================= HES POSTING ================= At the University of Connecticut, we decided to continue to REQUIRE BOTH economic history AND history of economic thought in our doctoral program. Indeed, we made the diversity of economics available in the department a central focus of our recruiting effort. Thus, while we insist on a very thorough grounding in "mainstream neoclasscial analysis", we also insist students have an understanding of the intellectual origins and evolution of the field and of the actual, empirical, "hard data" of how economies have functioned. Together with a careful restructuring of the overall set of course sequences (we have a stand-alone MA program that is highly successful) and vastly improved dissertation supervision (we cut average time to completion from 9+ years to 5.6 years), this emphasis has permitted us to recruit many top students in competition with "marque" programs that have abandoned all interest in both history and history of thought. I should add that we take teaching quite seriously as well, and try to prepare our doctoral students to teach in a liberal arts environment--which is where the vast majority of academic jobs are. While our ratings haven't improved, both our input--quality of entering students--and our placement has improved dramatically; I also think our level of satisfaction with what we are doing as a faculty (who, even with quality attention to supervision and teaching, manage to publish at nearly 3 articles per capita annually) is much higher. So our experience argues very strongly in support of Peter's strategic suggestions for building a quality program. Fred C. ********************************************************************** Prof. Fred V. Carstensen Office: (860) 486-0614 Department of Economics Dept: (860) 486-3022 341 Mansfield Road FAX: (860) 486-4463 University of Connecticut Home: (860) 242-6355 Storrs, CT 06269-1063 e-mail: [log in to unmask] ********************************************************************** ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]