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With nearly two decades at the College, Fernando Lozano has a deep understanding of Pomona’s students and its mission. Lozano, the Morris B. and Gladys S. Pendleton Professor of Economics and chair of the department, is an expert in labor economics and immigrants in the U.S. economy. He is the co-chair of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Council of Economic Advisors, the editor of the Hispanic Economic Outlook publication and the co-director of the American Economic Association’s Mentoring Program. “My biggest honor has been receiving the Wig Distinguished Professor Award for teaching and The Claremont Colleges’ Diversity Prize for Mentoring, because creating this community is really important to me,” says Lozano. Championing this year’s fall campaign for Pomona’s Annual Fund, he discusses his time at Pomona, the impact of philanthropy on campus and what he believes will come next as the College evolves.

Having seen 20 years of students entering and exiting the Gates, have you observed any changes in Pomona students?

Our student body is more diverse now, more aspirational, and more committed to the idea of the liberal arts. The one constant that I have seen in Pomona students during my 20 years is their academic drive and willingness to be challenged and learn. They move from learning from a textbook, notes and lecture, to creating their own knowledge in less than four years. And that transformation, what I see when I meet a first-year student and see them graduate as a knowledge generator—a creator, an artist, a humanist, a social scientist—is one of the things that makes working at Pomona so wonderful and why I feel grateful to be teaching here. 

What drew you to labor economics?

I came to labor economics as a grad student because I was interested in immigration and immigrant outcomes in the labor market. During the early 2000s, labor economics is where the empirical revolution in economics was taking place. So, I was able to not only concentrate on topics that were close to my own experience, but also to do it in a rigorous quantitative way. 

You teach a course called Race in the U.S. Economy and have written on the economic impact of Hispanic immigrants. Many Hispanic immigrants come from countries with strong entrepreneurial traditions. How does this spirit translate into the U.S. labor market?

Immigrants in the United States are more likely to be entrepreneurs than the native-born population, and that's even accounting for wealth gaps, access to capital, access to industry and firm specific knowledge. The reason why immigrants thrive in the United States is because the institutions here work. So, setting up a business, getting credit, recruiting workers, all that is so much easier to do in the United States than in their source economy or in the source economies. 

Where do you see the College and the Economics Department going in the next 15 years?

I think the evolution of the College during the next 10 -15 years is in becoming a more dynamic place where we can use new technologies to enhance and enrich a Pomona education, where we can bring the world into Pomona. But we don’t forget that we are well grounded in the second largest metropolitan area in the United States and the largest state in the United States. We are a college in California with a global orientation. I see a college that is going to be more diverse, more competitive, and I see a college that is going to be leading all educational institutions in terms of creating rigor, diversity, inclusion and equity. 

For the Economics Department, economics in the next 10-15 years is going to change immensely. Computer power, the ability to get data sets, the ability to bring different ideas and different people together from all across the world. Our students will have opportunities that when I was an undergrad I could not even think about. I see my role as chair of the economics department as leveraging the human capital that we have on campus, our extraordinary faculty and our amazing students, to take advantage of these new opportunities to create the next generation of scholars.

What does philanthropy at Pomona mean to you? 

It's about connecting people. It's about how we're a small community, and that's the value of it. We connect each other. We can help each other, and we can learn from each other. I find as a professor of economics that often times, my students learn more from alumni than they learn from me. So it's about creating that connection. Philanthropy is the chain that starts with a gift and ends with an extraordinary education.

Make an impact on today’s students with to the �鶹Ӱ�� Annual Fund.