How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
The first school that Nobel Laureate Andrew Michael Spence attended was a two-room schoolhouse.
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Even as a 7-year-old cramped among noisy first-to-fourth graders, Spence found it easy to focus and learn.
"It doesn't really require an effort for me to focus," he said. "If something's interesting, it just seems natural to stay with it."
Spence, now 66, has not stopped pursuing a wide range of academic interests — from philosophy, in which he earned a degree from Princeton University, to mathematics, which he studied at Oxford University, to the analyses of market development, for which he was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics.
Most recently he served as a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
When he was invited to join the Stern School of Business faculty by dean Peter Henry, a former colleague and friend from Stanford, Spence was ready to return to teaching.
"What I like best about teaching is the interaction with students," he said. "They're very talented, energetic, motivated and have new ideas all the time. It's energizing to be around them."
While at Harvard he taught the bright minds of Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.
Henry looks forward to having Spence on board.
"Mike, through his broad portfolio of activities, all performed at the highest level, and fundamentally propelled by deep academic expertise, embodies the kind of integrative thinking that NYU Stern continues to bring to bear on the complex problems of business in the 21st century," Henry said.
William Miller, professor emeritus and former provost at Stanford University, attributes Spence's success to his light personality.
"Mike took his work seriously, but I had the feeling that he did not take himself too seriously," Miller said. "I thought that he always gave thoughtful responses to questions or issues."
Spence attributes a large part of his achievements to his stubbornness, which aided him where he lacked "sheer intellectual horsepower" — of which, he humbly said, others had much more than him.
"My parents were enormously influential on stimulation, curiosity, interest and discipline," Spence said.
When he has downtime, Spence hangs out with his kids, reads books outside of his field, relaxes on his sailboat and tries to sneak in a bit of exercise. He also indulges in dry humor and awkward situations.
"I love to laugh," he said. "There's a lot of nonsense in the world. Especially as you get older, it's good to have a sense of humor about things."
