Christensen gift funds economics chair

Laurits (Lau) Christensen, chair of the economic and engineering consulting firm Christensen Associates of Madison, has established a named faculty chair in the Department of Economics.

Christensen, who served on the economics faculty for 20 years, says he made the gift to allow the recruitment and retention of top-flight professors crucial to success.

“I have a desire to help the department maintain the excellence it has achieved,” says Christensen, who taught economics at UW–Madison from 1967-87. “I came to the university as a 26-year-old, newly minted Ph.D. from Berkeley. Research support from the university was instrumental in my coming to Wisconsin and allowing me to rapidly develop my research program and my career. I am pleased that I am now able to give back to the university and the state of Wisconsin.”

At its peak, the economics department, in the College of Letters and Science, had 50 faculty members. That number is now 26. “A good deal of that additional faculty presence was the result of research money that was available then,” Christensen says. “Research money was easier to come by in my day.”

Christensen says his gift’s main goal is to find and keep leaders in the profession. “It’s so important to have a faculty held in high regard,” he says.