
UC
Berkeley faculty members set up $1 million fund to attract top
graduate students and professors
04
Jan 2000
By
José Rodríguez, Development Communications
BERKELEY--
Five founders of an international consulting firm specializing
in economics and finance - all of them professors at the University
of California, Berkeley - have pledged $1 million to attract
the best graduate students and faculty members to UC Berkeley.
The
donors have designated their gift for students in economics,
agricultural and natural resource economics, and business. The
fund also is intended to support graduate-level research in
economics and business.
These
faculty members established the Law and Economics Consulting
Group, better known as LECG, a leading firm in the field of
applied economics and finance. It is one of the world's largest
private sector employers of PhD economists and financial economists.
"Over
the many years that we have been associated with the university,
we have developed a great affection for this institution and
for the principles of excellence in education and research that
it represents," the five faculty members said in a joint
statement. "Our purpose with this gift is to help ensure
that this extraordinary institution will continue to attract
the best faculty and graduate students and maintain its position
as the premier research university in the academic fields that
have been central to the success of LECG."
The
five faculty donors are Richard Gilbert, professor of economics;
Robert G. Harris, professor emeritus in the Haas School of Business;
Tom Jorde, professor of law; Gordon Rausser, Robert Gordon Sproul
Distinguished Professor and dean of the College of Natural Resources;
and David Teece, professor and director of the Institute of
Management, Innovation & Organization in the Haas School
of Business.
The
elements funded by the gift include:
·
a joint graduate research seminar in economics and business
administration;
·
a seminar in law;
·
graduate fellowships in economics, agricultural and resource
economics, and business;
·
research in economics, regulation, and public policy; and
·
support for a student scholarship fund in the College of Natural
Resources.
"The
LECG gift creates resources for Berkeley and enhances the atmosphere
that allows us to attract, support and retain the finest faculty
and students," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl.
"The generosity of our faculty demonstrates clearly the
'ecology of a just society,' how we give back as much as we
take."
The
gift counts toward UC Berkeley's totals in the Campaign for
the New Century, a $1.1 billion fundraising drive set to be
completed by 2001.
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