“The University of Toronto’s Department of Economics has the best economics teaching-track program in the world.” That’s not a self-congratulatory statement. The praise comes from Avi J. Cohen, University Professor Emeritus of York University, past 3M Teaching Fellowship recipient, a member of the American Economic Association Committee on Economic Education (AEA-CEE) and, currently, Adjunct Professor of Economics here at the University of Toronto.
“What is extraordinary about UofT is that it has dedicated so many resources to recruiting PhDs for teaching-track positions who are passionate about teaching,” Cohen explained. “What often happens is that faculty see one of their PhD students who hasn’t gotten a traditional professorial position and say, ‘well, let’s be nice, and give them a teaching job.’ That dilutes the standard of teaching, and by imagining this as a safety net for those who are unsuccessful in securing a more research-intensive position, leads to second-class citizen status.”
In contrast, Cohen cited the experience of Associate Professor Courtney Ward who left a tenured, professorial position at Dalhousie University to take up an untenured teaching-track position here. [She was promoted from Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream to Associate Professor, Teaching Stream effective July 1, 2024.]
“These are stories that need to be known!” Cohen said.
Motivated to learn more about the experience of teaching-track economists internationally, Cohen used his position on the AEA-CEE to recruit a 10-person international research team who conducted extensive one-on-one interviews and a large-scale survey in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Presented at the American Economic Association (AEA)’s annual meeting in January and published in May, these studies offer a comprehensive picture of the economics teaching track, intended to inform advisors, students, and hiring committees.
Cohen and co-author Jennifer Murdock, Professor Teaching Stream, published “Teaching-Track Economists: A Canadian Perspective” (AEA Papers and Proceedings 2024, 114: 318–322 ) and served as key co-authors of the companion paper “Teaching-Track Economists in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.”
Their research generated results and evidence where there had previously been only anecdotal experience and limited number of studies about the teaching-track in other disciplines.
When presenting their results at the AEA in January, Cohen and Murdock distilled the Canadian perspective with this sentence: “Teaching-track economists in Canada are passionate leaders in positions parallel to the research-track, including sabbaticals, protected academic freedom, and security after up-or-out tenure decisions – but with ambiguity about expectations, a high workload, and the challenge of establishing a distinct and valued role.”
Why is the teaching track in economics worthy of study? Murdock responds, “It is a relatively new of academic role, at best a couple of decades old. Many people don’t really understand the position, and some make limiting assumptions or even feel threatened by it. Confronting this is key to this new position reaching its full potential across institutions and countries.”
In a quantitative discipline like economics – where members evaluate themselves by ranking departments, ranking journals, counting citations, and having extensive peer review of research – the lack of reliable metrics and methods for measuring teaching impact is frustrating.
“I think it’s easy to say people are just not valuing teaching, but it’s hard to value something you don’t see the reliable measurement of,” Murdock explained. “When it comes to promotion and performance reviews, student evaluations – with their limitations and flaws – offer a dangerously convenient numeric metric. And since evaluations have moved online, even fewer students share their views, which makes what was always a very limited lens even more limited.”
As a result, teaching-track professors must define their jobs and generate evidence of success, rather than having clear benchmarks set for them. Murdock explains the varied reactions to this ambiguity, “For some, it means freedom to develop and innovate in unique and creative ways, whereas for others it can be unnerving when facing an up-or-out tenure decision by leaders who have their own ideas.”
“Across institutions and across countries, one thing that struck me was the prevalence of people working as pioneers to shape this career path and figure out what this position is and should be” Murdock says.
“I was surprised to learn just how good we have it in Canada in some senses,” Murdock said. “There’s a lot of variety of teaching track experience – the results are not all sunshine and roses – but in general in Canada, teaching track economists have tenured positions, which is rarely the case in the US. In comparison to the UK, Canadian teaching track economists also have voting rights and can earn regular sabbaticals.”
“Another surprise is how different the Canadian educational landscape is – with its relatively few but gigantic public universities and heavy reliance on international students – and how this affects the experiences and challenges of Canadian teaching-track economists” Murdock says.
“We teach far more students and work more hours,” Murdock said. “However, the huge enrollments that characterize the Canadian economics classrooms may be why Canada was an earlier mover in establishing and professionalizing a teaching-track professorial role, and this may give us an edge that my coauthor has generously noted at the top of this article.” Murdock continues, “However, to manage in this context – with many students, a high fraction of international students, and limited resources in a public university system – teaching track economists specialize and develop unique skills. In institutions with small to medium class sizes, this kind of teaching specialization may be less critical. Here, we deliver quality at scale.”
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