Steven Horwitz is associate dean of the first year, a role that puts him in contact with first-year students throughout the summer before they arrive on campus. He leads the University’s highly respected and much-emulated First-Year Program, so new students can know that Professor Horwitz works on their behalf every day. Read his recent essay on what new students really need to have to begin a solid college career.

A professor of economics as well, Steve Horwitz is the author of two books on Austrian economics and monetary and banking systems.

What many don’t know about this commited scholar and teacher is that he is a hardcore music fan, particularly of the Canadian rock band Rush. “Their music has enabled me to celebrate the good and survive the bad in my life,” he says. “No one completely understands why particular sequences of notes and chords generate the emotional responses they do, but they do indeed touch the heart,” says Horwitz, who has recently created an online database of book reviews devoted to volumes on progressive rock. In his free time he likes to dabble in technology and web design.

Horwitz completed his MA and Ph.D. in economics at George Mason University, having received his BA in economics and philosophy from The University of Michigan.