December 2007

Greetings from Tucson,

I hope you enjoy this fall-semester newsletter from the University of Arizona Economics Department.  The newsletter this time is all about the terrific support we've received from many of you. Click here to find out how you can help too!
   
As always, we'd like to hear from you. Please email me anytime, at mwalker@arizona.edu, with comments or suggestions or just to let us know were you are these days and what you're doing. And take a look at the Department's website, too: http://econ.arizona.edu/

Best regards from Tucson,  
Mark Walker
Department Chairman

2006-07:  A great year for the Arizona Economics Department

The past year has been perhaps the most gratifying in the Department's history. We succeeded in hiring four terrific new professors; we broke all past records for the number of students we've taught in our economics courses; and our alumni and friends have stepped up to provide support for several exciting new initiatives. This level of support is unprecedented for the Department, and we're extremely grateful.    

Profiles of our new faculty members and of some of our outstanding students will appear in subsequent issues of the newsletter.  In the remainder of this issue I'm going to tell you a little bit more about the wonderful support we've received and about some of the things your support enables us to do. 

The Edward E. Zajac Prize  

Professor Ed Zajac came to the University of Arizona in 1982 from AT&T's legendary Bell Labs, where he was the director of the Labs' economics unit.  Ed came to the U of A to take over the reins as chairman of the Economics Department.  He served in that role for nine years, and then continued as a senior professor until he retired in 1999.  He remains an active Professor Emeritus today. 

Bruce Greenwald of Columbia University recently raised the funds for a substantial gift to the Arizona Economics Department in Ed's honor. Bruce worked for Ed at Bell Labs and is now the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia Business School and is a nationally known "guru of value investing." Shortly after Bruce made his gift, Ken and Jennifer Kroner matched it with a gift of their own in honor of Ed. Many of you will remember Ken, a former U of A economics professor. He was with us until 1994, when he moved to Barclay's Global Investors, where he manages one of Barclay's global hedge funds.

The Greenwald and Kroner gifts formed the endowment that enabled us to create the Edward E. Zajac Prize – a $2,000 prize that will be awarded each year for the best research paper by an economics doctoral student at the U of A.  The first Zajac Prize was awarded to Joseph Cullen in May for his paper "Clustering Behavior of Cable Television Firms: Implications for Price and Quality." Ed and Joseph are shown in the photo above. Subsequent gifts from faculty members Ken Smith and Paul Portney have augmented the endowment, helping to ensure that the Zajac Prize will remain financially stable far into the future.

The World's First Computer Animation, by Ed Zajac

Before Ed Zajac was chosen to lead Bell Labs' new economics group in 1968, he was a Bell Labs engineer. In 1963 Ed created the world's first computer-animated film. That's right, the computer animation you see in such films as Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, The Matrix, and countless others, all began with Ed's four-minute animation of an earth-orbiting satellite stabilized by a system of gyros. You can view Ed's path-breaking short film at  http://econ.arizona.edu/zajac/zajac.htm

Charles Holt is the First Wilson Scholar

In September 2006 the Economics Department received a substantial gift from alumnus Jackson Wilson Jr. and his wife Candis. Their gift has funded a visiting scholars program that's been in our plans for several years, just waiting for sufficient funding. The gift from Jack and Candis has made it a reality. Each year the Wilson Scholars program will bring a leading economist to the UA Economics Department for a week or more, as a Wilson Visiting Scholar, to engage in intensive interaction with faculty and students. 

Our first Wilson Scholar was Charles Holt of the University of Virginia, one of the world's leading experimental economists, who visited last spring. Holt presented his work in one of our research workshops; he also met over several days with faculty to talk about research ideas; and he interacted extensively with economics students.
 
Lecturer Kate Johnson asked Holt to participate in her course on experimental economics during his stay. Afterward she described it as the best classroom experience of her teaching career. After Holt returned to Virginia, he continued to communicate with the class about the experiment they'd done, and he's encouraged one of the students to consult with him about her interest in going on for a Ph.D. in economics.

We're all extremely grateful to Jack and Candis Wilson for their gift, which is making a real difference for our students and our faculty. 

Thomas R. Brown Teaching Fellows

Earlier this fall the Arizona Economics Department received an important gift from the Thomas R. Brown Family Foundation. The Brown Foundation's gift will fund several Brown Teaching Fellows each year. This program is designed to produce the next generation of great teachers of economic principles. The Arizona Economics Department will develop young professors who will follow in the footsteps of Gerry Swanson and Don Wells.

You all know that Gerry and Don have long been two of the world's most outstanding economics educators. The generous Brown Teaching Fellowships will attract the most promising students to our doctoral program, where they'll apprentice to Gerry and Don and our other great principles lecturers – learning the ropes from the masters. Ten or twenty years from now, we expect many of the nation's outstanding principles-of-economics lecturers to be Arizona alums! The generous gift from the Brown Family Foundation provides the funding to make it happen.

Our Thanks for your Support

All of us, the faculty and the students in the Arizona Economics Department, are enormously grateful for the generous support we receive from you, the alumni and friends of the Department.  In addition to the gifts described above, gifts from the following donors have played a critical role in helping us fund the Department's many educational and research activities:

Peter and Gretchen Aronoff (Tucson)
Kenneth R. Smith and Lynne Schwartz (Tucson)
William and Betsy Bowen (Lake Forest, IL and Tucson)
William and Charlotte Johnson (Milwaukee, WI and Tucson)
Paul Portney and Chris Mendes (Tucson)
Mounir Rached (Washington D.C.)
Ed and Brooky Zajac (Tucson)
Noriaki Sasaki (Woodstock, IL)
Paula-Ann Cech (Arlington, VA)
Price Fishback (Tucson)
David and Laura Dickinson (Boone, NC)
Ronald and Amy Oaxaca (Tucson)
Keisuke Hirano and Martha Few (Tucson)
Arlington and Carol Williams (Bloomington, IN)
Tim and Lana Sooter (Tucson)
Alex Sugiyama (Tucson)
Tracy Regan (Miami, FL)
Prof. and Mrs. Gerald Bierwag (Tucson)
Atsuyuki Naka (New Orleans, LA)
Robert Gaines (Kansas City, MO)
Dorothy Burgess (Tulsa, OK)
Jason M. Shachat (Singapore)
Mark and Eileen Walker (Tucson)

You Can Help Too!

There are many opportunities, both large and small, to invest in the future of the Arizona Economics Department. Funding from the state provides a bare-bones college education, but the UA Economics Department strives for excellence. Our students deserve the best education we can provide. To find out how you can help, please contact Lana Sooter at economics@eller.arizona.edu or at (520) 621-2821.

Or just use the easiest route of all: mail a check to Lana, made out to "UA Foundation/Economics," at the address below.

Even the smallest gifts make a very big difference! 

Department of Economics
Eller College of Management
University of Arizona
PO Box 210108
Tucson, AZ 85721