Santos Lecture in Chappaqua, Mar. 7

Yale professor Laurie Santos will deliver the "happiness" lecture to Yale alumni and guests in Chappaqua Thursday, Mar. 7 (Yale photos)

Laurie Santos, the Yale professor of psychology, who teaches the most popular course on campus, the course that describes and analyzes states of happiness and humans' quest to achieve them, will deliver a lecture on the topic to Yale alumni and guests in Chappaqua at the Performing Arts Center Thursday, Mar. 7 pm. The public is invited to attend the free event (at 480 Bedford Rd.).

YWAA is co-sponsoring the event with the Chappaqua Library and the town of New Castle. Rich Fabbro '76 , YWAA board member, leads the lecture series.

The event is part of the YWAA lecture series that brings prominent Yale professors to Westchester to address topics within their disciplines or to speak about other pressing issues of the moment. In recent years, YWAA has invited Yale professors of astronomy, history, law, English, political science and drama.

Last year screenwriting professor Marc Lapadula explained his list of the 10 most important films in American history.  In 2017, history professor Paul Freedman had just written a favorably reviewed book Ten Restaurants That Changed America and spoke in Scarsdale about how he came up with his list.

At Yale, Santos teaches "Psychology and the Good Life," the course that last year drew 1,200 students--not online, but in person on campus.  (She has taught the same, however, as an online offering to the public.) The course (also called "The Science of Well-Being") has drawn wide attention, including last year in the New York Times.

Santos, who also acts as head of Silliman College at Yale, is not teaching the course this semester, but will present highlights of the course at the Chappaqua lecture.

"With one in Yale students taking it," Santos told the Times, "if we see good habits, things like students showing more gratitude, procrastinating less, increasing social connections, we're actually seeding change in the school's culture."

Santos received undergraduate and doctorate degrees in psychology from Harvard and has taught at Yale since 2003.