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Teaching Responsibility

Since joining the faculty in 1996 in my first teaching appointment, I have taught several different courses as described in the following table.  I have also chaired one Master’s Thesis committee (Narmada Nanjudan - Spring 1999) and been a committee member on another Master’s Thesis (Fang Chen – Summer 2001) and supervised two independent studies (Tracy Albert – Spring 1997; Jeff Burke – Spring 1998). See Appendix 8 for independent study papers and Thesis.

The Department of Economics gives all new faculty a 6-hour teaching load for their first year (96-97).  In subsequent years (97-01), I received a one course teaching load reduction each semester due to administrative responsibilities as Director of the Institute for Regulatory Policy Studies.  Starting in 2001, I split the load reduction with my Co-Director and has a "3-2" teaching load.

ECO 235 has the largest enrollment of the courses that I have taught.  It is a required course in the Telecommunications Management sequence within Applied Computer Science (ACS) and an elective for undergraduate economics majors and minors.  The student makeup has been half ACS students and half economics students.  This has presented both a challenge and an opportunity.  Having a mixed class requires the course content to balance economic theory with technology and institutional background.  Most ACS students understand the technology but remember little of ECO 101 (a prerequisite).  Most Economics students have a good grasp of economic theory but no knowledge of technology.  The first several weeks is invested in giving all students a common basis from which to analyze the economics of the telecommunications industry.  Because of the large volume of material that needs to be covered, I teach this course by lecture and large group discussion format.

ECO 300 is the senior level capstone course that students take in conjunction with a 300-level course within the economics department.  Students write topic proposals, outlines, two drafts of their papers and do an oral presentation.

ECO 335 is an upper-level elective for undergraduate economics majors and a required course for graduate students who choose the Master’s Degree sequence in Policy Studies in Electricity, Natural Gas and Telecommunications.  Whereas ECO 235 requires balancing the course content, ECO 335 requires balancing the course difficulty because of the mixture of graduate and undergraduate students.  The first half of the course is devoted to antitrust law.  Because the focus is on actual court cases, I run the classtime like a law class where students present the background of the case and their economic analysis of the casein an impromptu fashion.  This is followed by a discussion or debate of the economic issues by several students.  The second half of the course is devoted to regulation.  The regulatory material is presented with the theoretical foundations and applied to the real-world cases focused primarily on telecommunications, electricity, and natural gas.

The Fall ’01 semester marks the sixth time I have taught ECO 235 and 335.  I have continually updated these courses with new readings, replacement readings, as well as adding whole new sections.  I have revised the course content based on student evaluations and the pedagogy based on teaching workshops and input from other professors.  For example, my first year I had most of the points for grading assigned during the second half of the course.  This was changed the following year based on comments from my DFSC and students.  In addition, upon suggestion of a colleague in the Economics Department, I now allow students to rewrite their papers based on my feedback and make the papers due earlier in the semester to enhance learning. 

ECO 320 is an upper division undergraduate and graduate economics elective.  Although the course is very mathematical, I have tried to focus the course on practical applications of the mathematical models rather than theoretical abstractions.  For example, to motivate one class of mathematical models, I designed simulation exercise where students were part of a company with assigned roles - president, vice president of marketing, etc.  The students were to devise a pricing strategy collectively within their company and adjust their strategy based on the results of each round.  The students learned so much from the exercise that about half of the class came to my office that day to discuss the simulation and referred back to it for the rest of the semester. (Simulation exercise materials are contained in Appendix 7.)

ECO 435 is a graduate course and a required course for students in the M.S. sequence in policy studies in electricity, natural gas and telecommunications.  This course is the most theoretical and mathematical course that I have taught and was challenging to teach well. I volunteered to teach this class for a professor who has on sabbatical.  Although I do not expect to teach the course again, the experience helped me to better prepare students in ECO 335 (which is a prerequisite for 435) and adjust my expectation in 436 (which has 435 as a prerequisite).

ECO 436 is a graduate course and a required course for students in the M.S. sequence in policy studies in electricity, natural gas and telecommunications.  It was originally taught as a seminar course on telecommunications only.  Based on student evaluations and input from the Graduate Program Director and others in the Department, I changed this course to include the electricity and natural gas industry rather than offering separate courses in these industries as originally planned.  Not having a background in these industries, this required a large amount of background reading and study.  Based on the feedback of the small number of students (3) who took the course, the change in course structure was very effective.

ECO 495 is the Master’s Research Project which is taken in conjunction with a 400-level graduate course.  Students write topic proposals, outlines, two drafts of their papers and do an oral presentation.

ECO 498 is the summer internship program which is a required course for students in the policy studies sequence in the M.S. program.  I recruit companies, coordinate assignments, administer payment, and supervise work as part of my service responsibilities as Director of the Institute for Regulatory Policy Studies.  As part of the teaching component to this course, I have contacted students (by phone or site visit) and supervisors during the internship.  I also evaluated the work based on student write-ups and supervisor’s evaluations.

In addition to these course responsibilities, I also try to maintain contact with non-economics students as faculty advisor to the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group and by participating in the International Friendship Family program through the International Studies office.

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