Westmont College Economics and Business 6 Year Program Review Fall 2010 table of contents
Download 0.56 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- David Newton
| INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Paul Morgan I expect to retire by the time I am 70 years old; I turn 67 this October so I do not have an extensive long-range professional development plan. During the school year, I generally spend every day, night, and part of Saturday and Sunday working on lectures, class management, test preparation, advising, and grading. Thursday nights I lead and teach a church home group of about 30 people. This past summer, I spent several weeks working on the departmental review and several preparing new lectures and class sessions covering a new book I am using in Principles of Microeconomics and doing fairly extensive reorganization of that course. The new book which I have added to my Principles of Microeconomics course, Money, Greed, and God, by Jay Richards, is a response to some criticism of the department that we do not spend enough time integrating Christian thinking into our classes. In that vein, I also am increasing the number of class times in World Poverty and Economic Development on Christian thought as it relates to responding to the poor, using public policy to respond to the poor, and responding to “social justice” issues. In the past, I have often taught summer courses in Europe or Asia that have required fairly extensive course preparation on the economies of these countries. My plan is to continue to search the literature necessary to the topics that I teach. I do significant units in Principles of Microeconomics on the issues of effectiveness of education and school choice, drug policy, healthcare, “living wages,” rent control laws, inequality and welfare programs, racial and gender discrimination, environmental degradation and climate change. Principles of Macroeconomics and Intermediate Macroeconomics also require extensive reading to stay in touch with current thinking on theory and policy. I generally add one or two new books per academic year and work in the summer beforehand on new lectures over these materials. Last summer, I added a new book on the current financial crisis to the Intermediate Macroeconomics course. Next summer, I intend to revise and update my unpublished textbook that I use in Intermediate Macroeconomics, particularly looking and new research on new classical and new Keynesian thought. I will also be on the lookout for new important books on economic development.. This year, I am using five books for that course. There is always a flood of new material on economic development to try and assimilate as well as continual developments on public policy and macroeconomic policy. David Newton My main focus is to establish a truly world-class Center for Entrepreneurship, Ethics, and Enterprise that will provide amazing new opportunities for systematic collaborative faculty-student research that is moved directly into the heart of the EB curriculum, under the descriptive motto: “The Liberal Arts at work.” I will focus my energies on integrating my high level of applied research with a wide range of updated student learning outcomes aimed at transforming their undergraduate experience into a senior year capstone that is focused on applications/research opportunities to fully integrate their formal coursework with directed/collaborative research and internship/practicum work experiences. First, I will focus on completing my sabbatical project EntrePoint podText with student RA support during 2010-2011. I will also focus on developing formal curriculum updates to mesh the senior year “at work” experience within our EB curriculum. The new EntrePoint podText will be a very innovative pedagogical upgrade to the student learning process. Second, I will further develop my original Small Business Barometer (1991-1995) into a comprehensive national index that will eventually be widely cited/quoted due to its strength of connecting entrepreneurial surveys with macroeconomic data/analysis about the U.S. Third, I will expand the scale and scope of the annual spring course on executive leadership to also include a formal student RA component and opportunities for applied research at the annual Spring CEO forum. Fourth, I will expand the scale and scope of the C+I Symposium to also open up student-faculty research within the “At Work” integration focus. Each of these four areas will be linked to specific facets of the E-3 center and collaborative applied work with students within an updated dynamic new EB curriculum. In addition to my institutional efforts, I will continue to speak widely across the nation at various entrepreneurship, private enterprise, Free Market forums and conferences, and will also continue to write articles and books ALL tied in and directly related to joint-research work I’ll be involved in with EB seniors through the E3 center and its various outreaches/initiatives. I have 10 speaking engagements lined up for October, November, and December for my new book on Job Creation. I am set to speak at five conferences between December-April on Entrepreneurship related research and Writing. I’ll be actively promoting my innovative podText EntrePoint at four national education curriculum conferences during Spring 2011, and I’ll be speaking at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January 2011. Edd Noell As I reflect on my vision for professional development over the next few years, I hope to take what I’ve learned from the assessment process in shaping my research agenda as well as the course I teach. I also plan to continue to provide leadership to the EB department as chair over the next two years. My plans for professional development involve three research projects over the course of the next 2 years. First, I am continuing to benefit from the CCCU grant I received in 2008-09 for work on the book project tentatively entitled ‘Reckoning With the Marketplace’: A History of Moral Reflection in Economic Thinking (with James Halteman). This book will serves as a supplement to primary texts used in the history of economic thought. It will likely have 8 chapters and be under 250 pages in length. In it we are exploring the development of moral values applied to economic thought in the writings of the ancient Greeks, the Old and New Testaments, Patristics and Scholastics. We also trace the moral reasoning of Adam Smith in its Scottish Enlightenment context. Further chapters are to be written on heterodox economic thought (the moral reflections of Marx, Veblen, and Hayek will be the focus here) and on modern usage of moral values in economic theory and policy (the likely focus here will be on Amartya Sen). The contract Jim Halteman and I signed with Oxford University Press requires submission of the manuscript in March 2011. In addition, I am contracted with Oxford University Press to deliver an 8000 word essay on the economic thought connected with “Theonomy” for the Oxford Handbook on Christianity and Economics. This volume is edited by Paul Oslington from Australia National University. My entry explores the current state of economic thinking associated with Christian Reconstructionism and its efforts to bring to bear the Pentateuchal laws regarding loans, interest-taking, wage labor, property rights, and judicial dominion on modern economic institutions. This essay is due to Oxford Press by December 31, 2010. My third major research project centers around the research I’ve begun on Christian thinking about financial institutions, usury, and debt. Westmont graciously granted me a research grant for Summer 2010 to work on these questions. My paper entitled “What is Legitimate Economic Gain? Financial Innovation and the Scholastic Influence on Puritan Conceptions of Usury and Profit” was presented to the History of Economics Society meetings at Syracuse University in June 2010. I plan to shape the portion of my research comparing the Scholastics and Calvin on usury into a separate paper to be submitted to the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought by the end of the Spring 2011 semester. I plan to present further research in this area to the History of Economics Society meeting at the University of Notre Dame in June 2011. I am considering applying for another CCCU grant to examine Christian values and the case for economic growth. I am examining research directions on this topic as they relate to the history of economics as possibilities for the sabbatical project I wish to undertake in 2013-2014. In regards to the courses I teach, I plan to continue to add contemporary case studies in Principles of Macroeconomics, Intermediate Microeconomics, Money, Banking, and Financial Markets, and Globalization. I’m seeking to find additional methods to challenge students to think creatively and carefully about the meaning of their Christian faith for their responsibilities in the economics and business world. I wish to see them to deeply reflect on the modern economic challenges such as global poverty, environmental degradation and human trafficking and have each find their own way to act as stewards addressing these problems. I hope to incorporate more lessons from my research in making these connections. In regards to off-campus programs, I am leading Westmont EB majors on a MayTerm 2011 program in China. For 4 weeks I will be teaching a 4-unit class “The Modern Chinese Economy” and traveling with students in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Xaimen, and Shanghai. Our academic program will visit Chinese universities, business firms, and non-profit organizations. We will be meeting with Chinese businesspeople, government officials, and students. Our program will join in China with faculty and students from Gordon College and Biola University. Download 0.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
|