We hope you enjoy these top news stories about TFAS activities, alumni and events this week. Please visit us on social media for additional up-to-the-moment TFAS news and information and sign up to receive weekly updates.
TFAS alumni, staff and faculty continue to make headlines. Read news, analysis and updates by visiting this week’s “Quick Links.”
The Lasting Legacy of John Farley
TFAS’s esteemed Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship is a premier program for early-career journalists seeking to strengthen their comprehensive journalistic skill set, with a special emphasis on ethical and unbiased reporting. Fellows pursue individual projects that explore complex and relevant themes broadly supportive of a free society. Many go on to secure careers as prominent journalists, publish books, and win awards for their journalistic endeavors.
The late John Farley directed TFAS’s Novak Fellowship for more than 20 years with intense dedication. Previously a program of the Phillips Foundation, the Novak Fellowship flourished under John’s direction. He is responsible for guiding the program under the TFAS umbrella and successfully shaping it into what it is today. He mentored journalists who are now some of the most prominent in the field. John was a uniquely kind man with a heart for serving others. His thoughtfulness, passion and selflessness shaped both the Novak Fellowship and the journalists he guided each year.
In recognition of John’s impact, TFAS renamed the annual Alumni Fund Fellowship in John’s honor last year, formally awarding the inaugural John Farley Alumni Fund Fellowship to Charles McElwee, Novak ’20, at the 2020 Journalism Awards Dinner. The most rewarding aspect of the Novak Fellowship, according to McElwee, is the generous support from TFAS that provides the opportunity to pursue research, reporting and travel that he otherwise would not have been able to do.
“The program is a life-changing experience and is the type of opportunity that serves as a foundation for one’s career,” McElwee said. “This honor, along with the support I’ve received through the Fellowship, is one that will far outlast the timeframe of the program. In reality, this Fellowship and the work I’ve done through it will carry me throughout my career, and I am grateful for everyone’s support as I’ve pursued my writing, reporting and research in a professional capacity.”
Read more about John Farley’s legacy and learn about the work of our inaugural John Farley Alumni Fund Fellow at TFAS.org/FarleyImpact21.
The People Behind the Programs: Dee Goines
TFAS high school programs division, the Foundation for Teaching Economics (FTE), introduces young individuals to an economic way of thinking about national and international issues. FTE also promotes excellence in economic education by helping teachers of economics become more effective educators. This mission would not be possible without the dedicated professors, mentor teachers and program coordinators who devote their time and energy to facilitating these engaging and innovative programs.
FTE is known nationally for its emphasis on active learning and the engaging activities and lessons used to teach economics. Our faculty members are high-energy individuals who breathe life into the programs they facilitate, making each program unforgettable for students and teachers alike. Their passion for teaching economics and leadership skills shines through each interaction they have with the participants, leading to lifelong lessons and lasting change in the lives of thousands of students and teachers each year.
Longtime FTE leadership facilitator Dee Goines is one of the dedicated individuals who make economics memorable for hundreds of young leaders each year. Goines’ favorite part of his job is seeing how transformative the programs are for each student that attends. He especially loves teaching the Behavioral Styles activity, which helps students identify their own styles of leadership and understand how they respond to other types of leadership.
“Learning about leadership is important for young people because it prepares them to step up in critical moments,” Goines says. “Learning leadership principles now positions participants to be able to speak to their own leadership skills later.”
Learn more about Goines’ role with TFAS high school programs at TFAS.org/Goines.
TFAS Academic Director Opines: “Price gouging laws make us feel good but act bad”
Following last week’s cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline, panic-buying of gasoline, and ultimate supply disruptions, TFAS Academic Director Dr. Anne Bradley shared a common sense economics lesson in an op-ed for The Washington Times. In the piece, Bradley explains how “price gouging laws cause hoarding.”
She goes on to outline this “counterintuitive but accurate claim,” and explains how dismissing economic truths can lead to even greater shortages in the most common of disasters.
“Price gouging laws often state that prices cannot exceed a certain percentage of average prices in a recent time period,” she writes. “The problem with all of this is how, in the time of an unanticipated supply shock, can a state bureaucrat know how much price inflation should be permitted? The short economic answer is that they cannot possibly know.”
She explains how these anti-price gouging laws and regulations create artificial price ceilings and cause “panic buying,” which occurs because the prices are not allowed to temporarily rise.
In the piece, Dr. Bradley calls prices “the most sophisticated, elegant and nimble mechanisms of a market.” She explains how it is prices that give us “economic signals about underlying levels of scarcity and how they are changing,” rather than all-knowing regulators.
To learn more about this phenomena and why government interference and regulations are not the answer to solving these kinds of problems, read the full article in The Washington Times.
Post of the Week
Abby Witt ’15 was featured as our TFAS Alumni Spotlight last week. A content producer for the PGA Tour, Witt was recently listed as Asbury University’s “30 Under 30” list for her career success.
“Words will never adequately explain the significance TFAS has in my heart.” @PGATOUR content producer @AbbyWitt13 ’15 has been named as one of @AsburyUniv‘s “30 Under 30” for her success in the media communications & journalism industry. pic.twitter.com/tLSNhgOYKs
— TFAS (@TFASorg) May 12, 2021
QUICK LINKS
Phil Applebaum ’12, PPF ’15, has joined the Pacific Legal Foundation as their new talent development manager.
Kristin Tate, Novak ’19, is a communications executive for the Don Huffines for Texas Governor campaign.
Moss Brennan ’19 shares the story of a girl scout troop raising money for a local organization in the Watauga Democrat.
Carrie Sheffield ’06, Novak ’06, shares how the potential of technology has been revealed over the past year during the coronavirus pandemic in a piece for Independent Women’s Forum.
Danyale Kellogg’s ’18, ’19 first piece on health and national security as the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy 2021 Global Health Fellow was published in Global Security Review.
Justin Black ’18, ’19 and Alexis Lenderman-Black ’17, ’19 were featured for the National Society of Leadership and Success’ “Motivational Mondays” on how they kept their past from defining their future.
Leah Libresco Sargeant, Novak ’18, shares how government failures can ultimately lead to better policy down the road in a piece for The Week.
Juan Mejia ’14 has started a new job this month as a communications analyst at Cornerstone Public Affairs.
Elise Amez-Droz, PPF ’19, has a new op-ed in The Hill on the relevance of health care price transparency for patients.
Samantha-Jo Roth ’14 interviews Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg on U.S. cyber vulnerability for Spectrum News.
Peter Suderman, Novak ’10, analyzes President Biden’s economic aid package for Reason.
Joshua Gonzalez ’20 will be interning in the Washington, D.C., office of Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar this summer. Afterward, he will join Hamilton Place Strategies as an analyst. In a recent feature from Gettysburg College, Gonzalez says he has learned to defend his views passionately and with hard evidence through his public policy education.
Rachel Coers ’20 will attend University of Florida Levin College of Law this fall.
Annie Xiao ’14, PPF ’16, has been named to the Top 100 Ethnic Minority Future Leaders on the 2021 Empower Ethnic Minority Role Model List.
Cody Ray Milner ’18 graduated from George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, where he was vice president of GMU’s Federalist Society chapter and executive editor of the George Mason Law Review. Milner has the rare honor of his student comment in the George Mason Law Review being cited in a U.S. Court of Appeals case for the D.C. Circuit.