Grove City College hosts undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of academic disciplines and schools around the world for the 15th annual Austrian Student Scholars Conference Feb. 22 and 23 on campus.
The conference is an opportunity for scholars to present their own research papers written in the tradition of Austrian School intellectuals such as Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Hans Sennholz. Thomas E. Woods cash prizes of $1,500, $1,000, and $500 will be awarded for the top three papers, respectively, as judged by a panel of Grove City College faculty.
“The conference gives our students an opportunity to share research and network with like-minded students and faculty at other colleges,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Herbener, professor and chair of the Department of Economics at the College. As well as Grove City College, student scholars participating in the conference come from Dartmouth College, University of Minnesota, University of Ottawa, University of São Paulo, Ferris State University and other schools.
This year, keynote lectures will be delivered by:
- Dr. Per Bylund, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship and the Records-Johnston Professor of Free Enterprise in the School of Entrepreneurship in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University and an associate fellow of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. Bylund’s research focuses on entrepreneurship, strategic management and organizational economics.
- Dr. Anne Rathbone Bradley will deliver the Hans Sennholz Lecture. She is vice president of Economic Initiatives at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, where she develops and commissions research toward a systematic biblical theology of economic freedom, a visiting professor at Georgetown University and she also teaches at The Institute for World Politics and George Mason University. Bradley’s has worked on income inequality from both an economic and biblical perspective and the political economy of terrorism.
Austrian economics was first introduced to Grove City College in 1956 when Hans Sennholz, a protégé of the dean of Austrian economists Ludwig von Mises, became head of the economics department, a post he held for four decades. Under his direction, the College became the world’s leading undergraduate institution for the study of Austrian economics and thousands of students were introduced to the Austrian school. The College has been the permanent home of Mises’ papers since 1978 and the 20,000-page archive has been the source of four books of his previously unpublished manuscripts.