Notre Dame to Dissolve Heterodox Econ. Dept.?

by Dollars and Sense

Here is a pretty shocking story—the University of Notre Dame is planning to dissolve its department of Economics and Policy Studies, which houses the heterodox economists at the university. Below is part of an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education; there is also an online petition for ND students and alums who oppose the plan. What a moment in history to purge heterodox economists!

Notre Dame Plans to Dissolve the 'Heterodox' Side of Its Split Economics Department

By David Glenn | September 16, 2009

Early in this decade, the University of Notre Dame's economics department was bruised by a long series of quarrels over methods and ideology. So in 2003 the university's leaders came up with a Solomonic solution: They split the department in two.

Some of the faculty members stayed in what became known as economics and policy studies, a heterodox department that made room for post-Keynesians, Marxians, and historians of economic thought. (Broadly speaking, that had been the character of Notre Dame's economics program since the 1970s.) Others moved into economics and econometrics, a more-mainstream department with an emphasis on quantitative tools.

But this was not a divorce made in heaven. University officials now say that the experiment has not worked, and that they expect to dissolve the department of economics and policy studies within the next two years.

A few of the department's 11 faculty members might be invited to join the mainstream department—indeed, one scholar already made the leap this summer—but most of them expect to be scattered into various other departments, institutes, and research centers at Notre Dame.

For those faculty members, most of whom opposed the 2003 split in the first place, the news is a bitter pill. They say that the administration has failed to consult with them or with their students. And they say that it will be peculiar, at best, for them to move into other academic units when the university originally hired them because of their doctorates in economics.

Above all, they say that the dissolution would represent an intellectual loss for the university. While Notre Dame once had an economics program that was distinctively shaped by currents in Roman Catholic social thought, they say, it will now be left with a neoclassical department much like the ones at almost every other major university.

"In light of the crash of the economy, you would think there would be some humility among economists, some openness to new approaches," says Charles K. Wilber, a professor emeritus of economics at Notre Dame. "There's not a lot."

Read the rest of the article.

Labels: heterodox economics, Notre Dame

 

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9/21/2009 03:20:00 PM