Getting a Foot in the Door
Establishing an Ecological Economics Course
in a Non-Economics Department
Kevin Horan
Chris Stratton
University of Oregon
Outline
 Creating the Course
 Challenges and Intentions
 Results & Lessons Learned
 Next Steps
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Creating the Course - Overview
• Structure of the Program
• Impetus for the Course
• Format of the Class
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Structure of the Program
 Submit Proposal with Syllabus
 Original Course Material
 Faculty Oversight
 Fulfills Degree Requirement for Undergraduates
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Impetus for the course
 Experiences with other economics classes, especially
Environmental Economics
 A desire to introduce an interdisciplinary perspective to the
economics offerings on campus
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Format of the class
Ten Week Course, including:
 Theoretical Context (History & Mainstream Econ.)
 Environmental Economics
 Principles of Ecological Economics
 Biophysical Limits to Growth
 Marketing & the Creation of Wants
 Metrics & Ecosystem Valuation
 Distribution & International Trade
 Going Forward – Big Think v. Little Think
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Challenges and Intentions - Overview
 Theoretical Challenges
 Practical/Pragmatic Challenges
 Personal Challenges
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Theoretical Challenges
 Framing the Course
 Balancing Theoretical & Real-World
 Scope of the Class
 Striving for Cohesiveness
 Making EE powerful, meaningful & applicable
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Practical/Pragmatic Challenges
 Varying level of students’ knowledge of economics
 Dealing with varied backgrounds and interests
 The text: a VERY steep learning curve
 Lack of on-campus resources
 Lack of available EE material
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Personal Challenges
 Teaching outside of our comfort zone
 Balancing EE with our core areas of research
 Keeping up with the diversity of “EE” literature
 Bringing creativity & innovation to the course
 Leaving students with something tangible to walk away with
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Results and Lessons Learned
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Don’t Cover Too Much
 For us: only a ten week course
 Had to sacrifice depth for breadth
 Less discussion and more lecturing than we would’ve liked
 BUT we covered A LOT of topics
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Assess Students’ Economic Knowledge
 Students comfortable with economics will be more open
to theoretical critiques, solutions
 Non-economic students had difficulty connecting with
economic material
 Some great real-world discussion topics: marketing,
metrics, international issues, etc.
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Finding EE Materials is Challenging
 Aside from the textbook, we were largely structuring the
class ourselves
 Be prepared to make your own connections between
material and EE
 Weave disparate material into a cohesive thread
 More EE resources will develop as the discipline evolves
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EE is a Powerful, Cross-disciplinary Tool
 Students initially believed ecology and economics were at
odds
 EE has the potential to create dialog between Economics and
other disciplines
 Admittedly, EE is not yet commonly well-known or
respected
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Next Steps
 The class is not permanent, despite student interest
 Its continuation is contingent on the interests of incoming
graduate students
 Would require hiring new faculty – not likely in the short
term
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Final Thoughts
 Teaching EE a great opportunity
 Student response to EE
 Teaching on the leading edge
 Looking forward to the development of other EE programs –
like yours!
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Thanks!
Questions? Comments?