Students opposed department changes

National Catholic Reporter, April 9, 2004 by Gill Donovan

After Notre Dame's economics professors, no one was affected more directly by the splitting of the economics department than the university's graduate students.

Having chosen the department for its distinctive focus, almost to a person, they publicly opposed the split. In the year leading up to it, they organized in an attempt to make their opposition known.

Economics doctoral candidate Edward Nik-Khah told NCR, "I can remember weeks where we spent much of our free time drafting these positions." He said that he could think of only one student "who was less opposed to the split than the rest."

Another doctoral candidate, Thomas Scheiding, explained to NCR why he didn't think the split was necessary, saying, "I really do think the differences could have been worked out. If people were willing to compromise more, things could have been done, but people wanted it their way or no way, and I guess that's how it worked."

He said that whole situation of splitting the department, "really turned me off to being at a research university at all. ... There's politics everywhere, but I think that there's a lot more politics here where the place is trying to be ranked really high."

Doctoral candidate Aida Ramos contended that the economics department's low ranking was deceiving. "We are one of the top heterodox programs in the country," she said. "And instead of that, we are giving that up to become a very mediocre neoclassical department. I don't really see us being very highly ranked within the next 10 years despite what they do."

Nik-Khah, who graduated from Jesuit-run Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo., with degrees in economics, philosophy and political science, said that part of what attracted him to Notre Dame's economics department was the work of Economics professors Esther Miriam Sent and Philip Mirowski, both of whom are considered to be prominent heterodox economists. NikKhah said that Mirowski's many publications in the history of economic thought have earned him international recognition. "These are people who have done serious work crossing the boundaries between science studies and philosophy, economics," Nik-Khah said.

"They are working in this way, doing interdisciplinary work, and it excited me that I didn't have to immediately cut these other areas I had spent so many years studying as an undergraduate. I could actually combine them and bring all my strengths to the table," Nik-Khah said.

Now, after the split and the reduced role Mirowski, Sent and others in the new Department of Economics and Policy Studies will have in the graduate program, Nik-Khah said he doesn't think the program will attract candidates with a background such as his. "I don't think that a person like me will choose to come here anymore if the graduate program is placed totally under the care of [Economics and Econometrics]. I don't think that's valued, this sort of broader education in many different fields."

Ramos said she thinks that unless "more resources, or equal resources" are given to the Department of Economics and Policy Studies, "that department is going to die off, because I don't think the administration is really dedicated to promoting that department."

She said that it is likely that there will be a de-emphasis on social justice in a graduate program run by Economics and Econometrics. "In the neoclassical classes, there is no discussion of social justice. Those problems never come up. That's not what those professors are concerned about," she said.

She said that such classes are "very abstract a lot of the time. Not that they have nothing to do with the real world. The issues they deal with are more like applied mathematics rather than saying, 'There's poverty in South Bend. Let's do an investigation about what we can do about that.'"

The old department, she said, "was founded along heterodox lines for a reason, and I think that's something the administration has lost sight of in its search for ranking."

Ramos served as a representative for graduate students in faculty meetings during the semester the Blue Ribbon Committee's report was released. In that capacity, she said she was "privy to a lot of stuff that went on in the faculty meetings."

She said that in her opinion, "from a Catholic viewpoint, this whole situation was definitely a violation of subsidiarity. The problem could have been settled internally. Ever since my first year, it was apparent to me there were problems among the faculty, but it wasn't anything that was insurmountable that they couldn't work out on their own."

NCR attempted to contact Celestine Chukumba for comment about the situation but received no response. Chukumba, a Notre Dame graduate student, has gone on record in support of changes to the department. Before the split was finalized, Chukumba told the South Bend Tribune, "I'm in favor of the changes." The paper paraphrased him, saying, "If administrators have decided it's in the best interests of the university and the students, it probably is."