Filter by:

The Lavin Agency Speakers Bureau

A speakers bureau that represents the best original thinkers,
writers, and doers for speaking engagements.

Anthony Jack

Poverty and equality shape not just how students get to college, but how they make it through.

Author of The Privileged Poor | Boston University Associate Professor and Newbury Center Faculty Director

Now Playing

On Diversity: Access Ain’t Inclusion

Now Playing

Access vs. Inclusion: Why Getting Into College Is Only Half the Battle

Now Playing

Poverty & Equality: Who Gets to College, and Who Makes It Through? (9:21)

Now Playing

How Inequality Shapes the College Experience

Lavin Exclusive Speaker

Elite colleges are accepting diverse and disadvantaged students more than ever before—but to Anthony Jack, access does not equal acceptance. As author of The Privileged Poor, Jack—once a low-income, first-generation college student himself—studies how poor students are often failed by the top schools that admit them. He’s also the faculty director of Boston University’s Newbury Center, which serves first-generation students and focuses on student success and inclusion. In talks, he details how class divides on campus create barriers to academic success—and shares what schools can do to truly level the playing field. “When you address the inequalities that disproportionately fall on the shoulders of first-generation and low-income college students,” he says, “you make the university better for all students.”

Anthony Jack is transforming the way we address diversity and inclusion in education. He’s an associate professor of higher education leadership at Boston University, and faculty director of BU’s Newbury Center, where he works to increase understanding and equity around first-generation students on campus.

His widely acclaimed book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students, reframes the conversation surrounding poverty and higher education. In it, he explains the paths of two uniquely segregated groups. First, the “privileged poor”: students from low-income, diverse backgrounds who attended elite prep or boarding school before attending college. The second are what Jack calls the “doubly disadvantaged”—students who arrive from underprivileged backgrounds without prep or boarding school to soften their college transition. Although both groups come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, the privileged poor have more cultural capital to navigate and succeed—in the college environment and beyond.

“The lasting beauty of Jack’s ethnography is that it gives a voice to the students who, as his research ends up revealing, most need it.”— The New Yorker

“It’s one thing to graduate with a degree from an elite institution, and another thing to graduate with the social capital to activate that degree,” Jack explains. In many ways, rather than close the wealth gap, campus culture at elite schools further alienate poor students by making them feel like they don’t belong. To challenge these deeply ingrained social, cultural, and economic disparities on campus, we must first begin to question what we take for granted. Jack reveals how organizations—from administrators and association organizers, to educators and student activists—can ask the right questions and bridge the gap.

Jack’s research has been cited by The New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The National Review, The Washington Post, American RadioWorks, WBUR, and MPR. His book, The Privileged Poor, was named the 2018 recipient of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize by Harvard University Press.

Testimonials

We really enjoyed Tony and thought he did a great job. All the feedback we got was really positive. I think his approach to inclusiveness was just what our organization was looking for and he was very authentic and genuine in his delivery.

PDC Energy

Lavin Exclusive Speakers

Angela Duckworth

Grit, more than talent, IQ, looks, or wealth, is a powerful indicator of success.

Nikole Hannah-Jones

There isn’t a beat you can cover in America—education, housing—where race is not a factor.

Greg Hoffman

Great brands don’t simply reach customers: they create real emotional bonds with them.

George M. Johnson

Stories of queer identity and Black joy have the power to educate us on diversity, inspire social justice activism, and build community.

Nicholas Thompson

Technology and science continue to make the world a better place—we can’t lose sight of that core truth.

Speech Topics

Grit at School

The Privileged PoorHow Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students

What does it mean to be a poor student on a rich campus? This question is all the more important as colleges and universities continue to take affirmative steps to socioeconomically diversify their campuses. In this talk, Anthony Jack examines how class and culture shape how undergraduates navigate college by exploring the “experiential core of college life,” those too often overlooked moments between getting in and graduating.

Here, he sheds new light on how inequality is reproduced by contrasting the experiences of the Privileged Poor—lower-income students who graduate from boarding, day, and preparatory high schools—and the Doubly Disadvantaged—lower-income undergraduates who graduate from public, typically distressed high schools. Drawing on interviews with 103 undergraduates and two years of observing everyday life at an elite university, Jack interrogates the social and personal costs of exclusion that have implications for undergraduates’ objective opportunities and their social well-being.

DEI: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Diversifying Your WorkforceInclusion Has More Than One Setting

How do you and your company think about diversity recruitment and, equally important, the question of retention? What are you looking for when you screen appicants? In this talk, Anthony Jack helps corporate audiences understand not only what happens to students on campus before they submit their resumes and cover letters to employers, but also the larger social inequalities that make them look different from their wealthier applicants. Jack shows that in the same way that schools must look at how students don’t simply assimilate at the moment of entry, companies must also examine taken-for-granted policies that privilege those from money, and place undue burdens on employees from nontraditional backgrounds.