A Grand Old Man of Economics

by John Wheatley

Frank Knight came to UB in the mid- to late '50s to conduct a seminar, while I was a graduate student. He was quite well known, a grand old man of economics who had written a very famous book about risk and uncertainty.

He held free-ranging conversations with us about current interests in the field, or about whatever he was interested in at the moment. The Ph.D. program was quite small, so we got to know him well.

Frank Knight told us that the hardest thing he ever had to do was to teach as a visiting professor at an English university. He had to give formal, hour-long lectures standing up in front of the class. He was used to American universities, where it was common for lecturers to abandon their notes and speak anecdotally for 20 minutes at a time or to engage their students in discussion.

I got to know the personalities of our faculty and our visitors, such as Frank Knight, Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, not just their professional opinions.