Dr. Harlan Beckley Lectures On ‘Rethinking Poverty And Inequality’
Ronald Reagan infamously said, “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.”
The implication of that statement, according to Dr. Harlan Beckley, executive director of the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty, is that “poverty is stubbornly intractable, at least unresponsive to public policy initiatives.” Dr. Beckley cautions, however, that while poverty may be persistent, it “should not be confused with intractable and unchanging,” and he points out that many programs have had a genuine impact on poverty rates and positively affected many who live in poverty.
On Nov. 16, Niagara University students and employees gathered in the St. Vincent’s Hall amphitheater to attend Dr. Beckley’s presentation, titled “Rethinking Poverty and Inequality: A Call to Action for Higher Education.” This discussion, presented by the Levesque Institute, in conjunction with the department of social work and the university mission committee, began with a discussion of statistics on poverty in our country.