Whitney Hicks earned a BS in Political Science in 1957 and an MS in Economics in 1958 from Kansas State University. He worked as an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City and at the Agency for International Development in Washington D.C. before pursuing his PHD at Stanford University. In 1965 he joined the Department of Economics at the University of Missouri. He had a love of learning and enjoyed teaching and working with both undergraduate and graduate students. He especially liked teaching intensive writing classes.
While at the University he served as visiting professor at the Universities of Nueva Leon (Mexico) Madrid (Spain), Sibiu (Romania) and University of Pennsylvania and at Stanford. He is a former Chair of the Department of Economics, a Middlebush Professor of Economics and received Fulbright teaching and research awards in Spain, Argentina and Mexico. His specialties were in economic development and population. He retired in 2000 as Professor Emeritus of Economics.
This scholarship honors his life and teaching and will provide financial support for fellowship awards to graduate students in the Department of Economics.