Art Goldsmith to Deliver 2026 Provost’s Lecture The annual address that celebrates W&L faculty excellence in scholarship and teaching will be held at 5:30 p.m. on Sept. 24 in University Chapel.

By Brian Laubscher
September 15, 2026

Art Goldsmith, the Jackson T. Stephens Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University, will deliver the 2026 Provost’s Lecture, titled “Reimagining Employment: A Long Overdue Conversation,” at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, in University Chapel. The talk is free and open to the public. A reception will precede the talk at 4:30 p.m. in the Washington Hall foyer.

“The Provost’s Lecture recognizes one faculty member whose scholarly or creative work is highly distinguished in their field,” said Lena Hill, university provost and professor of English. “The honor also recognizes excellence in teaching and academic citizenship. Professor Goldsmith epitomizes this W&L teacher-scholar ideal. His research has shaped his field, while his teaching, mentoring of both faculty colleagues and students and his service to W&L and to his discipline are exceptional. I look forward to celebrating his accomplishments and providing an opportunity for our community to learn from his work.”

Goldsmith will share thoughts from his research on why a conversation about employment is long overdue. He notes recent surveys reveal that only one-third of U.S. employees say they are engaged in their work, and fewer than half find their job satisfying. Moreover, workers in the U.S. are quitting voluntarily at historic levels. He attributes these developments to a lack of worksite motivation.

Drawing on economics, psychology and sociology, Goldsmith proposes a new way to boost employee effort: redesigning jobs to build internal motivation. He argues that workers become internally motivated when they have agency over how, when and where they work, a supportive and cooperative environment and ongoing training to build skills for working alongside new technologies. Because this approach benefits both firms and workers, Goldsmith believes it can appeal to both sides. His talk explains where these gains come from and why labor-management relations may be entering an era of partnership rather than continuing their long history of tension.

“I see a fresh and cooperative approach coming,” Goldsmith said. “This will be characterized by the gift of meaningfully designed work that in turn delivers improvements in productivity leading to greater profits and wages.”

Goldsmith teaches courses on the economics of social issues, race and economics, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the future of work and society. His courses are all interdisciplinary and utilize active learning strategies. His research combines insights from economics and other disciplines to explore questions about wages, employment, unemployment, psychological well-being, access to healthcare, educational attainment and the link between children’s well-being and subsequent life outcomes.

“What distinguishes Professor Goldsmith’s scholarship is his sustained interest in the human dimensions of economic life,” Hill said. “He brings intellectual curiosity and an interdisciplinary perspective to questions that matter deeply to individuals and communities, while bringing that same curiosity into the classroom. His ability to connect rigorous scholarship with questions of genuine human consequence has enriched both his field and generations of W&L students.”

Goldsmith has been a member of the W&L faculty since 1990 after previously teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Connecticut. He served as head of the Department of Economics at W&L from 1998 to 2003 and has been a core faculty member of the Shepherd Program for the Interdisciplinary Study of Poverty and Human Capability since 2005. In 2008, he was the inaugural recipient of the Libby and Hiter Harris Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges and has received awards for outstanding teaching from North Carolina and Illinois.

Goldsmith has published his research in leading professional journals, including the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of Economic Perspectives, the Journal of Human Resources, Economic Inquiry, the Southern Economic Journal, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and the Review of Economics of the Household. His work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. He served as president of the Southern Economic Association from 2021 to 2022 and has been on numerous editorial boards, including the Review of Black Political Economy, the Review of Behavioral Economics, the Journal of Economic Psychology and the Journal of Socio-Economics. Goldsmith holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Bridgeport and a master’s degree and doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana.