Distinguished Speaker Series Continues This Fall

by Linda Scherr

Introduction

The fifth session of the widely applauded Bard LLI Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS) will take place on September 30 with Ray D. Madoff, Boston College Law School professor, speaking on “Taxes and the Oligarchy.” Her book The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy discusses how the tax code “has created two fundamentally separate societies: the working Americans who pay and the ultrarich who benefit.” More information on this session will be forthcoming in an article in next month’s newsletter.

DSS Program Goals

The Bard LLI DSS was launched last summer as a pilot program to provide LLI members and the wider community with access to a variety of high-quality speakers for special events focused on various topics of cultural, political, and social import. We held our first session in October 2025. The great attendance and positive reaction makes the team hope that the DSS will become a permanent part of Bard LLI programming. Hundreds of people registered for each of the four previous events.

Previous Events: War, Politics and the American Revolution

We partnered with Berkshire OLLI for two events: one speech by former New York Times journalist James Brooke about “The Ukraine-Russia War in the Era of Trump” and another by Tom Gerety, NYU law professor and former Amherst College president, on “Guardrails and Government—the Trump Administration as a Constitutional Stress Test” and the war on Iran. Berkshire OLLI, which has its own very successful DSS program, has taught us a lot about event registration, recording, and promotion.

The other two DSS events were produced in partnership with Bard College, with whom we’ve established a mutually beneficial relationship that we intend to build on going forward. They were former Bard College President Leon Botstein in conversation with LLI’s Martha Honey on “Authoritarianism and the Future of US Universities” and a screening and discussion of the Ken Burns documentary The American Revolution with Sarah Botstein, its producer and co-director.

Ideas?

The DSS team would like to hear from you with your questions and ideas for future events. Please contact Linda Scherr at [email protected]. And thanks to the Bard LLI members who have already suggested potential DSS speakers.