World-renowned scholar visits Yuma for education forum

Longtime scholar of liberty Richard Ebeling and his wife Anna, an expert on Russian history, will be in Yuma on Thursday for the Freedom Library's annual education forum.

The public is invited to attend the free event, which will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Kofa High School auditorium, 3100 S. Avenue A.

Richard Ebeling, president of the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) in Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y., will discuss the topic, "What it Means to be an American." His wife Anna Ebeling, adjunct professor in Business and History at Hillsdale College in Michigan from 1995-2003, will talk about "The Soviet Tragedy: Lessons for America."

Ebeling is the chairman of the department of economics and business administration at Hillsdale College, and has also been vice president of academic affairs for the Future of Freedom Foundation in Fairfax, Va.

He is a scholar of the life and works of Ludwig von Mises, an architect of the Austrian school of economics and adviser to the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit educational organization that introduces people to the freedom philosophy, the elements of which are individual rights, private property, free markets and the rule of law.

Ebeling earned his bachelor's degree from California State University, Sacramento, his master's in economics from Rutgers University, and his doctorate degree in economics from Middlesex University. Before going to Hillsdale he taught at Rutgers, the National University of Ireland at Cork and the University of Dallas.

Anna Ebeling received her degree in linguistics and history from Moscow State University. She spent most of her life working as a researcher for the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In 1989, she became a public relations director at an American publishing house in Moscow. From 1995 to 2003 she served as an adjunct professor in Business and History at Hillsdale College.