Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics

This summer I had the opportunity to attend the Executive Leadership Academy (ELA) at UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education. When I arrived for the first day, I didn’t really know what to expect. I had seen the agenda and knew that I would learn a lot about aspects of higher ed administration that I have not been involved with before (like fundraising, working with governing boards and crisis management); I also figured that at least some of the sessions would not be too new (like recruiting and retaining diverse faculty). I was correct on both counts. But the most valuable aspect of the ELA was not really in the content of those sessions (though that content was all excellent and I know will prove incredibly useful in the future). The real benefit was in something I had no way of anticipating: hearing the stories and personal experiences of the many speakers who were from minoritized backgrounds. Almost all of the presenters were former Presidents or Provosts and for...

In my last post , I highlighted four criteria one might use to consider what projects and roles to take on. I posted a link to that on my personal Facebook page, with the summary comment, "Realizing that maybe what is missing from my work is fun. Next step is figuring out why and how to get more of it..." A friend pointed out that "If everyone declined things missing the fun element, every RTP committee would be empty, as would most governance" and she is absolutely right. So let me clarify that I don't need  everything  I do to be fun, and certainly not all the time, as long as at least one of the other criteria are satisfied (i.e., I feel I'm growing, or it's something I feel passionately about, or it gives me a sense of accomplishment). At the same time, if I don't feel like anything  I'm doing is particularly "fun", then that's a problem too. And what I've realized is that while my work with the CTL generally provides a se...

My first sabbatical was in 2006-07, right after I got tenure. I took the full year and moved back to the Bay Area for a year, feeling like I really needed to get completely away from everything about my life in San Diego, in order to think more clearly about what I really wanted. I did a ton of soul-searching that year. I remember feeling really conflicted. At that point, I had spent eleven years basically working toward one goal - tenure - and I'm not sure that I had ever really stopped to think about what would happen after that. For the first time in my academic life, I could actually step back and ask, "What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Is this what I want to keep doing for, potentially, the rest of my life? If not, what do I want to be doing instead? And is San Diego State where I want to do it for, potentially, the rest of my life? " Big questions. I can't say that I figured it all out but by the end of the year, I think I had identified the goals and value...

In my last post , I wrote about my resistance to calling myself a leader and how I think I've figured out where that resistance comes from: 1) it feels like bragging, 2) I don't fit the mental image I hold of what a leader looks like (i.e., white male), and 3) I don't want the responsibility I associate with being a leader. So the next questions I'm asking myself are: Does it really matter if I claim the leader label? And if it does, how do I get past this resistance I feel? Some of the conversations I had with colleagues earlier this week are helping me see that yes, it does matter, and what's particularly interesting to me is that I think some of the reasons why it matters are actually going to help me get over the resistance. For starters, a big reason I think it matters if I call myself a leader, and that also definitely makes it easier to do so, is that those first two sources of resistance are essentially founded on sexist and racist beliefs, and that's...

This week I participated in a Faculty Leadership Institute at school that has my brain kind of spinning. There are many things I want to write about but I am particularly grappling with the title questions right now. Basically, I know that I am "doing leadership" - for most of my life, I have always done work that others would call leadership, like I was in student government in high school and college, I always held leadership positions in other student organizations, I've been on Boards of professional associations, I've chaired committees, etc. And currently, I'm not only the CTL Director but a University Senator and the chair of one of the more "powerful" Senate committees. And I know I'm pretty darn effective at all that work. But a few years ago, when a colleague first referred to me as a 'faculty leader', I had an almost visceral negative reaction and immediately wanted to disagree with him. And in the last couple weeks, I have been ...

I don't usually mind missing the ASSA meetings - I hate to travel, I live in California so going to meetings almost always means going someplace a lot colder and an earlier time zone, and 90% of the economists I encounter at those meetings are the type of economists I dislike (and the other 10% are people I can see elsewhere). But there are occasionally sessions and papers that make me wish I had gone. One such paper in Atlanta is by Amanda Bayer, Syon Bhanot and Fernando Lozano, part of a session titled Gender in the Economics Profession I (the fact that there is more than one session with that title also makes me happy). The paper is " Does Simple Information Provision Lead to More Diverse Classrooms? Evidence from a Field Experiment on Undergraduate Economics " (link is to download the preview paper from the AEA conference site) and here's the abstract: Significant gender and racial/ethnic gaps have been observed in the economics profession, a reality with roots...

So, here I am, back to trying to blog more consistently. There are a number of things that have led to me finally getting off my butt, or out of my head, and actually sitting down at the laptop. One is that in my role as CTL Director, I repeatedly tell faculty that one aspect of being an effective teacher is being reflective - being willing to step back and look at what you're doing in the classroom, asking what is working and what isn't, how do you know what's working and what isn't, and what needs to be done to keep improving. For many years, this blog was basically my way of doing that reflection 'out loud'. I wouldn't exactly say that I've been a hypocrite in telling my faculty to do something I don't do anymore myself - I do believe I reflect regularly on my work as a faculty developer, even if not in a public forum - but I could do more, and hope blogging will help me think through a number of things in a more systematic and concrete way. I act...