Thursday, November 5 at 5:30 p.m.

WHAT: Chapman University will unveil a bronze bust of novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand (1905-1982) in a dedication ceremony on the campus.

WHEN: Thursday, November 5 at 5:30 p.m.

WHERE: On the promenade near the Argyros Global Citizens Plaza (flag plaza) just west of the Allred Aquatics Stadium.

WHY: To celebrate the establishment of the Rebecca and William Dunn Distinguished Chair in Experimental Economics in Honor of Vernon L. Smith, a bust of Ayn Rand will be dedicated on the promenade near the Global Citizens Plaza. Each time a chair or professorship (a continuously endowed position for a faculty member) is established at Chapman, the donor chooses a famous historical person to commemorate in a bronze bust to be displayed in perpetuity on the campus. This is the 28th bust to be unveiled on the campus – other famous faces in bronze on the campus include Abraham Lincoln, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, Adam Smith, George Washington, Albert Schweitzer, Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Dunn Distinguished Chair will enable Chapman to bring a visiting scholar to campus on a three-year, rotating basis in the dynamic field of experimental economics.

Ayn Rand is best known for her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Atlas Shrugged, her final novel (1957), dramatizes the role of the mind in man’s existence. Set in the near future, the story concerns creators in every rational field who go on strike against an altruist-collectivist society that does not recognize their value. Rand’s philosophy, known as Objectivism, promotes the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism. Every book Rand published in her lifetime is still in print, and hundreds of thousands of copies are sold each year, so far totaling more than 25 million.

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