
Audrey Saunders with Steven Levitt
Lunch, table 1
Lunch time at the Becker Center for Price Theory
Spring 2007 Reading Group
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economicst Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Eighteen students joined President Les Garner, his wife Katrina, and professor of mathematics, Ann Cannon in his home for discussions on Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything. Students questioned topics such as "why do drug dealers still live at home with their moms and how the Ku Klux Klan is like a group of real estate agents." Following their conversations, the group traveled to Chicago to meet coauthor Steven D. Levitt, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and director of The Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory. Students participated in a Becker Center conference lecture, attended a lunch with Levitt as the keynote speaker, and held a 90-minute private meeting with him about his book.
Says Garner, "Leading the Freakonomics Reading Group was a wonderful experience for me and (I believe) the students. Freakonomics is a provocative book, and it provoked active debate and dialogue within the reading group. One of my objectives was to give the students the opportunity to think critically about complicated issues and to probe analysis of those issues in order to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis. The students excelled, and when they had the chance to discuss their views with Steve Levitt, the author, I admires the clarity of their thinking and the articulate way they presented their ideas."