Dear members and friends of the IU Economics community:

It’s mid-November in Bloomington as I am writing this annual message to you. Of course, it is mid-November everywhere else, but there are few places where these final days of the fall are as beautiful as they are here – as you know so well! Such days induce introspection and taking stock. This time, taking stock and contemplating where the department is headed have special meaning to me as this is my final Trendline message to you as chair. The term of my service started in 2020, the year of the pandemic. Although the year of virtual operation was undoubtedly a shock to the entire educational system, we know that it only added to the challenges colleges and universities already needed to address in order to sustain the value of their degrees.

In the year following the pandemic, IU and the Bloomington campus welcomed new leadership (no intent to draw a link between the two events other than that both pointed toward transformation). You may have heard and read announcements about the new administration’s transformative priorities and plans. I believe that the structural changes will begin to be seen over the next few years. Among the big strategy shifts orienting IU toward new needs of the economy and student demand are the foci on strengthening research and education in health-related areas as well as the cluster of fields dealing with data analysis and Artificial Intelligence. Another notable priority is substantial growth in the share of Masters’ level enrollment. The College of Arts and Sciences is challenged in particular to recalibrate its role and place in the changing landscape.

In the midst of it all, I am happy to say that the Economics Department is very well positioned to play a key role in this changing landscape, especially given how much the center of gravity of economics research and education have shifted toward work with “Big Data”. As you know, we have been very proactive in riding this tiger in reforming our curricula at all degree levels. Our new Bachelor of Science major which is more focused on the tools of quantitative and computational analyses and received its final approval last fall (as you may have read in my letter in last year’s issue of this newsletter), has welcomed its first sizeable “direct admit” freshman class this fall along with numerous upper classmen who were already at IU and joined the major. We are currently working on expanding pathways to our similarly focused M.S. degree. First, we have developed a joint version of the Master’s degree with the Data Science Program at the Luddy School of Informatics many in whose bustling student population are keen to specialize in economic data analysis with its distinct appreciation for causality in data relationships. The joint degree curriculum has already received campus level approval and we are on track to being able to start offering it next fall. Second, we are now ready to put in motion the accelerated B.S.-M.S. degree track, which will offer, per new IU policies, savings of time and graduate tuition cost to students who choose to pursue it. (Don’t you wish this opportunity existed in your time at IU?!) All that said, our good old B.A. is also experiencing rapid growth. I think that all these things considered, it’s an exciting time for the Economics Department.

It does not take an economist (or maybe it does, based on the effort it often takes to explain this to some) to understand that in order to meet the needs of our rapidly growing student populations we need to grow our faculty, or rather to regrow it given some of the recent attrition. And indeed, we are, finally, hiring tenure track faculty. This year, we were given positions in two fields, macro/monetary economics and experimental economics/game theory, both of them areas of strength IU Economics is known for internationally.

The first search deserves particular mention: we are looking to fill the recently established Elmus Wicker Chair in Monetary Economics. It was endowed by E. Scott Thatcher (B.A. 1966), in honor of his “beloved professor of economics Elmus R. Wicker” as stated in the gift announcement. You can read about the gift and our 2012 celebration of it (Elmus R. Wicker Professorship in Economics, 2014 Trendline, p. 3 and E. Scott Thatcher, 2020 Trendline, p. 21) and a celebration of Elmus’s work in a conference entitled “Financial Crises Past and Present: Celebrating the Research Contributions of Elmus R. Wicker (Celebration of the Research Contributions of Elmus R. Wicker, 2015 Trendline, p. 9). Sadly, both Scott and Elmus passed away in 2020. So, this opportunity to make a critical investment in our strength in the macro/monetary field is also a wonderful opportunity to honor the legacies of Elmus and Scott.

It is my (rational) expectation, that the current hiring is the beginning of a focused effort to continue building and rejuvenating our faculty over the next two-three years, including further recruiting in macro, applied microeconomics, econometrics, and other high-demand fields. So, I think you can expect to see many new names and faces on our faculty roster in the next few years. I venture to bet that one thing will remain unchanged: our commitment to leadership in economics research, to passing our passion for economics to our students, and to equipping them for lasting successful careers – all the things that I hope make you proud of your alma mater.

I think I can conclude that the state of the department is strong and that its future is bright! Your partnership plays crucial roles in helping us achieve these goals and means more to us than you know. Let me bring up just a few recent examples: the generosity of many of you (please see the New and Enhanced Funding and Support section for the list of some new and ongoing donor initiatives) is allowing us to make our undergraduate degrees affordable for more students, including those who are in the first generation of attending college in their families, to reward our Ph.D. students who excel in undergraduate teaching (a big and indispensable factor in our ability to offer a richer menu of classes), and to help the activities of our undergraduate Econ Club.

Let me use this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude on behalf of my colleagues and students for all your generous support over these years. It has been (and still is) my privilege to serve the IU Economics family as the department chair and I look forward to keeping in touch. We’d love to hear the news in your life and career, and of course your thoughts and advice about the course of the department. Please accept my colleagues’ and my best wishes for the holidays and for a happy and healthy New Year!