Carleton College Emerita Professor Ada M. Harrison Dies

Ada M. Harrison, one of Carleton College’s most admired and beloved professors, died Monday, Dec. 27, in Northfield, Minn. She was 85. A respected economist and devoted teacher, Harrison taught economics for 31 years at Carleton, specializing in industrial organization, economic theory, and accounting. A public memorial service was held Friday, Jan. 28, 2000, in Carleton’s Skinner Memorial Chapel.

Harrison was born Feb. 2, 1914, in Saskatchewan, Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from the State College of Washington, Pullman, in 1941 and earned her Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College in 1952. Before coming to Carleton in 1948, Harrison was a statistician for a Chicago investment firm and served as an economist with the Office of Price Administration in Washington.

“In her many years of teaching at Carleton, Ada Harrison had a profound impact on her students,” Carleton President Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. said. “A diminutive but demanding teacher of accounting and microeconomics, she expected analytical rigor and high standards of precision. With a quick mind and sharp wit, she often struck fear in the hearts of hundreds of future business leaders, who testify abundantly to her lasting effect on their lives.”

Michael S. Hunt, a 1968 graduate of Carleton and principal with Life Science Advisors in Carmel, Ind., remembered Harrison as a great teacher of economics and a dear friend. “As a freshman in her Introductory Economics class, I felt stark terror that I will always remember because she would accept only our best, critical thought and made it painfully clear when we didn’t produce. As I got to know her during my four years at Carleton I realized that she was not only a brilliant economist but also a woman with a great sense of humor and a deep concern for our professional and personal growth after Carleton.”

In 1957-58, Harrison was the only female among five college professors in the country to be awarded a National Research Professorship in Economics by the Brookings Institution of Washington, D.C. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and of the American Economic Association. During the 1950s and ’60s, Harrison traveled extensively to speak on economic issues. She also sponsored Carleton’s debate team for several years.

Harrison officially retired from Carleton in June 1979, but continued to teach for several years after her retirement.

George Lamson, the Wadsworth A. Williams Professor of Economics at Carleton and a friend and colleague of Harrison’s, recently asked her what she was most thankful for in her life. According to Lamson, Harrison answered without hesitation, “That I became a teacher and that I taught at Carleton.”

“Miss Harrison loved to teach, and she loved her students,” said Wally Weitz, Carleton class of 1970 and president of Wallace R. Weitz & Co. in Omaha. “She was demanding-there was no place to hide for the unprepared-and she taught us to think clearly and to express ourselves precisely. She had a major impact on me, and I am grateful.”