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the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/econnd/petition-sign.html
|
April
2008 As
quoted from the mission statement of The University of Notre Dame: “The University is dedicated to the
pursuit and sharing of truth for its own sake. As a Catholic university, one of
its distinctive goals is to provide a forum where, through free inquiry and
open discussion, the various lines of Catholic thought may intersect with all
the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and every
other area of human scholarship and creativity. The intellectual interchange
essential to a university requires, and is enriched by, the presence and voices of diverse scholars and students…The University is
committed to constructive and critical engagement with the whole of human
culture.” As members of the University of Notre Dame, we have a
special obligation to engage our learning, our teaching, and our world with
integrity. Additionally, students deserve an education that explores the
“full range of ideas.” Therefore, the University, if it hopes to fulfill its mission, must teach its students to think
critically and provide opportunities for students to intellectually engage
their discipline. It is our contention that the current situation of
economics at Notre Dame often stifles debate, impedes student learning, and
undermines the Catholic character of our University. At Notre Dame, economics is divided into two separate
departments: “The Department of Economics and Econometrics, which is a neoclassical
economics department committed to rigorous theoretical and quantitative
analysis in teaching and research,” and The Department of Economics and
Policy studies, which is committed to “issues relating to socioeconomic
justice and ethics,” “openness to alternative methodological approaches,” and
the “roles of history and institutions” in the “broader political economy.”
It is our fear that, in pursuit of higher department rankings, Notre Dame
will sacrifice the latter department in favor of
the former. In other words, we oppose a situation in which
neoclassical economic theory is taught to the exclusion of other theories.
This tendency is already apparent in the one-sidedness of economics majors at
our University. The required courses – introductory/intermediate
microeconomics and macroeconomics, statistics, and econometrics – are all
typically taught using only mainstream theory. It is alarming that a student
could easily graduate from Notre Dame with a degree in Economics, having
never questioned the basic assumptions of or been presented with plausible
alternatives to neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economic theory, because of its dominance
in the academy, has become widely known as “mainstream” economics. Currently,
introductory and intermediate micro and macro theory courses teach mainstream
economics from an ahistorical perspective. These
courses foster a narrow and incomplete view of economics, because they
exclude teaching about the social and historical forces that shape economic
theory and avoid sincerely questioning the underlying assumptions vital to
the models. Furthermore, most professors present only neoclassical models to
their students. This exclusive presentation implies that neoclassical theory
itself is “economics.” This system of education, insulated from critical
dissent, produces the next generation of economists with a fixed toolkit of
models and prescriptions that assume an unchanging economic reality. As a
result, students fail to contextualize neoclassical theory in the broader
discourse of the social sciences. In addition, mainstream economics is often presented
as analogous to a natural science, such that economic laws are attributed the
same character of universality as the laws of physics. As such, many faculty
members teach mainstream neoclassical theory as a series of straight-forward
mathematical concepts. This causes students to believe that economics is
merely a matter of fine-tuning a particular model and thus void of ethical
implications. Many faculty promote this inaccurate
notion in their courses by arguing that mainstream economics furthers a
“positive analysis” of the world, a value-neutral agenda of “efficiency” in
the process of allocating scarce resources. They argue that their economic
models do not contain or render value judgments. However, this perspective
ignores the reality that neoclassical theory’s starting assumptions and
supporting logic carry an embedded ethics and have serious social
implications. This misrepresentation of a value-laden theory seriously
misleads students and inhibits their ability to morally engage current
trends. Today’s simultaneously increasing wealth and growing inequality
affirm a desperate need for models critical of the mainstream. To
prevent this tendency toward a one-sided education, some economics students
take courses where heterodox theories are introduced. These students are
empowered to think about and critically engage both neoclassical models and
alternative approaches. Unfortunately, the number of these courses at Notre
Dame has dwindled in recent years. The deeper understanding afforded by these
courses reveals that the current stunted education in economics is one of
mostly memorization and unchallenging acceptance rather than a critical
examination of assumptions, logic, and implications. With a more
sophisticated teaching of economics, which includes a plurality of ideas,
students better learn mainstream neoclassical theory and, in the process, are
exposed to a variety of instructive alternatives. In conclusion, the preponderance of economics courses
which exclusively teach neoclassical theory impedes students from entering
into the kind of flourishing intellectual life that is supposed to be
fostered here at Notre Dame. This represents a failure to provide Notre
Dame’s economics students with a truly liberal education. Therefore, we
recommend the implementation of required courses for majors in both political
economy and economic history. We also recommend that economics faculty strive
to contextualize mainstream neoclassical economics within its historical
development, thus placing it in the broader discourse of diverse economic
thought. We further ask all professors who include economics content in their
courses to present economics not as a set of hard-and-fast models befitting a
natural science, but, more appropriately, as an evolving and dynamic social
science. As firm believers in the mission of the University and
our ability to fulfill it, we hope that this letter
begins a dialogue for change. The University of Notre Dame should reconsider
its current teaching of economics, affirm the courses that currently offer
heterodox approaches, and create more opportunities for challenging
intellectual engagement if it hopes to provide its students with the truly premiere
education it espouses. Sign
the petition here: http://www.petitiononline.com/econnd/petition-sign.html |