Angel Family Foundation gives $1.3 million for graduate economics fellowship at Tulane

A Tulane graduate’s experience volunteering in New Orleans’ public schools helped inspire a $1.3 million gift to create an endowed fellowship in the university’s Department of Economics.

The Angel Family Foundation’s gift to the department, which is housed in Tulane’s School of Liberal Arts, will establish the Angel Family Graduate Fellowship Endowed Fund to provide tuition assistance and other support to economics students pursuing graduate degrees.

The foundation’s members include Mason Angel, who earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tulane in 2018 and studied with Professor Douglas N. Harris, a renowned economist focused on education policy. Angel credits his work with Harris — which included volunteering in local charter schools — as a key motivation for creating the fellowship.

“Making this gift to Tulane was an easy decision for our family,” said Angel, who lives in Denver and is co-founder and partner at the venture capital firm Industrious Ventures. “I like to think that while I may have been a poor student at the time, Professor Harris was an excellent teacher. The foundational knowledge he provided had a tremendous impact on our family’s philanthropic mission. The Angel Family Foundation continues to support early education initiatives and nontraditional school systems.”

Based in Dallas, the Angel Family Foundation supports education, Christian organizations, veterans, children’s charities and other causes. In addition to Mason, its members include his sister Logan who serves as foundation director, and their parents, Stephen and Dolores.

Stephen Angel is the chairman and former chief executive officer of Linde PLC, a board member of PPG Industries and GE, and an advisor to Industrious Ventures. In addition to her work for the family foundation, Dolores Angel has worked in the investments industry in institutional sales and as an equities trader.

“Tulane’s Department of Economics is leading the way in addressing some of our most challenging problems, and the work of our faculty has had tremendous impact on national discussions about such disparate areas as education, discrimination, economic development, poverty, taxation and health care,” said School of Liberal Arts Dean Brian T. Edwards. “By focusing their generous grant on our graduate program in economics, the Angel family helps ensure that the next generation of Tulane economists help shape the field for years to come.”

Mason’s former professor, who helped inspire the gift, also lauded its impact.

“Graduate students are central to the work and intellectual life of the Department of Economics, so the generous Angel Family Fellowship will be a great help moving us forward,” said Harris, who holds the Schlieder Foundation Chair in Public Education and is head of the economics department, as well as director of both the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans and the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice.