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The Rice Thresher
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by David Berry for the Thresher Requirements for the economics major, one of Rice's most popular majors, have been altered in response to complaints expressed in a student survey last year. Student Association senators pushed for changes last spring, and Jim Brown, chair of the undergraduate economics committee, has been working with students since then to discuss concerns about the department. Students expressed discontent with the instructors teaching introductory courses, Economics 211 and 212, and the organization of the major as a whole. "[Brown] expressed a lot of concern for students and said that his colleagues were willing to work to improve classes," SA senator Jamie Story, who worked with Brown last year, said. The economics major, but not the mathematical economic analysis major, no longer requires Economics 375, Macroeconomic Theory, an intermediate macroeconomics course. Students may now take either Economics 375 or one of two other related classes, Economics 355, Financial Markets and Institutions, or Economics 455, Money and Financial Markets. This change addresses student concern with the way that Economics 212, Introduction to Macroeconomics, fits in with the rest of the macroeconomics sequence. Many students responding to the survey said they felt that a smaller introductory class taught by a faculty member would be more desirable than graduate students teaching in large lectures. Despite student complaints, however, graduate students are again teaching introductory courses. Brown said professors who are asked to teach introductory courses cannot continue other teaching and research responsibilities. "[Department members] were worried about reviews graduate students got in previous years," Wojtek Dorabialski, a fourth year doctoral student who teaches a section of Economics 211, said. "But the department is thinking in the long term. It goes back to recruiting graduate students, and recruiting - finding the right match - is hard to do." Using teaching performance and experience as a criterion for graduate admission, hiring and promotion could be a solution, according to Dorabialski. Dorabialski said while he feels teaching is at least equal in importance to research, the greater economics community disagrees. Dorabialski said this year's teaching assistants had more experience in the classroom and will therefore do a better job. Graduate students must be in their third year to begin teaching, while at many other universities, graduate students begin teaching in their first or second semester of coursework. Currently, graduate students have an optional, university-wide seminar program to train them to teach introductory economics courses. Brown said some of the most helpful responses were from students who responded verbally in the comments section. He said the survey is intended for qualitative - not statistical - purposes. Students may continue to voice their opinions and evaluate their economics courses on the department's online survey (http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~seti/survey2.html).
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This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of: The Rice Thresher, Rice University MS-524, PO Box 1892, Houston, TX 77251-1892, USA. The Thresher Online Project -- ethresh@listserv.rice.edu |
