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Obituary: Carolyn Shaw Bell / Professor inspired women to business, finance careers

Obituary: Carolyn Shaw Bell / Professor inspired women to business, finance careers

June 21, 1920-May 13, 2006

Carolyn Shaw Bell, an economics professor who inspired generations of female students to aim for the top in the male-dominated fields of business and finance, has died. She was 85.

Ms. Bell, who taught at Wellesley College for almost 40 years, died of a degenerative neurological illness May 13 at her home in Arlington, Va., the college announced.

For the last decade, and many years before that, economics has been the top major at Wellesley College, a phenomenon considered unusual for an all-women's school. Even though Ms. Bell retired in 1989, the suburban Boston college and former students credit her dynamic teaching style for the popularity of the major and her relentless promotion of graduates for helping them achieve.

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"She made economics really relevant, and she really sent this message across: Take yourself seriously. You can do anything. Go out there and show them," said Alicia Munnell, a former student and Boston College professor who served as assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy in the Clinton administration.

"She would follow you wherever your life led," Ms. Munnell said. "If you did anything good, she'd write you a note saying, 'That's terrific.' You'd get this feeling of, 'How could she know?'"

A proponent of networking before it was a trend, Ms. Bell started a newsletter devoted to the triumphs of Wellesley women in economics, business and finance that she sent to the graduates she proudly called FEMS for "former economics majors."

Among those on the extensive mailing list were Ellen Marram, who was the chief executive officer of Tropicana in the late 1990s; Helen "Sunny" Ladd, a professor of economics and public policy at Duke University, and Lois Juliber, former chief operating officer of Colgate-Palmolive.

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"She gave you permission to believe in yourself," Ms. Juliber said. "She put economics in context, whether it had to do with politics or corporate issues from an accounting perspective. You realized it could be part of your life."

No student was too far removed from the classroom for Ms. Bell to reach out to. After Ms. Juliber's company was acquired in the late 1980s, she received a letter from Ms. Bell offering to help her figure out what to do next. Ms. Juliber had graduated in 1971.

Carolyn Shaw was born June 21, 1920, in Framingham, Mass. At Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., she switched her major from philosophy to economics, earning a bachelor's degree in 1941. She earned a doctorate in 1949 at the London School of Economics.

When she arrived at Wellesley in 1950, she had already spent four years helping economist John Kenneth Galbraith run the federal Office of Price Administration, which was established during World War II to fight inflation.

In the 1970s, she advised the presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter and helped found the American Economic Association's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession.

First Published: June 10, 2006, 4:00 a.m.

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