About

Leadership Seminars is a competitive, 10-day program on Notre Dame's campus for academically talented students who show impressive leadership within their communities. Approximately 150 students are admitted to Leadership Seminars each year, and students could be eligible to receive one transferable college credit upon completion of the program. Tuition, housing, and meals for students admitted to Leadership Seminars will be paid for by the University. The US is the most unequal high-income economy in the world, with wealth inequality rising. The top ten percent of American families controlled nearly 70 percent of the wealth in the US in 2022. Over the last fifty years, the poverty rate in the US has remained stagnant. How do we explain America's social and economic inequities and stasis? How do these facts change when examining intersectional identities based on race, class, and gender, particularly in the context of anti-immigrant xenophobia and anti-black racism? Students in this course will develop a critical understanding of the historical and contemporary causes and consequences of inequality and how it is reproduced in society. The first half of this course will center on a critical analysis of various sources and outcomes of inequality, focusing on education, political representation, residential segregation, and racial disparities. The second half of the course will explore the opportunities of countervailing inequality, asking what is to be done. Students will research policy solutions, drawing on a range of interdisciplinary sources.