Start of academic year message from the Department Head

Hi everyone,

I hope everyone’s semester is off to a good start. It has been an interesting summer with numerous developments. Here’s a quick update on the new academic year.

Joining our graduate program this year are 12 new PhD students and 25 MA students.

Two new Assistant Professors in Residence have joined us this year. Joseph Rebello is from UMass at Amherst and Hilmi Kal is from CUNY. We also have three visiting scholars: Ossama El-Feel is from Alexandria University in Egypt, Sang Mok Kang is from Pusan National University in South Korea, and Xiafang Dong is a PhD student from China.

We’re searching for four new faculty. Three at the Assistant Prof level in econometrics, environmental economics, and macro/money, and one at the Assistant or Associate level in human rights (joint with the Human Rights Institute). In addition, Ag Econ is searching for someone in applied econometrics, and Urban and Community Studies Program is searching for a new director in a number of disciplines including economics. If we include Mike Shor (joining us in Fall, 2011) to the list, we might have five to seven new economists at UConn next year. While this won’t make up for all of our losses in the last decade or so, it will be a good start toward rebuilding.

The construction of our new building has started, as I’m sure you can tell from the activity on your right hand side as you walk from Monteith to the Library. The expected date of completion is Fall, 2012.

Have a great year,

Metin Cosgel