Assistant
Professor Economics Alexandre Padilla has received a $17,000 grant from
the Charles G. Koch Foundation. The grant will fund a variety of
activities in the 2008-09 academic year related to economic freedom,
including a student reading club, paid student fellowship, a visiting
lecturer series and student participation at the annual conference of
the Association for Private Enterprise Education.
“The Koch Foundation promotes education on economics and how it
relates to liberty and freedom,” said Padilla. “I think there is great
potential here at Metro State for our students who are interested to
increase their knowledge on these topics.”
Padilla said he was familiar with the foundation and some of its
members from postdoctoral work he completed at George Mason University,
so when they mentioned the availability of grants, he was quick to
submit a full proposal.
His first activity under the grant will be to establish a Students
of Liberty Reading Group, to meet every other week. “The club will
study readings—articles and books—related to the costs and benefits of
freedom and, more particularly economic freedom,” Padilla said. The
grant will cover costs of reading materials and other club expenses.
“Students are very busy with required classroom readings and such,”
Padilla said, “This club will give them an additional opportunity to
pursue further what might get merely touched on in the classroom.”
Grant funding will also cover a Koch Fellowship, to be awarded to a
student to work with Padilla on organizing and running the reading
group. The first Koch Fellowship winner is junior Susanne
Lederer-Graham, an economics major.
The Koch grant will cover a visiting lecture series, with two guest
speakers each semester coming to campus to discuss “issues related
economic freedom and sometimes political freedom as well,” Padilla
said. Potential speakers include Chris Coyne, author of the book, After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy, on foreign policy and nation-building, and Robert Lawson, a noted economist who created the Index of Economic Freedom.
Finally, the grant will cover the expenses of one to three students
to attend the annual Association for Private Enterprise Education
conference. Those students will have worked with a faculty member to
co-author a paper on economics, then present the research at the
conference. “The APPE work is very applied. It’s good for students
interested in pursuing graduate work in economics, to understand what
it takes to become an economist,” said Padilla. “It’s also good
exposure for our students, to see what economists and graduate students
from across the country are discussing.”
Padilla says that the grant is renewable, pending successful completion.
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