Alumni News

We want to take this opportunity to update you on the news of the department. The university continues to grow with enrollment expected to top 30,000 in the next two years. The number of undergraduate Economics majors is also increasing and we are expanding our recruiting efforts to make sure that this trend continues. The growth in majors has allowed us to offer additional sections of staple courses like Intermediate Micro, Intermediate Macro, and Money and Banking. To help with this growth, we have added some new members to our faculty.

In the Fall of 2001, Dr. William Wallace joined our department to teach Money and Banking. Bill received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Illinois and taught at Duke University before joining the Federal Reserve. He served at the Richmond Fed, the Board of Governors, and then became First Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Dallas Fed. He left Dallas in 1991 to serve as Dean of the College of Business and Public Administration at Old Dominion University. After teaching in Israel, England, and Russia, Bill got homesick and returned to the DFW metroplex. He wanted to continue teaching and we were excited to add him to our team of outstanding adjunct faculty.

The loss of Chuck Balcar to the City Manager position in Cibilo, Texas left us with openings in Principles and the ECON 5000 Concepts class. Fortunately, two of our own alumni were available to cover these classes. Dr. Susan Dadres, who received her masters in our program before pursuing her Ph.D. at SMU, has done an outstanding job with the ECON 5000 course. Susan teaches full time at SMU and we were very fortunate that she was willing to come up to Denton one evening per week for our students. At the Principles level, Ajay Babar returned to campus to help us cover our classes. After working at Sabre and J.C. Penney, Ajay has now started his own business (TravelMarket). He missed working with students and taught an evening section of Micro Principles in the Fall. With a more flexible schedule, Ajay is teaching two morning sections of Micro Principles this semester. We are very fortunate to have outstanding alumni in the area that can help us meet the needs of our students.

In the last two weeks, we have completed our search for a new tenure track Assistant Professor. We have hired Dr. Janice Hauge and she will begin in January of 2003. Janice's Ph.D. is from the University of Florida and her Masters is from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Janice is an Applied Microeconomist with specializations in Industrial Organization, Health Economics, and Regulation. Her dissertation examined the effects of the 1997 balanced budget act on Medicare managed care providers. Her research focus will be related to the impact of new legislation on Medicare and other government programs. She currently has articles under review at the Journal of Political Economy, The American Economic Review, and The Journal of Health Economics. She will be teaching Industrial Organization, Public Finance, and Intermediate Microeconomics. While Janice is officially filling the position vacated by Jennie Wenger, she is unofficially filling another critical spot on the faculty. Ken Koelln will be moving into modified service next Fall and Janice will now take his place as the University of Florida Ph.D. with military background. We are all very excited about her joining our faculty.

Our graduate program continues to grow. We now have over 50 students in the program and our major constraint is funding. Each year we lose a number of excellent students because we do not have enough financial aid. We continue to be a very attractive option for our own graduates and this year we increased the number of students coming to UNT from neighboring states. International students currently make up about 50% of our enrollment and we have students from 13 different countries in our program. The demand for our graduates continues to be strong and Mike Nieswiadomy is providing assistance in his role as Placement Coordinator.

The growth in our program has come without a corresponding increase in the size of our full time faculty. To make sure the needs of the students are met we depend on a tremendous group of adjunct faculty. The greatest need is related to the Principles courses. To cover the over 1500 students enrolled each semester, we depend on a group of master teachers. Karla Lynch, Ranita Wyatt, and Laurie Nuchereno have been teaching large sections of Principles in our department for years. They are outstanding instructors and the first line in our recruiting efforts. In addition to these three veterans, we have added Ajay Babar, Mihahlo Balic, and Liesl Murray to the team of Principles specialists.

We also have a number of upper level courses that are being taught by our team of adjunct faculty. As mentioned earlier, William Wallace is teaching Money and Banking and Susan Dadres is covering ECON 5000 Economic Concepts for MBA students. We offer the Economics of Tax Policy twice per year. This course is required for tax students in the Masters Program in Accounting and taught by Bill Burns. Bill was head of the tax department at J.C. Penney before his retirement and has the perfect background for this course. We are also short of faculty in our Labor and Industrial Relations Program. Bill Luker, Jr. has been teaching our Industrial Relations course the last few Spring semesters. He is also instrumental in the development of exit exams for Labor and Industrial Relations students.

The key to the efficient functioning of our department is our office staff. The first impression of our department is often provided by the student assistants that answer the phones and serve as receptionists in our main office. The team of Christal O'Shields, Natasha Gilbert, and Jeremy Greene keep us well covered. They provide a friendly voice for callers and visitors and perform a valuable service for students, faculty, and the rest of the office staff. Everything related to classroom instruction is handled by Christal McNutt. She is our Instructional Clerk and handles classes from scheduling to copying all the way through evaluations. She knows the faculty and classes so well, she often prepares materials before we even realize we need them. The person that keeps the entire department functioning is Nancy L. Boyd our Administrative Assistant. She organizes the office, coordinates the staff, handles departmental accounting and records, and deals with the university bureaucracy. Without Nancy's help none of us would get paid, the hectic travel schedules of a dozen faculty would stall, and the office would shut down. If all that were not enough, she (and the rest of the staff) planned this banquet and handled the preparations for all of tonight's scholarship winners. These five are an outstanding team and they truly keep our department operating efficiently.

Our faculty continues to be active in teaching, research, and community involvement. We have included brief updates for the faculty and invite you to read about their recent accomplishments. Thank you for your continued interest in the department and please feel free to contact me at scobb@unt.edu if I can help in any way.

Steven L. Cobb, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Chair