I earned my undergraduate degree in economics at Centre College, a small, liberal arts college in Danville, Kentucky. I loved economics and I thrived on the liberal arts approach to learning the discipline. In the fall of 1988, I began graduate school at the University of Kentucky. I went to graduate school because I wanted to be an economist. But, I had no plans whatsoever to be a teacher. When I was informed that teaching was a part of what I had to do to be funded with an assistantship, I stepped into the position as if taking on a chore. However, after about two weeks of teaching, I realized that the "rush" that I got from teaching was like nothing else I had experienced up to that point in my academic career. I knew that I enjoyed being a student of economics, but I found teaching economics to other people to be absolutely thrilling. I had discovered a truly rewarding experience. While I enjoyed my research looking at the labor market impacts of substance use, I now knew that the teaching of economics would be an integral part of my career.
My first job after completing graduate school was at the University of Richmond in Virginia. At Richmond, tenure is based on teaching and research. Given that I enjoyed teaching and had experienced success teaching as a graduate student at The University of Kentucky, I was excited to accept this position and I found my two years at Richmond to be a valuable stage in my growth as an economist and a teacher. The caliber of the student body is outstanding, the classes are typically capped at twenty-five students, and faculty members are well supported, altogether making for a great teaching experience. I was also pursuing my research agenda at a pace that I believe would have led to tenure.
In 1993 the Chancellor of the University of Kentucky announced the creation of approximately twenty new special title series teaching positions for departments across the Lexington campus. Faculty in these positions would be eligible for tenure and have no research requirements. The teaching positions were created to ensure that at least fifty percent of students in lower level courses would be taught by full-time faculty. As a significant number of students from across the university are required to take microeconomic and/or macroeconomic principles, the economics department was offered two of these positions. The economics faculty felt that the positions would benefit the department anticipating better coordination in the introductory courses, higher student success rates, improved course evaluations, and more economics majors. One offer was made to Robert Gillette from Texas A&M and one was made to me.
My thoughts were mixed when I received the offer. Currently, in a regular tenure track position, I had reservations about how I would be treated and received in a teaching position in the economics department at Kentucky. This was compounded by the fact I had been a graduate student at Kentucky. I wondered if I would feel like a second-class citizen.
On the other hand, while I enjoyed Richmond, I believed that by coming back to Kentucky I could have a more powerful impact through my teaching. The student body at the University of Kentucky is more diverse in economic background and ethnicity. First-generation college students, international students, and nontraditional students who work and have children are a part of the student body. Through exposure to this mix of students and to a large number of students, I felt I could make a more significant contribution to economic literacy. I have always felt that if one could apply a small class, liberal arts approach in a large class setting at a public university, one could substantially improve the quality of the student experience. The University of Kentucky would provide the opportunity for a full-scale test of this belief.
Not for one moment have I found myself regretting the decision I made six years ago. I do find myself working hard and putting in long hours, but I enjoy what I am doing. I have an enormous amount of latitude in determining how I go about doing the specific tasks for which I was hired.
My primary responsibility is to teach and coordinate the sections of contemporary economic issues, microeconomic principles, and business and economics statistics. My colleague, Bob Gillette, who took the other teaching position, focuses on macroeconomics and shares responsibility with me for the statistics course. I teach approximately 600 students and work with six to ten teaching assistants (TAs) each semester who have teach their own sections.
My service responsibilities relate primarily to undergraduate education. I serve as an advisor for economics majors and now as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for economics. I am the faculty advisor to the Economic Society and helped to establish and coordinate the College of Business and Economics Lab for Economic and Accounting Proficiency, which provides free tutoring to students taking introductory courses in accounting and economics.
As teaching assistant coordinators, Bob and I develop and convey to TAs both course content and teaching techniques. We meet with the TAs weekly to check progress and to discuss issues related to teaching the material and classroom demeanor. We have compiled comprehensive lecture note packets with active learning ideas and teaching tips for the TAs. Every semester I go into each TA's classroom for observation and TAs observe one another. For the College of Business and Economics, Bob and I teach a graduate course on teaching methods that is required of all new TAs in the College. Working with teaching assistants and seeing them grow and develop as both economists and teachers of economics has been by far one of the most rewarding aspects of my job.
During my tenure at Kentucky, three different people have served as chair for the economics department. The chair at the time Bob and I were hired wanted to ensure that except for the differences in our research requirements, we would be like other members of the department. He felt that this was crucial for the successful reception of these teaching positions and for our own personal well being. The subsequent two chairs have taken the same view and made every effort to effectively incorporate us into departmental, college, and university activity. One way they have done this is by having us maintain a full service role in the department and college just as colleagues in regular research positions. I have been fully supported to attend conferences for the purposes of both teaching and research and I enjoy attending the department's applied microeconomic workshop series. I also have full voting privileges within the department and I have served as the Business College's representative to the University's Undergraduate Council.
Earlier I mentioned the leeway I have felt in defining my role in the department. An example is the teaching workshop we have developed. In my first year at Kentucky, I thought it would be a good idea for our department to host a statewide teaching workshop for economists. Bill Becker from Indiana University conducted the first workshop and we followed in subsequent years with specialists from a variety of areas in pedagogy. Bob and I have conducted this workshop for five years with financial assistance from our department and the Calvin K. Kazanjian Foundation for Economic Education Inc. Our department has encouraged Bob and I to try to be leaders in economic education within Kentucky and in the profession.
I have been encouraged, although not required, to continue to engage in various forms of scholarly work. While I continue with my established research program, I have chosen to shift the primary emphasis of my research to economic education and pedagogy. Developing a research program in economic education has allowed me to engage in research that enhances both my teaching efforts and hopefully those of others. I have studied the influence that economic instruction in the classroom has on the opinions that students hold regarding various economic issues. I have designed active learning strategies, worked at assessing the use and effectiveness of classroom peer observation, and tried to measure the outcomes of using service learning in statistics courses.
Has the position been a success from the department's point of view? My chair and colleagues say so, and they did grant me tenure. In the spring of 1994 the economics department had approximately 144 majors. We currently have approximately 291 majors and I feel our teaching positions have contributed to this increase. The evaluations of our teaching assistants have improved and are good. With each teaching assistant, we have observed their teaching skills and evaluations improve in the time they are in our graduate program. Have my attempts at applying a liberal arts approach in large lectures at a public university been a success? It has worked for me and I have fun and learn new things every time I teach my courses.
All in all, I have been very happy in this teaching position. I have been treated as a first-class citizen. Having someone else in a parallel position to mine has improved my experience. I have had the opportunity to develop new classroom activities and try a variety of techniques such as service learning, which have dramatically increased the depth and quality of the teaching experience for me and I hope for the students. By teaching primarily at the principles level and working with our teaching assistants who teach at that level, I feel that mine is a daily battle against economic illiteracy. At the end of the day after teaching economics to more than 600 students I feel a tangible sense of accomplishment. I certainly acknowledge the importance of the research mission in our profession and in my life as an economist, but without a doubt, my comparative advantage is at teaching, and doing the administrative activities that relate to advising students and training teaching assistants. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to be in a position where my primary focus is on the part of economics that I truly love - teaching it.