The Campaign for Maryland Brief, Great Expectations, University of Maryland

May-June 2007

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June 4: Ralph Friedgen Invitational
10:30 a.m., Lowes Island Club, Sterling, Va.
Head Football Coach Ralph Friedgen ’70, ’72 and the Maryland Gridiron Network host this annual golf outing at the beautiful 36-hole, award-winning Lowes course. For more information visit mdgridiron.umd.edu or call 301.314.9057.

June 7: Portrait Unveiling and Reception
6:00 p.m., Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center
Join family and friends as the Maryland Alumni Association unveils a portrait of Samuel Riggs IV to be hung at the entrance to the Hall of Friendship. Meet the artist, Simmie Knox. For more information call 301.405.4677.

June 7: School of Journalism Panel Discussion
6:00 p.m., National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
Come learn about "Politics 2008: New Media, Old Media and the Presidential Election Campaign," with panelists Haynes Johnson, Susan Page, Jim Brady and Jim VanDerHei. For more information call 301.405.2420.

June 14: Terps Take Manhattan
6:00 p.m., Americas Society, New York, N.Y.
Join New York City area alumni for this annual networking reception featuring Head Basketball Coach Gary Williams '68 and alumni Len Elmore '78 and Bonnie Bernstein '92. For more information call 301.405.4677.

July 10—21: William Kapell International Piano Competition and Festival
Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center
Celebrate the piano, pianists and piano music in its many forms with competition, performances and other events. For more information visit claricesmithcenter.umd.edu or call 301.405.ARTS.

Securing Faculty Competitive with the Best
Beloved Economics Chair Spurs Student, Faculty Reunion

(Right to left) Nai Chi and Amy Wang and their son Erik

ifts can bring unexpected opportunities. For Nai-Chi Wang '71 Ph.D. Economics, it was an opportunity of a lifetime. Wang and his wife, Amy, decided it was time to give back to his alma mater with a $50,000 contribution to the Dudley and Louisa Dillard Fund in the Department of Economics to support creating a professorship.

Professor Emeritus
Clopper Almon Jr.

Their gift did not go unnoticed by Wang's former adviser and mentor, Professor Emeritus Clopper Almon Jr. He saw this as an opportunity to partner with Wang and demonstrate their appreciation of Professor Dillard, who chaired the department for 25 years. Almon's organization, the Interindustry Economic Research Fund Inc., added a $30,000 gift to the Dillard Fund, which formally endowed it as a professorship to attract more noted scholars to the department.

This unexpected donor partnership led to a reunion of Wang and Almon. "I never had the chance to come back and say hello to him. I felt bad about it," says Wang. "But now, this is the time,"he says, pleased that he and Almon were reacquainted.

Speaking in glowing terms about his mentors in the field of economics, he pulls out a neatly folded article from The Washington Post dated Sept. 12, 1983. One of many university-related clippings he has collected over the years, the article lists a Who's Who of top economists and Maryland's department is prominently featured. Displaying the article, one gets the sense that Wang is profoundly proud of his alma mater. "The university represents my intellectual roots," says Wang. As he reads the names of top economists including Mahlon Straszheim, Clopper Almon and Barbara Bergmann (Wang was her statistics assistant), he says this is proof that Maryland's Department of Economics was already ranked among the nation's best.

Pleased that the Dillard endowment will attract more talent to Maryland, Wang predicts that in 20 or 30 years, a new Nobel laureate will emerge from the university's economics department. Wang explains that he, Almon and others are building a foundation in the department to attract alumni and donors to create more professorships. He recalls a Chinese saying, "throw a piece of rock and you will induce everybody to throw a jade [a traditional Chinese precious gemstone] into the ring."

Following retirement, Wang began a new adventure—literary author. His book, A Comparison of Jin Ping Mei and the Dream of the Red Chamber (translated by The Library of Congress as: Jin Ping Mei yu Hong Lou Meng); is a comparative analysis of two classic Chinese literary works written between the late 16th and early 17th and mid-18th centuries, respectively. Analyzing the literature through the lens of an economist, he says, "with every move by one of the main characters, he will calculate, what's the return? And that's economics."

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Published by the University of Maryland 2007