Last night, former University President Lawrence H. Summers held an open discussion about economics, politics and social entrepreneurship in the Winthrop Junior Common Room.

Summers, the former Treasury Secretary who resigned from Harvard’s presidency in 2006, now holds a prestigious University Professorship and is still considered an influential figure in U.S. economic policy.

Summers told the assembled students to take advantage of the opportunities offered by their education by becoming leaders in their fields.

“Don’t do something where you’re one of 50 other people...who are interchangeable cogs in a machine,” Summers said. “Do something where, if you do it successfully, you’re the one. Think about how you’re going to break a mold.”

Summers particularly emphasized the importance of taking risks, on both the personal and institutional levels.

“We will none of us be remembered for the things we didn’t do, for the things we thought were too risky to dare to do,” he said. “In the future, I hope that Harvard will try things that will fail, but that its mistakes will be mistakes of action and not mistakes of inaction.”

Summers, the third in a series of speakers hosted by Winthrop, was late to the event, and his talk was interrupted twice by his Blackberry.

Winthrop House Master Stephen P. Rosen said that he invited Summers to speak because “he has always been committed to the College and always made the effort to visit the Houses.”

The former Treasury secretary also devoted much of his prepared speech to a discussion of the country’s current economic turmoil—in particular, yesterday’s decision by the Federal Reserve to lend up to $30 billion to JPMorgan Chase to absorb floundering investment bank Bear Sterns.

Summers said that the takeover was “as dramatic an episode for the U.S. financial system as we’ve had” since the stock market crash of 1987, but he called the decision “appropriate.”

Summers criticized current Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr., for being too timid in the wake of the sub-prime mortgage crisis. While more caution could have helped avert the problem, Summers said, the same impulse can be destructive after the fact.

Summers also attacked the White House, saying that the Bush administration has given “insufficient weight to the interests of the middle class.” He said that lapses in moral leadership, raw power, and economic strength have caused the country to fall from a position of global strength, and he called for a “new philosophical approach to foreign policy.”

When asked by a student which current presidential candidate he supports, Summers responded, “I’m a Democrat. The Democrats have two candidates. Each would make a superb president.”

Students were generally positive about Summers’ appearance, half of which was devoted to question-and-answer session.

“I liked the fact that it was very open,” said Fiona K. Fong ’08. “The fact that it was lower-key was good, because I felt less intimidated to ask questions.”