Due to the deficit of available professors and the overwhelming popularity of the major, the Economics Department has been unable to accommodate many students trying to register for classes at all levels at the beginning of this spring term. While limited capacity has always been an issue for this department, the problem has increased in severity, with many accounts of students forced to sit on the floor during the first week of classes.
The severity of the issue has been attributed to a number of different reasons. Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics Peter Matthews wrote in an email, “At the risk of oversimplification, over a prolonged period, the student/faculty ratio has increased to the point where it is no longer sustainable or, for that matter, equitable.”
He continued, “On the one hand, whether one counts enrolled students or majors, the numerator has increased. There are, for example, about 370 economics majors at Middlebury, more than double the number of the next largest department or program, and more than several whole academic divisions whose combined resources dwarf ours. On the other hand, the number of ‘full time equivalent’ economists on campus has not kept pace and, in some cases, even fallen: we have lost colleagues to retirement and, this semester, unexpected death, but we have also ‘lost’ FTEs to College initiatives like MiddCORE, MCSE and Liberal Arts Plus.”
These issues have culminated in the over-enrollment by as many as twelve extra students in some classes, leaving many other students unable to access these classes.
Hayley Howard ’17, an Economics major, attended both Economic Statistics classes offered this semester with the hopes of adding one. “One of my [economics] classes already had to move classrooms to make room for more students, but we still have too many,” she said.
Assistant Professor of Economics Erick Gong, noted that he, too, was unable to accommodate everyone in his statistics class.
He said, “I think there is a lot of interest in economics on campus, which I attribute to many of my colleagues in the department who convey a passion for their areas of expertise.”
Therein lies the challenge for professors who want to enroll interested students but then are forced to teach a greater amount of larger classes with less one-on-one time with students.
Matthews said, “In a word, it diminishes and dilutes what is otherwise one of the best available liberal arts educations in economics. I have remarkable scholar-teachers as colleagues, and we attract remarkable students, but there aren’t enough of the former to engage the latter as much as either group wants or deserves. Furthermore, the consequences manifest themselves throughout the curriculum, from overcrowded first level courses to insufficient opportunities to engage in ‘research-based learning’ for seniors, a centerpiece of the department’s pedagogical philosophy.”
Paige-Wright Professor of Economics Paul Sommers pointed out that the number of negative seats available on Bannerweb underscores the magnitude of the problem that the department is facing. He has faced overcrowding in his Economic Statistics lab class, where many enrolled students were without seats.
Some short-term solutions to the issue of overcrowding in these classes include switching classrooms, opening new sections, reshuffling professors, and increasing enrollment caps. Matthews also noted that a greater flexibility has been given toward transferring credit as another way to ameliorate some of the problems the department is facing. However, these tactics work more as quick fixes rather than sustainable long-term solutions that address structural issues within the department itself.
The Economics Department has consequently hired three new faculty members and extended an offer to a fourth as a potentially more durable response to the high demand of economics classes.
Sommers said, “We are actively working to increase the number of faculty in economics so that our majors can actually enroll in core courses and that classes can be smaller.”
Matthews commented on the department’s recent growth and its future. “The last two years brought us the remarkable quartet of Professors Racha Moussa, Tanya Byker, Leila Davis and Emiliano Huet-Vaughn,” he said. “Next fall, we shall add Professor Amanda Gregg from Yale, an economic historian with a focus on late imperial Russia, Professor Julia Berazneva from Cornell, who works at the intersection of environment and development economics, and Professor Marquise McGraw of Berkeley, who researches local economic development and will allow us to expand our urban studies curriculum. I am certain that students will love learning from, and working with, all of them. And we’re not done.”
