What courses do you teach?
I teach always the same courses; the big econ
102 and the big econ 202, that’s my job and I like macro so I have chosen those
classes. But my job in this department is to teach those big classes.
What do you think students struggle the most with?
In first year I think
students struggle most with the discipline that a university class requires. I
think the jump from grade 12 to first year can be overwhelming and I am a
disciplinarian because I think I need that. … A new initiative of mine is
taking away their toys because in order to have any chance at learning anything
you have to, at the very least, be listening to me. While I can never guarantee
success, that discipline is something they must learn before they can learn the
material.
What topics are the hardest to understand for students? Why do you
think that is?
Well, in macro, you know
the topics, particularly in first year are pretty big and general and they’re
things that most people have heard of. What sometimes becomes problematic is
math. Math is a problem for many, particularly arts student. If anyone tells
you, you don’t have to do math to do economics, they are misleading you. You
can get through my macro classes with basic high school algebra but its get
heavy in a big hurry. So what ends up happening to me is I’ll get a kid in
first year that is really excited and wants to become an Econ major but they
dropped math in grade 11. So, sometimes I have to be very brutally honest and say,
“you’re not going to make it, you’re just not, unless you also start taking
courses in the math faculty to get that extra knowledge."
What do you enjoy most about teaching?
I didn’t come to this job
in a direct path. I did my graduate work here, I was a mature student I was a
wife and mother of, at that time a 6 year old, and somebody suggested to me,
why don’t you teach a course? And I thought, uhh whatever, I had no opinion
about it. But, once I got in front of a classroom, you know, once I got the
hang of it I realized that this is really what I was meant to do. I mean, I
love teaching and I love trying to get that connection between the student and
the material because I have been able to explain it to them. It is such a
joyful experience, I really had no idea when I started that I would love it as
much as I do which is why I am still doing it after all these years. Unless my
department has other ideas, I have no plans on stopping anytime soon. I have
this recurring nightmare every term that I will walk in the first day of
classes and it’s going to be empty, like nobody registered for my class
[laughs]. I’m still not over that. But its just, there’s something about taking
a bunch of kids and sort of grabbing them, and some people fall through the
cracks, and when you have 250 its inevitable but the biggest reward I get are
the kids that I see later. That I meet in town, the ones that e-mail me after
they’ve gone on and tell me that it was me that inspired them in first year.
That’s the greatest reward, you know, it’s better than anything they pay me. Its
having kids remember you.
Have you had any memorable stories in your teaching career?
Oh my Gosh, well you’ve
heard most of them in class. Let me think, it’s sometimes the little things and
most of the time it’s the first year students because they’re young and their naïve.
I often tell this story in my class when I talk about e-mail and protocol
because I think its part of my job to teach these kids that you don’t write to
a professor and say “hey” because if you are going off on a co-op term you know
somebody has to tell them this. So, I got an e-mail from a student in first
year, asked me a simple question. I can’t remember what the question was now,
but it was a simple question. I sent him a simple answer and I thought that was
the end of it. A little while later he writes back and says “thank-you, I love
you” I tell my class and I say well you know” I’m married and there’s a
difference in our ages” and of course they laugh but it was kind of cute in a
way and I will always remember it. My own daughter says I mother my students. I
always remember that one as being kind of cute.
I remember a kid in a
parking lot in a group of students, this was during Oktoberfest and these
students had clearly been festing. They were rowdy and I was walking to my car
and didn’t one of them recognize me. He yelled at the top of his lungs “HEY
PROF.VAUGHAN” I thought “oh god” and I turned around and he raised his hands
above his head with his fists and he said “ECON FOREVER” [laughs] and I thought
“right” and I got in my car and I left. It always astonishes me what kids will
say to me sometimes. Sometimes it’s goofy and sometimes it’s heartwarming.
What is a book that you recommend all aspiring economists read?
Well, you know, more then
a book or even a half a dozen books. I
would recommend that students take far more time to just read a business newspaper.
You should be able to tell me, did you see the inflation rate went up, because
you knew and you heard that. Econ happens everyday. There’s free newspapers
online and all over campus. I think yes, there are a few good books I could
recommend to you but for a first year student they probably wouldn't get much
out of it. Read a newspaper everyday, particularly macro is happening in the newspaper.
I personally like to emphasize Canadian institutions. Who’s the finance
minister? Who is the governor of the bank of Canada? This is the information
that I think students are missing.
What are some interesting research questions in your area of expertise
that undergraduates can investigate as a senior essay research topic?
Well, you know everyone is on about quantitative easing and
there is a lot of emphasis these days on the most recent recession; the causes,
the effects and how to fix it. The previous recession was far different from
the previous two in that it was largely based in financial circles. You know
what’s interesting about finance and Economics? Economists hadn’t for a long
time hadn’t paid much attention to finance. Finance is mathematics; while those
are the most interesting issues currently they are also probably the most difficult.
There is just a lot of material there in terms of looking at the economy and
how to get things going. Here in Canada we have depended for so long on a low
dollar value and exports. Times are changing so we have to look at productivity
issues. How do we grow? The euro is pretty shaky and I think it is pretty
interesting to look at the Europe as a currency union and the diversity of
these countries that are trying to run on a single monetary policy. I just
think there are fascinating thing to look at there.
