bright. there was so much to be studied, the only limitation seemed to be the hours in a day. 1 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches the second lesson was like a sunrise - dawning with beauty and growing steadily stronger. there were so many questions i needed to ask, and each one led to another, while every answer opened a new line of inquiry. and the more i asked, the better the questions became. the third lesson was like a supermoon - towering, imposing, but looming so closely, it seems like you could reach out and touch it with your hand. i knew that the way i sought answers would matter to my work, but it would take time to fully understand why and how. i can see each of those lessons in that photo. the first question i wanted to ask was inspired by dr. alexander : what are the major causes of unemployment among black americans? i began to realize that curiosity is shaped by our experiences and perspectives. sadie tanner mossell alexander was a pioneer because of her intellect. but she also broke new research ground by posing questions no other economist had thought to ask, because they were questions about people who were not represented in the field. as deltas have known for a long time, in 1921, dr. alexander was the first african american to earn a ph. d. in economics. more than half a century later, i understood from her experience that there was still a universe of untracked data, unresearched areas, and unasked questions. and like the celestial expanse, we have really only plumbed a fraction of their contents. here was an opportunity not just to explore, but to discover. finally, that picture captures the first time i really dug into records in search of answers to my never - ending questions. actual paper records - no google, no wikipedia, no siri, no alexa, no websites, no pcs, and no internet. and i used graph paper, a ruler, and a pencil to plot the data! it seems primitive now, but it was excellent training for the years to come. i used similar methods to collect data for my doctoral dissertation ; although this time, rather than the milledgeville office of the georgia department of labor, i was marching down to the moscow office of the goskomstat, the russian federal statistical agency. i believe these seeds planted by dr. sadie t. m. alexander introduced me to my calling. economics was not necessarily a done

deal - i thought i might do a ph. d. in philosophy at one point, when i was studying philosophy at oxford university and at the universita© cheikh anta diop de dakar in senegal. but economics turned out to be my purpose and my passion. economics is the fundamental toolkit i use to find answers to the multitude of questions swirling around my head at any given moment. i see economics at work in everyday life and know how foundational it is to every society and community's success. there is a passage from an alice dunbar - nelson poem - because why quote the rest when deltas are the best - that goes : how few of us in all the world's great, ceaseless struggling strife, 2 / 7 bis - central bankers'speeches go to our work with gladsome, buoyant step, and love it for its sake, whate'er it be. delta's dedication to learning and public service gave us an advantage in considering the mission that would occupy our lives. we thought about the change we could make and the influence we could have. we did the advanced calculus that measured the goodness of trouble against the enormity of student debt payments. we knew we wanted work - whether a professional calling or life's work - that, as soror alice said, we loved " for its sake. " while i do not always have a buoyant step, and " gladsome " is probably not the first word i would use to describe myself, i do love my work for its sake, which is a tremendous gift. and i was drawn to delta, because i wanted to be surrounded by people who would use their talents and passions to improve the lives and well - being of all people in the world. why am i bringing this up today? i am sticking to the assignment : deltas embracing the past and shaping the future. we are here to commemorate our founders, our forebears, and the ties that bind us. to celebrate the ways that delta's esteemed history brought each of us through its doors, and how membership helped to shape who we are and who we are yet to become. and delta, along with other divine nine organizations, can be key to shaping the future of economics. diversity is critical to any profession, but particularly to those - like economics - that tend toward the homogenous. or those - like economics - that affect people's daily lives. as policy