2014’s Mises University concluded last Saturday evening following a full week of seminars, lectures, and many opportunities to work with Mises faculty and fellow students to discuss, learn, and plan for the future.
Tom Woods kicked off the week with his Sunday-night talk “The Role of Austrian Economics in the Liberty Movement” in which he explained how the Austrian School of economics is not just another political movement, but a better way of understanding and practicing economic science.
As always, the schedule for students was intense. Students attended lectures and events beginning with breakfast, and extending well beyond dinner time. Judge Andrew A. Napolitano’s series on constitutional law was available throughout the week (photos here), as were numerous lectures on the basics of Austrian economics given by our top faculty including Walter Block, Thomas DiLorenzo, Lucas Engelhardt, Roger Garrison, David Gordon, Jeffrey Herbener, Robert Higgs, Guido Hülsmann, Peter Klein, Bob Murphy, Joe Salerno, Timothy Terrell, and Mark Thornton. When not giving lectures, faculty members held office hours to give students individualized attention throughout the week. And then, of course, students were able to enjoy less formal meetings such as chess with Tom Woods, lunch with Judge Napolitano, and daily work with some of the world’s greatest scholars in the field of Austrian economics and libertarian scholarship.
Jeff Deist concluded the week by recalling the enthusiasm and impressive intelligence of our students this year, and noting that the receptiveness of the world to our ideas is greater than it’s been in many, many years. “You’re learning Austrian economics at a perfect time,” Deist told the students. “The public perception of the mainstream economics profession is in tatters, their academic model is crumbling ... so the real action is here with us, and the real energy and enthusiasm is here with us.”
At the end of the week, many students chose to take the optional — and highly rigorous — Mises University examinations for cash awards. Sixty-four students took the written exam, and thirty of those passed to go on and take the oral exam.
The top three winners, who received cash awards were Kyle Marchini of Grove City College who won the first-place award of $2,500 (made possible by Douglas E. French). Matei Apavaloaei of the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest won the second-place award of $1,500 and Edgar Duarte Aguilar of Francisco Marroquin University won the third-place award of $750 (both second- and third-place awards made possible by Mrs. Joele Eddy and the late Dr. George Eddy). Our congratulations go out to all of those who passed the exam.
It was an amazing week of activity. Dozens of photos are available here and here and here, and all lectures are now available in Mp3 format. Video versions of most talks are being added as they become available, check the Mises Economics blog video page, and also at our YouTube channel.
None of this would have been possible without our many generous donors. Thanks to them, our students can attend Mises University tuition-free. For many of us, even those who are neither students nor faculty, Mises University 2014 is the highlight of year, because at Mises U, we can see that so many great things are in store for the future.
