Today in the Ida Noyes Theater, students packed in for a faculty-student round table regarding the naming of the Milton Friedman Institute. The speakers aimed to answer the question "to what extent will the Institute reflect the views of Friedman?" and finally expanded the discussion  to include students who are, in fact, also associated with this institution.

Such a full house you'd think they were giving something away! And in a sense, I suppose they were. An opportunity for students to ask questions and at least voice an opinion about the naming of this new economic center which will include faculty from Econ, the GSB and the Law school. Faculty from across the board and on both sides of the Milton Friedman spectrum made speeches and debated including James Heckman (economics), Lars Hansen (economics), Melvin Rothenberg (Mathematics), Marshall Shalins (Anthropology) and Yali Amit (Statistics).

The Maroon got there two cents in last week about the Institute and their publication of certain faculty members' protest against Friedman actually spurred and expanded the debate to include students.The question now is: so what's the problem with Milton- shouldn't we just honor this deceased this former faculty and Nobel (and basically every economics award ever) winner? Well... it's not quite that simple, especially for over 100 faculty members here (who signed the position) and protesters/anti-Friedman thinkers around the world. Friedman was quite a polarizing figure in life, his economic theories and conclusions, almost unanimously viewed as brilliant, also sparked (and still currently sparks) anger as some believe(d) he was pushing an ideological and political agenda through his economic policies. Clearly, with all this "unwavering" support for the Friedman Institute, he's not doing much better in death...

Tomorrow for the first time in a decade the (administrative) Senate is meeting behind close doors to decide whether the naming and dedication of the new economic facility will indeed recognize Friedman. Students squished in for several hours this afternoon, listening attentively to the pros and cons detailed by the faculty members and raising their own points. But despite discussion, at this point all we can do is wait for tomorrow after the Senate to know whether or not, what professor  Sahlins asked:  "will we all become Chicago Boys?"