Join Students For Liberty at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI on Saturday, October 6 for the 2012 Students For Liberty Michigan Regional Conference. Michigan is home to some of the strongest pro-liberty student groups in the country and the Michigan Regional Conference will bring together these strong student leaders for an incredible event.
- Where: Michigan State University, North Business College Complex Building, Room N130 (632 Bogue St. East Lansing, MI 48824)
- Parking: Free parking is available for conference attendees across Shaw Lane from the Business College
- Host: Michigan State College Libertarians
- When: October 6, 2012
- Conference: 9am – 8pm
- Social: 8pm – 10pm
- Cost: FREE of Charge
Evening Keynote Speaker – Justin Amash, United States Congress
Representative Justin Amash represents Michigan’s Third District in the 112th United States Congress. Justin serves on the Committee on the Budget, the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and the Joint Economic Committee. He was elected to his first term on November 2, 2010.
Justin was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He received his bachelor’s degree with High Honors in Economics from the University of Michigan and his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. He worked as a business lawyer and a Michigan state representative before his election to Congress. Justin was one of only twelve Representatives to have perfect attendance, not missing one of the 948 roll call votes, during the First Session of the 112th Congress. He has been a leading critic of the unconstitutional war in Libya, the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act, and the Stop Online Piracy Act—SOPA. When asked by a New York Times reporter to describe his voting methodology, Justin explained: “I follow a set of principles, I follow the Constitution. And that’s what I base my votes on. Limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty.” Justin has been a leader in the incorporation of Facebook and other social media into his work as a public official, and he has set new standards for accountability. In October 2010, TIME Magazine named Justin one of its “40 under 40 – Rising Stars of U.S. Politics.”
Morning Keynote Speaker – Michael Reitz, Executive Vice President Mackinac Center for Public Policy
Michael J. Reitz is executive vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, where he oversees the Center’s policy research and marketing. Prior to joining the Mackinac Center in 2012, Reitz spent eight years with the Freedom Foundation in Washington state as its general counsel and director of labor policy. In that role, Reitz litigated for accuracy in elections, defended the First Amendment rights of teachers, and fought for transparency in government.
Reitz frequently comments on public policy issues and has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times and other publications. He is a co-author of “To Protect and Maintain Individual Rights,” a reference guide to the Declaration of Rights in the Washington Constitution. Reitz received his law degree from Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy.
Professor Nick Snow
Institute for Humane Studies Speaker Series
Nick Snow is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Ohio State University. He earned his PhD in Economics at George Mason University where he was also a H. B. Earhart Fellow. There he wrote his dissertation under Peter J. Boettke. His research interests are primarily on the political economy of prohibition but he is also interested in Austrian economics, law and economics, public choice theory, history of economic thought, and constitutional political economy. Professor Snow was raised in Boca Raton, FL and did his undergraduate studies at Loyola University New Orleans, where he studied under Walter Block, and received a BA in Economics. He then went on and received his MA in Economics from San Jose State University where he was the Douglas E. French Fellow in Austrian Economics.
Professor Kevin Vallier
Institute for Humane Studies Speaker Series
Kevin Vallier is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University. He received his BA in philosophy from Washington University in St. Louis in 2004 and his PhD from the University of Arizona in 2011. His interests lie within political philosophy, political economy, normative ethics and philosophy of religion. He is presently writing a book manuscript on the proper place of religious commitment in liberal politics tentatively titled Beyond Separation: Uniting Liberal Politics and Public Faith.He spent the ’11-’12 school year as a research associate at Brown University’s Political Theory Project. He has published articles appearing in journals including Utilitas, The Journal of Moral Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, Public Affairs Quarterly, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and The Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Professor Ross Emmett
Ross B. Emmett (M.I.B.S., South Carolina; Ph.D., Manitoba) has taught since 2003 at James Madison College (an undergraduate liberal arts college of public and international affairs) at Michigan State University. He previously taught in western Canada. An economist with a research specialization in Frank H. Knight and the history of Chicago economics, he teaches at the intersection of economic thought and political thought. His appointment is in Political Theory & Constitutional Democracy; he also teaches the core course in the Political Economy specialization; and is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Economics. He has been a visiting professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cachan (2008 and 2009) and the Center for the Study of Public Choice at George Mason University (2000), and was a Julian Simon Fellow at the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana in summer 2005. Currently serving as the co-director of the Michigan Center for Innovation & Economic Prosperity, he directs research on the problems Michigan and the Midwest face in revamping their economies to succeed in a global, high-tech world. Current book projects include a history of Chicago economics in the postwar period, a study of the comparative political economy of innovation, an intellectual biography of Frank Knight, and an account of the relationship between John Law and Richard Cantillon in the context of the European financial crisis of the early 1700s.
Harris Kenny – Reason Foundation
Harris Kenny is a policy analyst specializing in state and local government reform at Reason Foundation, a non-profit think tank advancing free minds and free markets. Kenny conducts research on privatization, public-private partnerships, public finance, transportation, infrastructure, corrections and education policy issues. He has worked alongside policymakers in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and elsewhere to implement market-based policy solutions.
Kenny assists in the production of several Reason Foundation publications, serving as an editor of the Annual Privatization Report and a regular contributor to Innovators in Action. His work has also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Denver Post, The Sacramento Bee, The Orange County Register and various other print and online outlets.
Prior to joining Reason Foundation, Kenny worked at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). He graduated from Pepperdine University with a B.A. in Economics, where he worked as a research assistant to Dr. Luisa Blanco at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy.
Professor James W. Lark, III
James W. Lark, III currently serves as a professor in the Department of Statistics and the Department of Systems and Information Engineering at the University of Virginia. He received a B.S. in Mathematics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Va. Tech) and a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. Dr. Lark has served as visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Public Choice at Virginia Tech. He was an Earhart Foundation Visiting Fellow at the Center for Research in Government Policy and Business in the Graduate School of Management at the University of Rochester.
He currently serves as a regional representative on the Libertarian National Committee, and as a member of the LNC’s Executive Committee. He served as chairman of the Libertarian Party during the 2000-2002 term. Dr. Lark is the recipient of the 2008 Thomas Jefferson award (the Party’s highest honor), given at national LP conventions for lifetime achievement. He currently serves as the vice chairman of the Libertarian Party of Virginia.
Dr. Lark is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Advocates for Self-Government. He is also the chairman of the Student Libertarian Alumni Committee. He is the secretary of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Individual Liberty, and serves as a member of the Board of Advisors of Students For Liberty.
Peter Bonilla – Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Peter Bonilla has been with FIRE since 2008 and worked with FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program since 2009, becoming Associate Director in 2012. As Associate Director he manages FIRE’s significant caseload, writes frequently for FIRE’s blog, The Torch, and has lectured to student groups and at student conferences around the country. Since January 2011, Peter has also been a contributor for the political commentary website PolicyMic, covering issues in American higher education. Prior to joining FIRE, Peter was Literary Manager of Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Company, one of the country’s top theatres for the development and production of new politically and socially-themed plays. He is also a past recipient of a fellowship in playwriting from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and his first play was produced to critical acclaim in Arizona in September 2011. In 2009, Peter was a contestant on the television game show Jeopardy! His undergraduate degree, with a double major in theater arts and economics, is from the University of Pennsylvania.
Register for the Michigan Regional Conference HERE!