American Economic Association
Committee on Economic Education

Minutes of Meeting of January 4, 2009
Hilton Hotel, San Francisco

Members Present: Sam Allgood, William Becker (ex officio), David Colander, Kenneth Elzinga, Benjamin Friedman, William Greene, Alan Krueger, KimMarie McGoldrick, Wendy Stock, and Michael Watts (chair).
Members Absent: Paul Romer
Invited Guests: Richard MacDonald and William Walstad

After a buffet lunch the meeting was called to order at 12:30 p.m.

1. Membership
Bill Greene and Mike Watts have agreed to serve a second three-year term on the committee. B. Douglas Bernheim (Stanford) will begin a first term immediately following the 2009 AEA meetings. These appointments were approved by incoming AEA President, Angus Deaton. Paul Romer completed his second term and leaves the committee with special thanks for his role in developing the annual CEE breakfast for Directors of Undergraduate Programs, and his service on many other Committee projects over the past six years.

2. Approval of 2008 Meeting Minutes and Annual Report
Minutes of the January 5, 2008 meeting in New Orleans, and the 2008 Annual Report for the Committee were approved. These documents will be posted on the CEE Website: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/AEACEE/index.htm. Beginning in 2009, reports for all of the AEA standing committees will also be posted on an AEA Web page, and no longer published in the annual AER Papers and Proceedings volume.

3. Grant/Proposal Projects
a) The Committee sponsors the "Teaching Innovations Program" (TIP) for faculty members in economics, funded by a $675,000 grant over five years from the National Science Foundation and co-directed by William Walstad and Michael Salemi. The TIP project began in 2005 and features ten workshops (two per year) on interactive teaching strategies. The 2008 workshops were held in San Antonio and Chapel Hill. The 2009 workshops will be held in June, in Santa Fe and Rosemont, IL. The second phase of the program involves on-line instruction for participants after they attend the workshops, to help them apply the teaching strategies in undergraduate courses. On-line Blackboard modules have now been developed on such topics as assessment, case studies, classroom experiments, context-rich problems, cooperative learning, discussion, and interactive strategies for large classes. Participants who complete two of these modules receive a Certificate of Achievement from the Committee; the recipients of certificates awarded for 2008 are listed at the end of the CEE 2008 annual report. In Phase III of TIP participants are provided opportunities to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning in economics. One such session for the 2009 AEA meetings, described below, was organized by KimMarie McGoldrick. Other sessions organized by the TIP staff were presented at regional professional meetings. Walstad, Salemi, and McGoldrick are now preparing a proposal for a TIP 2.0 project, to be submitted to NSF this year, featuring a distance learning facility for economic education. A home page on TIP, including information on how to apply for TIP workshops, is posted at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/AEACEE/TIP.htm.

b) The Teagle Foundation awarded a grant of $74,500 to the Committee in November 2006, to investigate the role of economics, and especially the undergraduate major in economics, in relation a liberal education. David Colander and KimMarie McGoldrick serve as the co-principal investigators, and developed a white paper, with drafts presented at several small conferences and various professional meetings. Several past and present Committee members participated in one or more of those meetings. The final draft of the white paper was presented at the San Francisco meetings, in a session described below that will appear in the 2009 AER Papers and Proceedings volume.

c) In 2008 a revised version of a proposal developed by the Committee to develop training modules on advanced econometric methods in economic education research was funded as part of annual grants on Excellence in Economics made by the U.S. Department of Education to the Council on Economic Education. Bill Becker has now developed two on-line modules, the first on data management and heteroskedasticity issues, and the second addressing endogenous regressors with natural experiments, instrumental variables, and two-stage estimators.  These modules will soon be posted on both the Council and Committee web pages.  In 2009, working with Bill Greene and John Siegfried, Becker will develop a module on panel data.  The final module will deal with sample selection issues.  Each module includes data sets from published papers and programs written in LIMDEP, STATA, and SAS that are specific to the module's topic.  A formal roll out of all four modules is planned as a paper session and luncheon at the 2010 AEA meetings in Atlanta.

d) On January 6, 2009, with co-sponsorship from the Council on Economic Education, the Journal of Economic Education, and the Senesh Endowment in Economic Education at Purdue University, the Committee will host a day-long symposium comparing precollege and undergraduate economic education initiatives and research in four other nations (Australia, Japan, Korea, and the U.K.) where there are relatively "mature" and extensive programs to current U.S. practice. Mike Watts and Bill Walstad were co-directors of the symposium. Papers were written by David Round and Martin Shanahan (both at South Australia); Michio Yamaoka (Waseda University), Tadayoshi Asano (Yamamura Gakuen College), and Shintara Abe (Josai International University); Peter Davies and Guy Durden (both of Staffordshire University); and Jinsoo Hahn (Gyeongin National University of Education) and Kyungho Jang (Inha University). Several members of the Committee and other prominent economic educators will serve as discussants or on a panel discussion of the issues raised in the four papers. The closing dinner will include a keynote address by John Taylor. The four papers presented at the symposium are slated for publication in the Journal of Economic Education.

4. Annual Report from the Journal of Economic Education (JEE)
Bill Becker, the editor of JEE, serves as an ex officio member of the Committee. The 2008 JEE annual report was mailed to all Committee members in December, and notes the key issue in of finding a new editor by August 2009 as Becker retires after a long and distinguished term of service. The Council for Economic Education (then the Joint Council on Economic Education) together with the Committee founded the JEE in the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, the then National Council on Economic Education assigned ownership of the JEE to Heldref Publications.  The Council for Economic Education, however, retains exclusive right to appoint the executive editor, and continues to provide substantial financial support for the JEE's editorial operations. The editor and the JEE associate editors are responsible for the content of the JEE.  Representing the Council, Rich MacDonald indicated that he believes the new editor has been identified, but noted that person has asked not to be named publicly until arrangements for the transition have been finalized between Heldref, the Council, and the universities involved.

5. Annual Report from the Council for Economic Education
Rich MacDonald reported on a wide range of new initiatives and developments, including the relocation (in New York) and the organization's new name (just changed from the National Council on Economic Education to stress its global outreach and leadership). Two federal grants are currently supporting many of the Council initiatives, one for domestic programs and one for international programs in developing and transition economies. Private funding from a large number of corporations, endowments, and other organizations continues to provide the regular base for Council programs and operations. As noted above, the Council was heavily involved with the Committee on several projects this year, including the econometrics training modules and the international symposium. MacDonald concluded by noting that the Council is concerned about the prospects for the administration of the second National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in economics in 2012, and encouraged the Committee to explore ways to indicate support from the AEA for that project. The first NAEP was developed around the voluntary national standards for K-12 economic education published by the Council.  A committee of prominent economists and educators has now been appointed to undertake revisions and updates to the standards document, with Alan Krueger and John Siegfried serving as co-chairs for the project.

6. CEE Sessions and "Events" at the 2009 (San Francisco) AEA meetings
The Committee sponsored five sessions, the day-long international symposium, and a breakfast for directors of undergraduate programs at U.S. economics departments. The CEE Chair also makes an annual report at the AEA Breakfast for Department Chairpersons, and provides the Committee report to the AEA Executive Committee.

The final draft of the white paper on the role of economics in a liberal education, funded by the grant from the Teagle Foundation described above, was presented by Dave Colander and KimMarie McGoldrick, and discussed by three economists who have served as administrators at prominent schools with strong liberal arts programs and traditions: Catherine Hill (Vassar), David Breneman (Virginia), and George Daly (Georgetown). The paper and responses will be published in the May 2009 AER Papers and Proceedings. Attendance at the session was about 60.

A second session, on "Training and Assessing the Effectiveness of Teaching Assistants in Economics," was organized and chaired by Ken Elzinga. Four papers were presented: "Preparing Graduate Students in Economics for Teaching:  Survey Findings and Recommendations" by Bill Walstad and Bill Becker; "Are Female and Postgraduate Teaching Assistants More Effective? An Investigation of How the Gender and Experience of Teaching Assistants Affect Students' Performance" by Ada Jensen and Petronella Horn; "Do Recent Ph.D. Economists Feel Prepared to Teach Economics?" by James McCoy and Martin Milkman; and "Group Differences in Performance: The Effects of Teaching Assistants on Collegiate Grades" by Sara Hastedt. Discussants for the four papers were James Gwartney, Gail Hoyt, Dirk Mateer, and Sarah Turner. Attendance at the session was about 35.

The third session featured papers selected from a call for papers on "Research in Economic Education," organized and chaired by Sam Allgood. The four papers presented were: "Does Graduate or Undergraduate Teaching Load Affect Faculty Size," by Bill Becker, Bill Greene, and John Siegfried; "In-Class vs. Out-of-Class Experiments in Microeconomic Principles: Is there a Difference in Student Learning?" by Tisha L. N. Emerson; "Does Living Near Classmates Help Introductory Students Get Better Grades?" by Jeffrey Parker; and "Survive Then Thrive: Talent, Research Motivation, and Completing the Economics PhD" by Wayne Grove, Andrew Grodner, and Stephen Wu. The discussants were William Bosshardt, Myra Moore, and Julie Hotchkiss. Attendance at this session was approximately 50.

As in the past 12 years, the Committee sponsored sessions of teaching workshops as part of the AEA program. The first of these sessions was organized and chaired by KimMarie McGoldrick, featuring papers by participants in the NSF-funded teaching innovations program (TIP) described above. The papers presented were: "Base Groups vs. Formal Groups in Cooperative Learning" by Tom White; "The Effect of Group Composition on Individual Student Performance in an Introductory Economics Course" by Robbie Moore; "Classroom Discussion in Intermediate Macroeconomics: Does the Use of Interpretative Question Clusters Impact Student Learning?" by Roisin O'Sullivan; and "Pseudo-Socratic Dialogues in The Teaching Of Economics: Does It Work? And How?" by Neil Sheflin. The discussants were Brian Peterson, Lori Bell, Denise Robson, and Dirk Mateer. Attendance was about 40.

The second teaching workshop was the annual poster session, organized by Wendy Stock. Presentations were made by: Rojhat Avsar; Steven J. Balassi; Kevin Beckwith; Christopher Bell; Catherine Boulatoff; Marilyn Cottrell; Paul Dalzie; Aju Fenn, Daniel Johnson, Mark Smith, and Larry Stimpert; Joshua Hall and Mark Gillis; Christiana Hilmer; Eric Jamison and John Smith; Valerie Kepner; A. Wahhab Khandker; Robert Lawson; Dirk Mateer; Rod Raehsler; Geetha Rajaram; Julia Sampson; Michael Seeborg; Olga Shemyakina; John Spry; and Sue Stockly. Attendance over the full time of the session was approximately 150.

The breakfast meeting for directors of undergraduate programs was organized by KimMarie McGlodrick and Sam Allgood, and drew 18 directors this year. Presentations were made by John Siegfried (on trends in the number of undergraduate majors) and Bill Walstad (on assessment and learning outcomes).

Mike Watts gave the annual briefing on CEE activities at the AEA Chairperson's breakfast, focusing on the activities described above – particularly programs available to college economics teachers and scholars, such as the TIP program and the econometrics training modules. Copies of a recent issue of the Journal of Economic Education and a special offer for departmental subscriptions to JEE were distributed. Handouts on preliminary results from the AEA annual survey of departments to report the number of undergraduate degrees awarded in economics were provided by John Siegfried, suggesting that the number of degrees began to rise again in 2007-08, after two years of remaining essentially flat. The share of degrees awarded to women has declined slightly in recent years, however, despite the rise in the share of all degrees being earned by women. Chairpersons wanting more information on these or other activities of the Committee were referred to the Committee website and annual reports. Attendance was approximately 90.

7. CEE Sessions and "Events" Planned for the 2010 (Atlanta) AEA meetings
At the 2010 meetings the Committee plans to sponsor six paper sessions, the breakfast for directors of undergraduate programs, an evening reception for Friends of Economic Education, and in cooperation with the Council for Economic Education a luncheon to promote the roll out of the on-line econometrics training modules for research in economic education described above.

Bill Greene will organize a session of papers featuring empirical research.  This session is slated for publication in the 2010 AER Papers and Proceedings.

Ben Friedman and Dave Colander will organize a session on "What Should We Teach About Financial Crises?" with these papers slated for publication in the Journal of Economic Education, pending usual editorial reviews.

The third paper session will be organized by Rich MacDonald and Bill Walstad, featuring papers on K-12 economic education funded under the Excellence in Economic Education project.

A session featuring presentations on teaching innovations by participants from the NSF-funded TIP project, discussed above, will be organized by KimMarie McGoldrick, with Mike Salemi and Bill Walstad participating in the selection of presenters.

The annual poster session will be offered, with Wendy Stock overseeing the selection of presenters from those who respond to the call for posters.

The roll-out paper session and luncheon and for the modules on using advanced econometric methods in economic education will feature presentations by Bill Becker.

Sam Allgood will organize the annual breakfast for directors of undergraduate programs in economics.

For the first time, the Committee will host a reception for "Friends of Economic Education" on the evening after the first full day of papers at the Atlanta meetings.

8. Preliminary Plans for CEE Sessions and "Events" at the 2011 (Denver) AEA meetings
Ben Friedman has agreed to organize a session of papers on teaching normative and moral aspects of economics, slated for publication in the AER Papers and Proceedings. It is anticipated that the Poster session, one or more paper sessions based on Calls for Papers, one or two teaching sessions based on the TIP program (pending funding of TIP 2.0), and a paper session based on the K-12 Excellence in Economic Education program (also pending funding), will be continued. Additional sessions for these meetings may be developed over the next 12 to 18 months.

9. AEA Executive Committee Discussions on the CEE AER Proceedings Session
In 2008, the Committee devoted a considerable amount of time responding to a policy review by the AEA Executive Committee of the annual sessions in the AER Proceedings that have been allocated to the AEA standing program committees. The economic education session in the Proceedings was put in place by the Executive Committee in the mid-1960s, but as other committee sessions were added in later years the program committee for the annual meeting became concerned about having enough space in the Proceedings for other sessions. An ad hoc committee was appointed by the AEA President to develop recommendations in April 2008. By early May the Executive Committee determined "THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE IN THE PUBLICATION OF ONE SESSION ORGANIZED AND DESIGNATED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE MAY AER BY THE COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION. ALSO, THE ANNUAL REPORT FROM THE COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION WILL BE MOVED FROM THE PUBLISHED PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS TO A NEW PROCEEDINGS SECTION OF THE ASSOCIATION WEBSITE." Beginning in 2009, all AEA Committees will have their annual reports posted on the Proceedings section of the AEA Website. Two other standing committees were allocated two sessions of papers for the Proceedings volume. There have been occasional years in which two CEE sessions were published, but CEE has rarely requested publication of a second session.

The meeting adjourned at 1:45 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Michael Watts