How the University of Chicago counts its Nobel prize winners

[Mike Tamada]

The Los Angeles Times had an amusing article Thursday about how the
University of Chicago counts the number of Nobel prize winners it's
had. The U of C counts anyone who has ever had any association at
any time with the University. (In contrast, Berkeley only counts
winners who were faculty or emeritus faculty at Berkeley at the time
that they won the Nobel. Other schools use counting schemes somewhere
in between.)

Heckman of course would be U of C under any scheme. But the U
of C also claims people like Arrow (who taught there for a year) and
Samuelson (who was an undergraduate there). They were quick to list
Heckman as the 72d Nobelist "associated with" the U of Chicago. Just
two behind Cambridge University, which using the same expansive
counting scheme claims 74.

But: it turns out that the U of C had not been claiming McFadden
as a U of Chicago Nobelist. He'd been a visiting professor there in
1967. When informed of this oversight, they said they'd add him to
their list. So McFadden will soon join the illustrious list of
"Chicago" Nobelists: Friedman, Stigler, Becker, Lucas ... and Arrow
and McFadden!

The article was at

http://www.latimes.com/news/learning/thursday/20001019/t000099586.html

where I think it'll be available for a couple of days.

--Mike Tamada
Occidental College

[moderator's note - Thanks. Great article. When Haavelmo was
counted (I think he was a visitor for 1 quarter during WW II)
I started saying anyone who used the restroom in the basement of
the Social Science building was fair game.<g> - ak]