----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 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 ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]