The following is excerpted from UChicago News:

"Named in honor of Prof. Norman Maclean, PhD’40, the critically acclaimed author of A River Runs Through It who taught at UChicago for 40 years, this award recognizes extraordinary contributions to teaching and student life within the UChicago community. This year’s winner is Robert T. Michael, the Eliakim Hastings Moore Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the Harris School of Public Policy.

As the founding dean of Harris—serving from 1989 to 1994 and 1998 to 2002—Michael’s leadership and advocacy were crucial to the school’s formation and early growth. Still actively involved as a professor emeritus, Michael has taught more than 50 courses during his 40 years at the University—including ones on economic theory; economics of child and family policy; poverty, inequality and education; and leadership in Chicago.

A renowned scholar, Michael’s research examines issues that include parental investment in children, and on adolescent and adult sexual behavior in the United States. He has written on the causes of divorce; the reasons for the growth of one-person households; the impact of inflation on families; the measurement of poverty; the consequences of the rise in women’s employment for the family, especially children; teenage fertility; sexually transmitted disease; and abortion.

In addition to his primary scholarship, Michael has worked at NORC at the University of Chicago, where he served as CEO for five years. He was also the project director of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) Program, where he helped design and conduct longitudinal studies that provided remarkable insight into childhood development and the challenges facing youth in Great Britain."