Tom Holmes Named Scholar of the College

On April 17, Dean Coleman presented Tom Holmes with the Scholar of College Award. The award is granted annually by the College of Liberal Arts to recognize and celebrate outstanding faculty achievement. Scholars of the College are chosen on the basis of past accomplishments and contributions in the areas of scholarly research, teaching, and service, and the promise of further achievement.

Holmes currently holds the Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Economics and has been a faculty member at the University of Minnesota since 1995. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on industrial organization, economic geography, and international trade and has published over 30 papers in refereed journals, as well as numerous other publications.

Along with teaching and advising graduate students, Holmes is responsible for single-handedly revamping and teaching one of the department’s gateway courses, Principles of Microeconomics. In most years, Holmes personally teaches this course to nearly 1,300 students and receives glowing evaluations. He routinely receives comments such as “the best professor I have ever had,” “fabulous,” “full of energy,” and “he changed my life.”

When being evaluated on the areas of research, teaching, and service, Holmes excels in all three.