Federal Reserve Governor & BSU Alum Dr. Christopher Waller Speaks to Students

The keynote speaker at Bemidji State’s annual Student Achievement Conference, Dr. Christopher Waller, spoke last week about how he went from the small-town university to Washington, D.C. to join the Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve system.

The Fed is the central bank of the United States and conducts the nation’s monetary policy. A seven-member Board of Governors is appointed by the President, and Dr. Waller, an economist, joined the board in 2020. Prior to that, he was a professor and worked at universities for 30 years.

“At a certain age, it’s probably best if I let the younger generation of professors step in where they’re closer in age [to students],” he told Lakeland News. “They have a closer life experience. And I just get to watch.”

Even now, several decades removed from graduating college, Dr. Waller points back to one professor who changed the trajectory of his career and even his life.

“Well, it was my undergraduate advisor, who in one hour, he laid out a plan for my life which I followed for 30 years,” he explained. “So when I look back, that was the most amazing thing, is that somebody could sit down and say, ‘You’re going to take all these classes, you’re going to do this, and you’re going to go to grad school, and then you’re going to come back and be an academic.’ And I did it.”

Four decades later, it’s still the case that advisors and professors can have profound impacts on their students past regular lecture hall learning.

“Some lectures, they just kind of feed you the information and then expect you to spit it back up on tests. With Kelly [La Venture], you’re applying this and you’re learning a lot from it,” said Bemidji State University junior Mak Witucki, whose presented on the project “Motivators and Barriers to EuroSpring 2027 Participation.”

“[La Venture] does not allow you not to learn, and we really get to spend a lot more time strategizing it and really applying it to something that can be used,” added fellow junior and project partner Ella Countryman. “But it’s just a lot of dedication and having a professor who really challenges you to learn and push that. To make you successful after you graduate is one of the best opportunities I’ve ever had.”

Some teachers have the ability to bring classroom learning into real-world situations and in doing so have their students remember them for a lifetime.

“I got treated that way when I was here at Bemidji, and I spent a large part of my life saying, ‘I owe these students what I got: the same treatment, personal attention, mentoring,'” added Dr. Waller. “I owe that to my students. And I did that, I hope, for 30 years.”

In his presentation, Dr. Waller also spoke about how he never went to college with the intention of being an economist but changed his degree path once he got into the subject. Without professors advising Waller that this could be a good career for him, he says his life would have taken a completely different path.