Before long, holiday celebrations, family gatherings, and gift-sharing will give way to a new year and the question of resolutions and crafting a better self. William (Bill) Damon, a Hoover Institution senior fellow and Stanford University lifespan development psychologist, discusses his decades-long research into the quest for purposefulness in life, not so much self-improvement as it is being a positive contributor to the common good and the realization of purpose and integrity in work, creativity, family, and relations.

Recorded on December 17, 2025.

Further evidence that time (and politics) flies by: it was 25 years ago this month that the U.S. Supreme Court settled the final outcome of both Florida’s presidential vote count and America’s choice for its 43rd president. Ben Ginsberg, the Hoover Institution’s Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow, a preeminent authority on election law and a member of the Bush-Cheney’s legal team in the 36 days of post-election litigation and maneuvering back in 2000, discusses the two sides’ legal strategies, Bush v. Gore’s lasting impact on America’s political landscape, election-integrity matters approaching in 2026 (new voter-ID laws, the federal-state power struggle), plus his work at Hoover involving ways to restore the electorate’s trust in the voting process.

If you think America’s schools fell into decline solely as a consequence of 2020’s pandemic and a year of alternate instruction models, guess again.

Eric Hanushek, the Hoover Institution’s Paul and Jean Hanna Senior Fellow and a leading scholar on the economics of education, discusses misperceptions in the Covid-education debate (learning and achievement were in decline years before the pandemic struck), why education reform remains elusive despite decades of talk and treasure, a few sleeper concerns (long-term absenteeism), lessons to be learned from learning and teaching innovations in Dallas and Mississippi, plus the future impact of learning loss on earning power and America’s GDP.