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For Daniel Singer, studying economics at the University of Colorado became a lifelong line of demarcation. He was one person before coming here. After earning his doctorate, he became another person: more focused, more dedicated, better prepared to succeed.

“Prior to the program, my intellectual life was implicit in my life style,” Singer says.  “Following the program, my intellectual life was both explicit and dominant. I saw the world though different lenses.”

Economics, properly understood, provides a framework for understanding all the complexities of the world, he says.  “I felt (and feel) immensely comfortable with all that confronts me in life,” Singer says. “My understanding of economics has given me the power to understand all the functional business areas, as well as the social sciences.”

Singer acknowledges that his comments might seem sweeping. “I am sure not right all the time.  But I am comfortable with the world I encounter.  Everything fits into a place within the economic framework.  I am sure some people think me quite strange for this. That doesn’t bother me. I know who and what I am.”

Singer says much of his success is due to hard work. “Many of my fellow students were just as smart as (or smarter than) I was, but did not make it because they could not acquire sufficient focus.”

Discipline has served him well. After graduating with his Ph.D. in economics in 1971, Singer became an associate professor of economics at Western Illinois University, but he soon felt an “incongruity” between what he was teaching and what his students (many of them business people) wanted.

He forged a partnership with a friend in a restaurant franchise. Within two years, they opened four Taco Johns restaurants in Illinois.

“This business experience taught me that the economic truths I had learned at Colorado were even more valid than I’d originally thought,” Singer says.  “Every time circumstances forced me to deviate from my economic precepts, it was a mistake—sometimes a really big mistake!”

Diving into the world of business improved Singer’s teaching “because I can take economics down to a level that students can relate to,” he says. “I am also a better researcher because there is nothing like some real-world business experience to help you distinguish between what is false and what is true.”

Having enjoyed both academic and business success, Singer is now a professor of finance at Towson University in Maryland. He also serves as a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Phoenix Online and as participating faculty at Johns Hopkins University.

He has published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and six books. Singer credits his prolific research and writing life partly to CU’s Larry Singell, a professor emeritus of economics who chaired Singer’s dissertation committee.

Singell was a “renaissance man,” Singer says, adding that Singell had a talent for churning out economic research that was practical and beneficial. “I owe a great deal of my skill in that area to him,” Singer adds.

In fact, Singer reminisces about CU’s Economics Department with palpable gratitude. When Singer was admitted to CU, he was awarded a National Defense Education Act fellowship, which sprang from the American resolve to invest in education following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite.

The award carried a $5,200 annual stipend—“big bucks in 1968,” Singer observes—and covered tuition and books. The support was critical, as Singer had a wife and two toddlers at the time.

Though the support was welcome, Singer first had to survive a “weeder” course. In the first session of his first class, in microeconomic theory, 30 students wedged themselves into a room with 25 seats. Students stood along the wall for the first lecture.

Only 18 students remained by mid-term. Ten took the final exam. Eight passed the course. “I probably succeeded only because I had spent two years teaching microeconomics at (SUNY) Plattsburgh and was well-grounded in the fundamentals,” Singer surmises.

Singer fondly recalls the professors of his time. The late Kenneth Boulding, for instance, “was not only brilliant, but had an intellectual curiosity that transcended traditional discipline boundaries.”

Professor Nicholas Schrock, who was murdered in Mexico in 1982, “taught me to be intellectually rigorous. Singer describes Schrock as “the most profound of all my teachers” and also very kind.

Schrock asked Singer to review an article that had been accepted for publication in the prestigious Quarterly Journal of Economics. “In the hubris of a graduate student, I told him that he had an error in his article,” Singer recalls. Schrock “gently” noted Singer’s error “but congratulated me for thinking deeply about the subject.”

Because CU provided a “platform for all my future success,” Singer has joined the newly formed Dean’s Leadership Society, which is described as a “growing group of donors who are making a leadership gift to the College of Arts and Sciences.”

Singer contends that economics is a wonderful career option for young people willing to work hard and to absorb a large and diverse body of thought. “You can go to Wall Street and make a lot of money (even today—indeed, especially today) or go to work for Habitat for Humanity and make the world a better place—and everything in between.”

But what does Singer, professor of economics and successful entrepreneur, make of the economic downturn? “Unfortunately, the behavior of most individuals appears to be ruled by greed and fear, Singer says. “This means that while market mechanisms may be self-regulating in the long run, the ride in the short run can get mighty rough.”

Given the “historically unprecedented actions” of the Obama administration, Singer says, it is hard to predict what will happen in the present business cycle. In the 1907 “Bankers’ Panic,” J.P. Morgan was asked what he thought the market was going to do in the face of the then-prevailing financial crisis. “I expect change,” Morgan said.

“So do I,” Singer adds.

A “leadership gift” is a donation of $1,500 or more in a year. Membership in the leadership society includes invitations to select campus events and special communications from the dean. To learn more about the Dean’s Leadership Society, contact Teresa Chamberland, assistant director of development, CU Foundation, at 303-541-1445, or teresa.chamberland@cufund.org.