Dr. Anthony Annett is a Gabelli Fellow at Fordham University and a senior adviser at the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

Dr. Annett is the author of Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy (Georgetown UP, 2022), in which he presents an economic model based on Catholic social teaching and classical ethical traditions. To do so, he relies on numerous authors, including Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Pope Leo XII … and Ambrose.

Dr. Annett is a Climate Change and Sustainable Development Advisor at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. Working closely with Religions for Peace, he leads the Earth Institute's initiative to strengthen the engagement of the world's religious communities in the climate change and sustainable development agenda.

Trained as an economist, Annett has a keen interest in Catholic social teaching and in the intersection of ethics and economics more broadly. He has acted as an informal consultant to the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and co-authored the remarks delivered by Dr. Carolyn Woo at the launch of the encyclical, Laudato Si'.

Annett spent sixteen years at the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, with stints in the European, Fiscal Affairs, and Communications departments. In this role, he worked as an economist in a variety of countries and regions. Most recently, he worked for five years as a speechwriter to two successive Managing Directors, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and Christine Lagarde.

Co-sponsored by the Francis at 10 conference dedicated to Pope Francis and the Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan. The lecture will be in Rogalski Center ballroom, SAU.

This year’s colloquium hosted by the Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan, will be moderated by Dr. Anthony Annett, this year's Ambrose of Milan Lecturer (as part of the SAU conference, "Francis at 10: A Papacy of Possibilities") and author of Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy. Panelists will include Dr. Allison Ambrose (Professor, Accounting) and Dr. Johny Augustine (Professor, Social Work) and SAU students Loryn Heil, '26, Business and Sales (Sycamore, IL), Bella Robinson, '26, Psychology/Pre Speech Language Pathology (Whitmore Lake, Michigan), Marius Small, '24 Business Management (Joliet, IL), and Luke Sproule, '24, Cyber Security (Cape Town, South Africa).

Ambrose of Milan was a champion of economic virtue, regularly calling on the rich to care for those in need.  Our university has taken up this cause, among others, in its concern for social justice.  Now, following a developing revision of SAU's Core Curriculum, the Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan (ASSAM) is hosting its Annual Colloquium on the topic of an Ambrosian economic ethic.  Questions for this colloquium include:

• What is economic virtue?

• What is the role of the Church in economic issues (St. Ambrose, Pope Francis)?

• How does one balance appropriate profit with meeting basic human needs?

• How should economic justice be legislated?

And more specifically to SAU:

• What is Ambrose's standard for economic virtue and is it unreachable?

• How does a foundation in the liberal arts help graduates understand and take action for economic justice?

• How can SAU mold an economically virtuous Ambrosian graduate?

The nature of our colloquium, however, is conversational and intended to include panelists and audience, believing that many different perspectives working in the spirit of discovery will come to more dynamic ideas, courses of action, and potential solutions. As a guide for Ambrose’s thoughts, we are offering Ambrose De officiis 3.6.37-3.5.52.

The colloquium will be held in Lewis Boardroom (Ambrose Hall Old Chapel, west end).

Dr. Camille Gerzaguet is an Associate Professor in the Département de Langues et littératures anciennes, Université Paul Valéry - Montpellier, France.  Gerzaguet earned her doctorate in 2012 in Ancient Literatures, History and Civilizations, Université Lumière Lyon 2, Lyon (France).  Her dissertation Ambroise de Milan, De fuga saeculi : introduction, texte critique, traduction et commentaire, was published by Sources Chretiennes (n. 576, 2015),  Ambroise de Milan. La fuite du siècle. Introduction, texte critique, traduction et notes.  More recently, Gerzaguet published with Pierre Chambert-Protat Timothée. Sur la Pâque (Sources Chrétiennes, n. 604, 2019). The text deals with questions related to Easter, and the book was awarded the Prix Osiris of Institut de France. As a philologist, she teaches Latin and specializes in late antique Latin literature and exegesis, with a special focus on Ambrose of Milan.  Currently, Gerzaguet is working on how and why Ambrose, Augustine, Cyprian and others were read during the Carolingian period.

In coordination with the St. Ambrose College of Arts and Sciences annual theme, Re/Building Community, The Academy for the Study of Saint Ambrose of Milan hosts this panel to discuss how our patron offers many opportunities for scholarly and interdisciplinary study and how in executing such studies, we find Ambrose to be at the center of SAU’s mission.

In 2018, ASSAM hosted an international conference, “Ambrose of Milan: (Re-) Constructing Community”; which featured over thirty papers and a musical performance by the SAU Chamber Singers, who performed Dr. Bill Campbell's new arrangements of Ambrosian hymns. Our own SAU community accounted for twelve papers. This panel is largely composed of the authors of those papers.

These panelists, including those new to Ambrose, are prepared 1) to share with you their work, 2) to discuss how that work speaks to the objectives of their discipline/department, and finally 3) to share how their studies help us to fulfill our SAU mission.

Panelists

Dale Blesz, PhD, Education

Sandra Cassady, PhD, VP for Strategic Initiatives; Dean, College of Health and Human Services

Pat Connelly, PhD, English

Matthew Coomber, PhD, Theology

Micah Kiel, PhD, Theology

Fr. George McDaniel, PhD, Professor Emeritus of History

Tracy Schuster-Matlock, PhD, Assoc. VP Assessment & Institutional Research

Dave O’Connell, DBA, Management

Melissa Sharer, PhD, Master of Public Health Director, Center for Health Sciences Education

Moderated by the Co-Directors of ASSAM

Fr. Bud Grant, PhD, Theology

Ethan Gannaway, PhD, History

Panel Discussion

A short description of the panelist’s work and how it relates to discipline/department objectives

Open discussion on Ambrose and the SAU mission from each one's own unique perspective

Questions and Comments: Expected from the audience!

Reception and Exhibitions

Please share in the food and drink and fellowship after the event and engage the exhibitions on display.

One has been curated by ASSAM, which puts Ambrose's voice through quotes at the center of SAU. The second has been curated by the honors students in Fr. Bud and Ethan’s Honors LLC, “Caesar and Christ.”