Friday, June 08, 2007

Kudos to Wick Sloane and Welcome Andy Gillen

By Richard Vedder

Wick Sloane

Wick Sloane is one of the most innovative thinkers in higher education. He thinks outside the box and asks important questions. He has asked, for example, why are all courses roughly the same length? Why don't we give 2.5 credits for some bits of knowledge, 1.2 credits for others? Why don't we teach smaller bits of knowledge for smaller amounts of credit? Or, on another topic, why don't we look at tax exemptions in terms of their "Pell Grant equivalency?"

The estimable Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Columbia University has awarded Wick a fellowship for the coming year to explore issues relating to community colleges. Columbia has chosen well; we have used Wick in the past to do a "perspectives" piece for us, and as our resources slowly expand, we hope to use him again very soon. Three cheers for Wick Sloane!!

Andrew Gillen

One of the joys of being a college professor is seeing your "output" --your students --mature, improve, and do great things as they enter adulthood. Thus I am bursting with joy at the fact that Andy Gillen is joining CCAP. Andy studied economics with me at Ohio University, and is finishing his Ph.D. at Florida State, where my buddies on the faculty have told me he has done just fine. He is working in a fascinating new area --experimental economics-- and brings research skills and common sense to CCAP. Bryan O'Keefe and I are looking forward to working with him, and we are taking him to dinner next week to celebrate his coronation as CCAP's first research director. Andy may have taken the job with us because his girlfriend lives in DC, so possibly his hormones overcame his brains in making this vocational decision to join CCAP, but, whatever the case, we are delighted to have him on board!

1 comment:

RWW said...

Congratulations to Gillen - lucky ba$tard.

All he needs to know is there are two kinds of people in this world: Rich Vedder, and the rest of us.