Former State Street Executive to Discuss Banking Industry

WORCESTER, Mass. – David A. Spina ’64, retired president, chairman and CEO of State Street Corporation, will give a lecture titled “Recasting Banks in 2009: An Insider’s Perspective” at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3 in Rehm Library, Smith Hall, at the College of the Holy Cross. The lecture, part of the yearlong economic series “After the Fall: Capitalism and a just way forward,” sponsored by the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, is free and open to the public.

The series explores the lessons learned from the credit crisis that began in 2007 and offers diverse perspectives on how to construct a new economy that is sustainable and just.

“The credit crisis of the past two years provides us with an important opportunity to assess the benefits and shortcomings of our economic system, to examine how it embodies our social priorities, and to imagine what kind of system we really want and can have,” said Thomas M. Landy, director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

Spina, a Holy Cross alumnus and trustee, will offer his insider perspective of the collapse of the financial markets and look critically at the future of the banking system.

Over his 35-year career with State Street Corp., the world's leading provider of services to institutional investors, Spina also served as chief operating officer, chief financial officer and treasurer, executive vice president, and vice chairman. Under his leadership, State Street was named one of America's most admired companies by Fortune magazine and one of the 100 best corporate citizens by Business Ethics magazine. He retired in 2004.

A civic-minded leader, Spina has served as president of the Federal Advisory Council, a director of the United Way of Massachusetts, and a director of Jobs for Massachusetts. In addition to his degree at Holy Cross, he holds an M.B.A. from Harvard University. He is also a veteran of the Vietnam War.

The talks in the lecture series are recorded for podcast and available at www.holycross.edu/crec. A corresponding Web forum encourages feedback and dialogue to continue online. A list of upcoming events follows. Additional events will be planned for the spring 2010 semester.

* Thursday, Nov. 12; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library How to Prevent the Next Great Depression: A Jewish Law Perspective. Aaron Levine is the Samson and Halina Bitensky Professor of Economics and chairman of the department at Yeshiva University. A noted authority on Jewish commercial law, he recently published "The Global Recession and Jewish Law” in American Economist and is editor of the forthcoming publication Judaism and Economics (Oxford University Press, Spring 2010). * Tuesday, Nov. 17; 7:30 p.m., Rehm Library Flourishing Economies: Supporting and deepening personal and public awareness. Daniel Barbezat, professor of economics at Amherst College, will explore consumption versus consumerism and the pursuit of happiness. Do economists know how to deliver happiness? How do our dominant economics models implicitly understand what it means to be happy? In light of what we are learning from behavioral studies, how does that have to change?

To learn more about this series and to sign up for email updates from the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, visit www.holycross.edu/crec.

About The Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture:

Established in 2001 and housed in Smith Hall, the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture provides resources for faculty and course development, sponsors conferences and college-wide teaching events, hosts visiting fellows, and coordinates a number of campus lecture series. Rooted in the College's commitment to invite conversation about basic human questions, the Center welcomes persons of all faiths and seeks to foster dialogue that acknowledges and respects differences, providing a forum for intellectual exchange that is interreligious, interdisciplinary, intercultural, and international in scope.  The Center also brings members of the Holy Cross community into conversation with the Greater Worcester community, the academic community, and the wider world to examine the role of faith and inquiry in higher education and in the larger culture.