Lisa Fe' Saunders 1956–2022 In Memoriam

Abstract

Lisa Fe’ Saunders received her undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Old Dominion University and her PhD in Economics from the University of California Berkeley in 1987. She joined the Department of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she was promoted to tenured Associate Professor and remained until she retired in 2021, becoming Professor Emerita. She also held visiting appointments at the University of Minnesota and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Lisa set an outstanding example of how to use research and teaching to make economics a better and more inclusive discipline and to make the world more just. She was devoted to students, teaching courses on the political economy of women and political economy of racism that inspired some students to become economists and encouraged all students to think more critically about economics and the economy. She also taught courses on labor, microeconomics, and research methods and writing in economics. She set high standards for all of her students and especially enjoyed working with students in the Honors Program. She was always interested in discussing pedagogy and willing to offer advice to colleagues on teaching matters. On the wall in her office was a sign saying “assume nothing,” a reminder to her students and herself to keep an open mind about other people. She encouraged her students to practice “step forward, step back”: to speak up if they had been silent in class and allow others a chance to speak if they had already contributed. She also reached out to a wider community through the Center for Popular Economics, where she taught activists, educators, media makers, and others. She was selected to participate in the Lilly Endowment Teaching Fellows Program in 1988–1989 and received a Teaching for Inclusiveness, Diversity, and Equity (TIDE) Faculty Fellowship award for 2018–2019.