On Jan. 31, The Chronicle published a story on undergraduate reforms being considered by the economics department. While I was correctly quoted as saying that our faculty has lost control over the content of some of our courses because we have hired a large number of graduate students and visitors to teach them, I would like to add that this was in no way meant to diminish the tremendous service provided to our undergraduates by visitors and graduate student teachers.
Many of these instructors rank among our very best teachers, often working long hours to help us meet our teaching mission. And good teaching-such as that provided by many of these instructors-will continue to be an important component of our undergraduate program even as more regular-rank Duke faculty become involved in core economics courses.
Thomas Nechyba
Associate Professor,
Department of Economics
The writer is chair of the committee to reform undergraduate core economics.
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