Beloit College senior Delna Sepoy spent her early childhood in Mumbai before moving to London as a teen. The striking differences that she observed between Indian and English standards of living had a profound effect on her. “My family is middle-class, but our opportunities increased greatly when we moved to London,” she explains. “I was amazed by the quality of health care and education that are available to all people in the United Kingdom, regardless of their economic status. I wanted to know how and why this was possible in some countries, and what was hindering such development in other countries.”

A few years later, Sepoy was thrilled to find herself in the company of Douglass North—a Nobel Prize-winning economist who has dedicated his life to asking those same questions. An economics and management major, Sepoy regarded North with awe and admiration. “He’s kind of like a rock star,” she admits.

Sharing a classroom with the likes of North is just one of the outstanding opportunities that Beloit students now enjoy thanks to the Miller Upton Memorial Endowments in the department of economics and management. Several years in the making, the Upton Programs are dynamic new additions to the department’s core curriculum. While the headline event is an annual residency and lecture by a prominent economist who serves as that year’s Upton Scholar, the full suite of programs includes a year-round speaker series, experiential learning through endowed internships, and opportunities to network with established names as well as rising stars in the field.

In short, the Upton Programs equip students with the tools and experiences that make them better thinkers, better scholars, and responsible contributors to public debate. They do so by placing Beloit students in direct contact with the world’s most influential economists and providing them with the background to be able to hold their own among such luminaries.

“Beloit is a place where students think about fundamental ‘big ideas’ within economics, and they do so with leading thinkers in the field,” says Emily Chamlee-Wright, the Elbert H. Neese, Jr. Professor of Economics and director of the Upton Programs. “Beloit students have the capacity to engage those ideas at a deep level because they have done their homework in advance.”

How to Prosper

Before there was homework, there was groundwork—specifically, groundwork laid by Chamlee-Wright, Jeff Adams, the Allen-Bradley Professor of Economics and chair of the department of economics and management, and a host of others.

It started with a question posed to Adams by then-trustee William Fitzgerald’86, an alumnus of Beloit’s economics program. In 2004, Fitzgerald asked Adams what the department needed in order to prosper and attract new faculty and students. Simple though it was, that query launched the faculty on a period of reflection and strategic planning. Initial conversations focused on strengthening relationships between students and alumni, but the scope of the project quickly broadened. Fitzgerald and other alumni, including former College trustee Robert Virgil’56, contributed their perspectives as successful business people.

Those conversations commenced at roughly the same time that the College’s Office of External Affairs was seeking an appropriate vehicle with which to honor R. Miller Upton, Beloit’s sixth president and a renowned economist. Subsequent discussions between Adams, Chamlee-Wright, and College development staff found common ground, and a campaign to endow the Upton Programs was launched that year.

Under Adams’ and Chamlee-Wright’s leadership, the economics and management faculty devised a plan for the Upton Programs that would focus on three critical areas: renewed emphasis on asking the “great questions” that advance the ideas and institutions of a free and prosperous society; the establishment of on-campus programming that would unite students, faculty, and alumni in an ongoing exchange about such issues; and the allocation of more resources toward expanding internship and entrepreneurial opportunities for students.

Immediate support came from Fitzgerald and Virgil, who agreed to co-chair the campaign.

Fitzgerald’s commitment was based on his conviction that students learn best by actively engaging with leading thinkers. He had experienced the power of that kind of education when he studied with a Nobel Laureate while attending business school at the University of Chicago. “It is inspiring and energizing to speak with someone who is at the pinnacle of the economics profession and recognized for his or her leadership,” he says. “Just spending five minutes with someone like that can change the way you approach education and think about problems.”

For Virgil, the campaign offered a meaningful way to create a living memorial to his mentor, whom he had known since Upton assumed the presidency of Beloit College in 1954. The two men spoke about plans for the Upton Programs shortly before Upton’s death in late 2005. “Miller liked its emphasis on exploring what it takes to have a strong nation, how wealth is generated, and how that contributes to the well-being of nations,” he says. Virgil assured his friend that all aspects of the programs would be handled in the right way.

An important milestone came with the establishment of the Neese Professorship in Economics in 2007. Named for the late “Ebbie” Neese, a longtime College trustee, community leader, and close friend of Upton, the professorship was endowed by the Neese Family Foundation in support of the Upton Programs. As the first holder of the professorship, Chamlee-Wright was able to devote more time to coordinating the first three Upton Programs. She serves as the Neese Professor of Economics until 2010, when another member of the economics and management faculty will have an opportunity to design and execute future Upton Programs.

Grants from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation allowed the College to implement the 2008 and 2009 Upton Forums without tapping into funds that had already been raised toward the $4 million Upton endowments goal.

Connecting to the Curriculum

Even as the campaign to raise funds shifted into high gear, Chamlee-Wright and her fellow economics and management faculty members were refining plans for implementing the Upton Programs.

“Lots of colleges bring in famous people to speak,” she says. “What makes the Upton Programs distinctive is how we weave them into the curriculum in cohesive ways.”

John Elbers II

The inaugural Miller Upton Forum brought accomplished graduates of Beloit’s economics program back for a “homecoming around ideas.” From left are panelists Carolyn Sullivan Heinrich’89, director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and associate director of research and training at the Institute for Research on Poverty, both at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Virgil Storr’96, senior research fellow and director of graduate programs at the Mercatus Center and the Don C. Lavoie Research Fellow in the philosophy, politics, and economics program at George Mason University; James Herbison’98, an attorney with Winston & Strawn; Jeffrey Kuster’88, president of Vanity Fair Brands Europe; Daniel Hewitt’74, senior international economist for AllianceBernstein; and Wendy Olsen’82, lecturer in socio-economic research for the Institute for Development Policy and Management at the University of Manchester-England.

Once Douglass North had been confirmed as the inaugural Upton Scholar during the autumn of 2006, Chamlee-Wright and her colleagues began infusing his texts into courses across the economics curriculum—ranging from those at the introductory level to more advanced economic development courses. They developed a senior seminar capstone course that tied directly to the Upton Scholar’s writing and influence. In addition, with the support of the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, a colloquium was initiated that would bring select economics and management majors together to read and discuss seminal articles and produce original research, with the goal of eventually publishing their work in newspapers, magazines, or academic journals.

The centerpiece of the Upton Programs—The Wealth and Well Being of Nations: The Miller Upton Forum—was conceived as a “homecoming around ideas” in which economics majors past and present could explore contemporary issues with leading figures in the field. The event would consist of a keynote address by the Upton Scholar, preceded and followed by panels featuring other noteworthy individuals. Each year’s forum would become a lasting intellectual resource with the publication of the Annual Proceedings of the Wealth and Well Being of Nations.

Chamlee-Wright and Adams were determined from the beginning that opportunities for interaction with department alumni be an integral part of the overall design of the Upton Programs. “We recognized that Beloit has produced many distinguished alumni who have taken what they learned out into the world,” says Adams. “We also wanted to demonstrate to students that ideas are important and worth studying, because they influence the world.” To that end, the College invited six accomplished graduates to sit on two of the inaugural forum’s three panels.

Theory and Practice

Student enthusiasm attests to the Upton Programs’ impact and success.

John Elbers II

Students of all majors had the opportunity to study the work of Upton Scholar Douglass North and interact with him. Neese Professor of Economics Emily Chamlee-Wright estimates that 20 percent of Beloit’s student body was introduced to North’s ideas in classes or through the Miller Upton Forum events.

Economics and management seniors who first encountered North’s ideas two years ago spent hours last fall in the senior seminar debating his views on issues that drive human progress and promote sustained economic and social prosperity. They also turned out for presentations by two guest scholars who were brought to campus through the Upton Programs’ speaker series.

Participating in the class helped Sepoy to better understand the connections between economic theory and real world economics. North’s concepts informed her senior thesis, which addressed the failure of a World Bank program to alleviate slum conditions in Mumbai. “I realized that I can take his ideas and use them for my own interests,” she says.

Many of her peers—including a number of other international students—adopted a similar approach. One wrote about the effect of China’s economic transition on traditional family structures, while another described how feudalism shaped Chinese economic development. Still others examined the differentiated effects of British colonial rule in Belize and Hong Kong, the effects of institutional development in shaping entrepreneurship in Turkey, and economic performance in the wake of market reforms in Vietnam.

“I don’t think we actually sat down and said, ‘Oh, let’s do our own countries,’” says Sepoy. “But Emily is a strong believer in the value of applying local knowledge, so I think that came out in our work. Seeing all those people use North’s principles was mind-blowing.”

Greg Anderson

Seniors Delna Sepoy, left, and Cristina Vasquez studied the works of an eminent economist in depth, even completing capstone projects around concepts he originated. Then they had the chance to join him, distinguished alumni, and other scholars for a discussion of some of the most important ideas in economics.

By the time the Upton Scholar arrived at Beloit in mid-October, students were brimming with ideas and questions. The inaugural Miller Upton Forum included a Thursday evening panel featuring noted economists Peter Boettke, John Nye, and Barry Weingast in a spirited conversation about North’s influence across broad swaths of the economics discipline. On Friday night, North delivered his keynote address to an attentive crowd that filled the atrium of the Center for the Sciences. The following Saturday morning, large audiences turned out for two panels that presented the invited alumni speakers in a discussion about North’s intellectual legacy and the role that business plays in a world of institutional change.

Sepoy was eager to hear commentary from Boettke, whose writings she had also referenced for her thesis. “Peter Boettke was talking about his work and how he was influenced by Douglass North,” she says. “I could see that these amazing scholars laid the groundwork for ideas that I can apply to any situation.”

Students also began to appreciate more fully how ideas filter down into vibrant new intellectual tributaries. Cristina Vasquez’09, an economics and political science double-major from Quito, Ecuador, was particularly impressed by the alumni panelists. There was an exciting moment when she realized all she had learned and said to herself, “How can I go beyond it, how can I enrich the literature and create something unique?” she recalls.

Chamlee-Wright contends that exposure to young and emerging scholars provides students from all disciplines with two important insights. “One is an introduction to cutting-edge research,” she says. “The other is a sense that, because there is less generational difference, there is a bridge between themselves and the eminent Upton Scholar. Students start to see possible trajectories for their own careers.”

The intellectual ripple-effect carried into other academic departments, where class discussions were energized by North’s presence on campus. Pablo Toral, an associate professor of international relations and the Mouat Junior Professor of International Studies, arranged for students in his Peace and Security Studies course to join the economics senior seminar class for an in-depth conversation with North.

“At first, students felt that North’s questions were simple, like ‘What are the incentives for people to create wealth?’” says Toral. “But when they started to pay attention to details of his questions and arguments, the issues didn’t seem as simple.” That led to more talk about whether or not peace, safety, and socio-political well-being are possible in societies that lack wealth.

“Students began to realize how humble a researcher has to be and how difficult it is to find answers,” Toral says. “At the same time, they learned that some ‘big’ questions transcend disciplinary boundaries.”

Chamlee-Wright wants to see more of that kind of overlap as the Upton Programs mature. She expects that texts by future forum speakers will be thoughtfully integrated into the College’s curriculum so that more students outside the department of economics and management will benefit. This spring, she is collaborating with colleagues from other disciplines to incorporate the ideas of Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, the 2009-10 Upton Scholar, into current and future course offerings. “De Soto is interested in informal markets in the developing world, and Elisabeth Rhyne, this year’s Weissberg Professor, is an expert in microfinance,” she points out. “Those issues tie together, so we will come up with a potpourri of short, accessible articles written for, by, or about the scholars that build intellectual bridges. Even if de Soto doesn’t come to Beloit until next year, students in international relations courses will know who he is and grasp his importance, just as the economics students do.”

Although Sepoy and Vasquez will graduate in May, each hopes to return to campus next fall for the 2009-10 Miller Upton Forum. Both recognize that opportunities to interact with an economist of de Soto’s stature—and to network among other outstanding professionals—don’t come along very often. That point was driven home to Sepoy last summer, when she interned at a Washington, D.C., think tank.

“I spoke with lots of people who were involved in social enterprise or non-profit organizations,” she recalls. “When I mentioned that economists like Douglass North and Hernando de Soto come to Beloit, and that students read their books and speak with them … they were blown away.”

Enhancing the Econ Internship Network For more than two decades, Jeff Adams, the Allen-Bradley Professor of Economics, has built bridges between students and alumni through Econ Day—a networking event held each February in Chicago. Now he is working with alumni to endow six internship awards under the auspices of the Upton Programs to support economics and management majors who wish to pursue internships with for-profit firms and non-profit research groups dedicated to advancing the wealth and well-being of nations. At present, there are commitments to fund four internships: The Belmark Award is underwritten by alumni who participated in Belmark Associates, a student-managed market research organization formed in 1985, which continues to this day. Two internships—one named for Professor Emeritus L. Emil Kreider and the other sponsored by 1985 classmates and brothers Per and Sven Dobler—will become fully endowed in the near future. Recent graduate Will Robinson’08 received the Jed Rhoads’81 Internship Award the summer between his junior and senior years. The award, named for a 1981 graduate who double-majored in philosophy and economics and management, enabled him to intern with Bates-White, LLC, an economic consulting firm. Now employed full-time by Bates-White, Robinson is grateful for the experience he gained with the help of the award. “I can’t imagine a better internship for an undergraduate,” he says.

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