Contact: Fran Maas, Distinguished Lecture Series coordinator, (360) 650-7545, fran.maas@wwu.edu
BELLINGHAM - The Western Washington University President's Distinguished Lecture Series presents the third in a series of three dynamic and diverse speakers for the 2007-2008 season, economist Roland Fryer. The series began with physicist and string theorist Brian Greene and world religions expert Stephen Prothero. 
The Distinguished Lecture Series offers a community forum in which prominent speakers foster and encourage creative thought.
Fryer, an economist and assistant professor at Harvard University, will speak at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, April 10 in the Performing Arts Center. His talk is titled ""Economics of Incentives: What drives Individuals & Organizations to Make Decisions?" Fryer applies economic theories to issues of race and discrimination. He was named a "Rising Star" by Fortune magazine and was featured in Esquire's "Genius Issue." Fryer collaborated with co-authors economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner to write "Freakonomics." Fryer and Levitt wrote several chapters in the book from Fryer's findings on the racial inequalities within the American educational system, the reasons why people join the Ku Klux Klan and the economic impact of a child's first name.
Fryer's work has been profiled in The New York Times, Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Black Voices. Applying scientific and economic tools to social and racial issues, he has studied the black-white achievement gap, the causes and consequences of distinctively black names, mixed-race children, colorblind affirmative action, and the consumption patterns of blacks versus whites. Scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. believes that Fryer will "raise the analysis of the African-American experience to new levels of rigor."
Tickets for Fryer's lecture will be available beginning Tuesday, April 1. Check http://www.lectureseries.wwu.edu/ for updates on availability.
All Distinguished Lecture Series lectures are held in Western's Performing Arts Center (PAC) Mainstage and begin at 6:30 pm. Free parking is located in the C lots and Lot12A, near Fairhaven College. Free shuttle vans will make continuous trips to and from the PAC beginning at 5:30 pm from Lot 12A. The shuttles will make return trips to the parking lot after the lecture.
All lectures are free, but tickets are required. Tickets are available at the WWU Box Office, located in Western's Performing Arts Center. Tickets are available in person, via phone (360) 650-6146, fax (360) 650-7955 or e-mail, pdls@wwu.edu. The WWU Box Office is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Ticket orders will be held at the Box Office "will call" for pick-up, before or on the evening of the lecture.
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