Today we’ll explore the discipline of economics itself. Do classical economic models teach us to privilege our own self interest as the most efficient means to the good? Is an economy of the common good even possible? We’re joined by John Ifcher, assistant professor in the economics department at Santa Clara and Bannan Institute scholar in the Ignatian Center. He teaches courses in microeconomics, the economics of the public sector, and the economics of poverty and income inequality. His recent work focuses on subjective well being, social welfare programs, and the decisions people make that affect others.

Today, the social class you are born into is the greatest predictor of your likelihood of graduating from college. The success of students in graduating with the necessary skills and ethical foundations provides a valued good to our communities. We’re joined by Laura Nichols, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Santa Clara University in conversation with Erin Kimura-Walsh, Lorenzo Gamboa, and Alma Orozco. What are the barriers and bridges for first-generation college students today? What supports are necessary? Does the Jesuit Catholic mission of a place like Santa Clara University uniquely shape the experience of first-generation college students?

Does access to Information Technologies lead to the leveling or breaking down of inequalities? This week we’re joined by Sreela Sarkar, Assistant Professor in the Communication department at Santa Clara and Bannan Institute Scholar in the Ignatian Center. Drawing from approaches in global communication, feminist studies, and critical policies studies, her ethnographic research seeks to understand how economic development is experienced by urban, marginalized communities who have complex and intersecting identities of class, caste, religion, and gender.

What is economic justice? In this week’s episode we are joined by Bill Sundstrom, Professor in the Economics Department at Santa Clara University, and Bannan Faculty Fellow in the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education. Professor Sundstrom’s research looks at the causes and consequences of poverty and income inequality in the Silicon Valley region, as well as relevant policy responses. In this week’s episode he examines the often competing values that underwrite current U.S. economic practice, proposing three economic principles to advance the common good: security, opportunity, and fairness.

Today, we will explore how truth and truth telling are a common good. How do experiences of racial injustice in the United States require a truth telling beyond present legal provisions? Might we need to expand the array of resources available to communities to bring about racial justice and the common good? We are joined by Margaret Russell, Bannan Institute Scholar and Professor of Law at Santa Clara University, where she teaches constitutional law, civil procedure, and social justice. She is co-founder of two non-profits: The East Palo Alto Community Law Project and the Equal Justice Society. She is currently co-authoring a book on transitional justice and the US experience entitled Righting Historical Wrongs.

This episode looks at the preschool to prison pipeline, asking how implicit racial bias among school teachers results in increased suspensions and expulsions among students of color. How might the development of cultural competence disrupt such implicit and explicit bias? We are joined by Brett Solomon, Associate Professor in the Child Studies Program at Santa Clara University where she also serves as Interim Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and Bannan Faculty Fellow in the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education. Her current research focuses on the school to prison pipeline and she directs SCU’s Future Teachers Project, a program for students of color who want to teach in urban and underserved communities.

Today, we will explore the ways in which race has been constructed in the national landscape; how anti-racist and racist movements defined national identity from World War II through the Obama and Trump presidencies. We are joined by Tony Hazard, Assistant Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at Santa Clara University and Bannan Institute Scholar in the Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education. His first book, Postwar Anti-Racism, examines the interplay of US cultural relations, and the production of scientific theories of race at the United Nations immediately following World War II.

This episode explores the issue of racial and ethnic justice and the common good through the lens of immigration, engaging movements of assimilation and difference within the production of national identity and the pursuit of a common good. We are joined by Hsin-I Cheng, associate professor in the Communication Department at Santa Clara University and Bannan Institute Scholar, whose book Culturing Interface: Identity, Communication and Chinese Transnationalism  investigates the experiences of a Chinese and Taiwanese community on the U.S. Mexico border.

This week's episode explores how questions of racial and ethnic justice intersect with American identity on social media. How is the common good negotiated on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and digital testimonio? To unpack these questions, we’re joined by Cruz Medina, assistant professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the Department of English at Santa Clara University, and Bannan Institute Scholar in the Ignatian Center. His book Reclaiming Pocho Pop looks at issues of citizenship, education, and politics, related to Latinx in the U.S. Explore more of Cruz’s work on academiadecruz.com or follow him on Twitter, @academiadecruz.

In the first season of INTEGRAL, we’re exploring how issues of racial and ethnic justice intersect with the common good. Is there a common good in our common home? To engage these pressing questions of racial justice and the common good today, particularly within the US criminal justice system, we’re joined by Bill O’Neill, S.J. associate professor of Social Ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, Bannan Institute Scholar in the Ignatian Center, and a Jesuit priest. His writings address questions of social reconciliation, human rights, and refugee policy. His most recent publication is entitled, “First Be Reconciled: Restorative Justice and Deliberative Democracy.”