Reception to mark 50 years of Sichel Series lectures

Contact: Mark Schwerin

KALAMAZOO—The Western Michigan University Department of Economics is staging a special event to mark the start of the 50th anniversary of the Werner Sichel Lecture Series.

A reception will be held from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 2, in the President's Dining Room in the Bernhard Center. Dr. Werner Sichel, professor emeritus of economics, will attend and is expected to make remarks at about 4:45 p.m. The reception will include refreshments and is free and open to the public.

The theme for this year's Sichel Series is "Award-Winning Economists Speak on Contemporary Economic Issues" and is being organized by Dr. Jean Kimmel, professor of economics.

The first Sichel presentation this season will feature Dr. Erica Field, associate professor of economics at Duke University and winner of the Elaine Bennett Research Prize, which is awarded by the American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession to the best young female economists. Field's topic is "Making Microfinance Work." She will speak at 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, in 2028 Brown Hall.

Sichel Lecture Series

The Sichel Series is organized by the WMU Department of Economics and named in honor of Sichel, a longtime WMU economics professor, who retired in 2004. The series is annually cosponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. The lectures are open to the public and formatted with the general public in mind.