The (Business) World According to Julian Schuster

He was born Zeljan Suster, in Split, Yugoslavia, a city on the Adriatic coast that now belongs to Croatia, in 1958. His father was a career military officer, his mother a homemaker. “Her career was me,” says Schuster, an only child. He spent most of his youth in the Yugoslav (now Serbian) capital of Belgrade when he was in school, and on his grandparents’ farm in rural Serbia when he was not.

His grandfather had two cows, a bull, a dozen sheep, and a flock each of ducks and chickens. As a nine-year-old, Schuster’s job in the summer was to get up at 4 a.m. and furrow the fields before sunrise, when the flies wouldn’t bother the cows that pulled the plow. He learned about the natural cycles of seasons, the importance of careful planning, and all the needs of a tiny, family-run business. In other words, a solid foundation for a future economist.

Schuster graduated from the University of Belgrade in 1981, earning a BA in economics (with minors in accounting and finance). He also earned a master’s degree in international economics, and a PhD in economics, specializing in the factors that influence business cycles. In 1989, he came to the United States, intending to stay only a few years “to learn English a bit more and get some additional skills.”

I will always speak out, especially when I know I'm right.

His first position in the U.S. was as a visiting lecturer at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He taught at Wesleyan University in nearby Middletown for a semester, then at the University of New Haven, an institution about the size of Hamline. It was around this time that Schuster and his wife, Sanya, also an economics scholar, realized they weren’t going home. It was 1991, the year “all hell broke loose in Yugoslavia.”

“I did not anticipate the civil war with the ferocity that it came,” Schuster says. “And I was shocked by the primitivism and blind hatred that emerged among various ethnic groups. I did not then, and I don’t now, identify with any nationalists.”

Much changed for Schuster once he realized he would be remaining in this country—notably, his name. It was meant to be pronounced “JOOL-ee-an SHOO-ster,” but most Americans pronounced its Serbo-Croatian spelling as “ZEL-jan SUSS-ter.” Tired of explaining and correcting, Schuster went to court and changed his name so the spelling would match the English pronunciation.

Today, nearly 20 years after arriving in the U.S., his accent remains—as well as a tendency to stutter excitedly when he is making a point about which he feels strongly. Schuster says he routinely has to repeat himself two and three times in order to be understood. Nevertheless, he considers himself fully American.

“I speak with a heavy accent, yes, but I absolutely refuse to be perceived as a foreigner,” Schuster says. “I chose this country because I firmly believe here, I can make a difference. And it is my unwavering determination that I will contribute to its betterment.”

When he was offered the position at Hamline, Schuster says, he saw an opportunity to do exactly that.