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I guess to throw my two cents in here, I do appreciate Roy Weintraub's (and his
department's) position on the training of HE economists.  However, what bothers me out of
this may be a related concern, drawing perhaps on Warren Samuels's
"horses for courses" remark.   
 
I am bothered by the increasing trend of departments to simply eliminate courses in HE (or
History of Econmic Thought, or... ), first at the grad level and now also increasingly I
fear at the undergrad level.
 
It may not help save those courses at any level to have people come out onto the market
labeled primarily as "HE" or whatever, but I am a bit concerned that there may be a
chicken-egg problem here.  If nobody is, then does it not make it harder for departments
that wish to have such a course or preserve it, especially when a senior person teaching
it retires, if the department cannot go out and hire a person who is so identified?  Of
course there are people who train to be something else but whose hearts in HE.  But there
is the reverse phenomenon. I remember our hiring someone who had a subfield listed on
their vita and who expressed great willingness to teach our course in that sub-field (not
HE), and then proceeded never to do so after arriving and to simply teach in their primary
field of interest.
 
Applying a Kantian categorical imperative to Duke, maybe it is good for the Duke program
and its students to do as they do. But if all departments follow such a policy, then there
will be no people on the market to hire to teach such courses.
 
Barkley Rosser 
 
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