Academics
Recent Department News
Please send news items to econbus@lakeforest.edu
Alumni News
Greg Reger (’08) passed the LEED Accredited Professional Examination. He’s working in Kansas City for an independent consulting firm that specializes in green business.
Anna Sobieski (’07) and Shep Washburn (’07) came to campus in November and taught two seminars on advanced Excel techniques for Economics and Business majors. We’ll be offering Excel instruction seminars featuring these techniques during the spring semester.
Faculty News
We are pleased to welcome Debra Yurenka to the department as of January. Debra presented a paper titled “Competition for Funding in the Nonprofit Sector” at the Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting in November. The paper is part of her dissertation research.
Rob Baade delivered the keynote speech at the World Triathlon in Hamburg, Germany in July 2008 and won an award for the best paper at the Hamburg Symposium, held at the same time. In October he gave the keynote speech at the Illinois Economic Association meetings and was quoted on sports stadium financing in the New York Times.
During his recent sabbatical, Les Dlabay developed an “African Cultures and Business Development” course which emphasizes strategic partnerships among business, government, and NGOs when planning and implementing microenterprises. His research included visits to the embassies of The Gambia, Malawi, Namibia, Mauritius, Cameroon, and Egypt in Washington, DC.
Amanda Felkey, Kent Grote, and Jeff Sundberg gave presentations on the collapse of the mortgage market and the bailout in October as part of an Ethics Center series here at the college.
Ramon Gonzalez-Hernandez has just joined the college after completing his Ph.D. Prior to his doctoral studies he was Deputy Director in charge of the Monetary Programming and Economic Research Department of the Central Bank of the Dominican Republic. He gave two presentations on campus in October. One was part of a faculty panel organized by the Politics Department, where he discussed how the macroeconomic stance affects presidential election outcomes. He also gave a presentation titled "Contagion Effects of the the Current US Financial Crisis in Latin American Countries" sponsored by the Latinos Unidos Student Association.
Rob Lemke recently completed a chapter in an edited volume coming out of Cornell University on the role faculty scholarship at liberal arts colleges plays in producing future Ph.D. students. He also recently published a paper on baseball attendance in Journal of Sports Economics that was co-authored with two Richter students -- Kelly Tlhokwane and Matt Leonard.
Jeanne Minorini received the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management’s 2008 Distinguished Alumni Award for Service Achievement.
Jeff Sundberg gave a talk in February 2008 at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, discussing the economic principles that might be used to guide policy toward the possible modification of conservation easements. He is also the proud owner of a Fender Stratocaster and can now make an assortment of music-like noises.
Carolyn Tuttle took three students to Mexico last winter for research projects. Kim Braden wrote a thesis on CAFTA; Patrick Nicholas wrote a thesis on Wal-mex; and Heather Everst did an independent study on the US/Mexico border. Carolyn also recently completed a chapter for a book entitled “Child Labour’s Global Past”, to be published by the International Institute of Social History. It is based on a talk she recently gave in Amsterdam.