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Monday, August 13, 2007
Only "Supply Side Jesus" Welcome in Economics Dep't
Professor Andrew Paquin, who also is "head of a religious charity that aids poor people in Africa," including with "micro-loans ... allowing them to start simple businesses," was fired from Colorado Christian University because "his lessons were too radical and undermined the school's commitment to the free enterprise system." For example, he "assigned works by Jim Wallis, who writes from the Christian left, and Peter Singer, an atheist and animal rights activist."
CCU's President, former U.S. Senator William Armstrong, "says free enterprise is fundamental to the school's philosophy. 'I don't think there is another system that is more consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ,' Armstrong said" No word on whether Economics 101 was one of the courses Armstrong took before becoming a college dropout.
As a not terribly observant Jew, I'm far less qualified to comment on Christianity and economics than Rick G., or any seven year-old who's been to church camp. So I'll just cite a commentary on Christianity and economics by another not terribly observant Jew. Al Franken's comic strip Supply Side Jesus goofily makes the serious point that an awful lot of Jesus's deeds and philosophy sure look more like John Edwards's than Mitt Romney's economic policy, e.g., fighting corrupt moneylending, and helping the poor and disabled.
The coverage I've seen doesn't indicate Professor Paquin's employment status, but let's assume he was tenured. If so, was his firing legal? The tenure question boils down to whetherr his firing was for "good cause." I'll refrain from opining more until some discussion gets started. Thoughts???
Posted by Scott Moss on August 13, 2007 at 11:24 AM | Permalink
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Hi Scott -- What a mess. I guess my first instinct is to say that a school like CCU does (and should) have the right to constitute itself as an institution dedicated to "free enterprise", even if they are caught up in bad theology. Of course, I don't know anything about what kinds of representations CCU makes, when it hires people, about its tenure-and-retention standards, etc.
Posted by: Rick Garnett | Aug 13, 2007 11:47:04 AM
Setting aside the legal and spiritual matters. This seems awfully simplistic. Economists that believe that the ultimate good is achieved though minimal regulation actually study the impacts of such regulation, and will – and do – acknowledge that there are some benefits to some regulation. They might ultimately conclude that in the “long run” the benefits of a lack of regulation are better than the benefits from no regulation.
The result is that the most sophisticated Marxist economists have a lot in common with a “free enterprise” economists. (In fact, there are even Chicago-school Marxists.) Ultimately, they might disagree on philosophical assumptions about the nature of humanity, but in terms of the economic modeling there is more in common between those two flavors of economist then there is between, say, a Christian bible-bearing talk-radio and ANY economist. (The “law and economics” crowd isn’t really into “economics” per se, so I am leaving them out of this.)
I often have observed higher-level economic discussion (granted, I can only follow about 15% of it) between schools of thought resembling “good” appellate argument, in which the parties identify certain assumptions and show what the differences in analysis are.
Posted by: S.cotus | Aug 13, 2007 12:19:25 PM
The coverage I've seen doesn't indicate Professor Paquin's employment status, but let's assume he was tenured. If so, was his firing legal? The tenure question boils down to whetherr his firing was for "good cause."
Actually, the article makes it completely clear that Paquin does not have a tenure. In fact, he doesn't even have a Pd.D. or any other graduate degree in economics; the school hired him only a couple of years ago, and his main job has continued to be running a charity:
Paquin, who holds a master's degree from the University of Denver's Graduate School of International Studies, took the Colorado Christian job two years ago to supplement his income.
The "let's assume he has a tenure" preface is actually funny considering that the post was supposed to illustrate something about political biases in the academy. Why not also assume that before not renewing Mr. Paquin's contract, the administration also tarred and feathered him, failed to deliver back pay, burned his house, killed his dog, and that Mr. Paquin himself is a handicapped transvestite Muslim member of the AARP.
Posted by: anon | Aug 13, 2007 5:53:51 PM
P.S. a couple of more things from the linked article:
Faculty members at Colorado Christian do not enjoy tenure.
and
Armstrong fired Paquin from a position teaching global studies at the end of the spring semester
So, a school where nobody has tenure fired a part-time teacher of "global studies". Quite different from Scott's proposed hypo where a tenured economics professor is fired for teaching heresy in Econ 101. Oh, and by the way, there is no Economics department at CCU.
Posted by: anon | Aug 13, 2007 6:08:29 PM
Anon: Your post illustrates two pertinent points:
(1) Yes, I'd missed the part of the article elaborating that there is no tenure grant at issue in his case! I stand by my "what if he has tenure" assumption as the basis for our discussion because that's an interesting discussion, unlike what I now understand to be the actual situation -- no tenure, no contract rights. My bad; I was reading quickly at the bagel placed and, finding the story interesting, rushed to post it on the blog.
(2) I stand by my view that this firing is an outrage: an "Academic" institution employs as its President a college dropout with no theological training -- who then fires professors when, in his view, the substance of their teaching doesn't comport with his theological views.
(3) Anonymous commenters are cowards, as evidenced by the fact that anonymous comments always are ruder than non-anonymous ones. Exactly where do you get off making a (borderline incomprehensible) implication that I'm displaying "political biases in the academy"? I'm an entirely unbiased teacher, and if you were in Boulder (and if I gave a rat's butt about what an anonymous commenter thought), I could show you stacks of teaching evals verifying that not even one of my hundreds students ever has accused me of bias as a professor. I do express opinions on blogs (and I also vote) but that doesn't at all support your serious but baseless snipe that I'm one of them biased profs you Dittoheads rant about.
Posted by: Scott Moss | Aug 13, 2007 6:20:57 PM
Scott, you are just digging yourself deeper into a hole. Look, you posted the article. That article screams that the dude is a part-timer. It never mentions his tenure -- the first red flag. It drums up his charity work, not his academic credentials. No word about his publication record. No word about his prior academic appointments. The guy doesn’t teach economics. He has no proper training to be tenured anywhere. He uses his teaching stint to “supplement his income.” Nobody at that school has tenure. Etc, etc, etc. You could miss some of this stuff, but to miss all of it? What a sudden, severe, and one-sided loss of reading capacity! Some even call such selective blindness and subsequent slanted gap-filling a “bias.”
And notice that I didn’t say a word about what you do in the classroom. It’s interesting, though, that you’ve decided to raise that issue. How Freudian.
As to your “dittohead” comment – I’ll act politely and pretend I didn’t see it. What’s the chance that a person who writes in complete sentences is a dittohead?
Posted by: anon | Aug 13, 2007 7:10:54 PM
See supra (my comment re anon commenters being cowardly in not standing by their ad hominems). Ok, you're done; you initally had a good point, though buried in a stream of cowardly ad hominems, and I'll be deleting anything further of this sort from you (or any other similar nom de plume expressing similar invective).
Posted by: Scott Moss | Aug 13, 2007 8:22:54 PM
Just wondering (and this is purely a hypo), does a school without ANY tenure lose any pretense to protection of the 1st amendment in the first place? So, let's say this places is really the private religious institution of a few people. It masquerades as a church or school, but it is really a business? Does the fact that it doesn't really take academics that seriously (as evidenced by its lack of tenure) mean that it loses any protection of both its so-called religious activities as well as freedom from state regulation of its teaching material?
Posted by: S.cotus | Aug 15, 2007 10:34:36 AM
For Clarification:
CCU does not have tenure but they do give long term contracts. Whenever I speak with CCU administrators, the Ward Churchill example is usually given as reasoning for not allowing tenure. CCU has nearly 300 adjunct professors.
Professor Paquin was hired part-time in 2005, initially teaching World Regional Geography and Introduction to Global Studies. Because as noted, CCU does not have an economics department, in the spring of 2006 Professor Paquin accepted teaching Comparative Politics and Cultural Anthropology as well. Because the Global Studies major was growing at a rapid pace at CCU, Professor Paquin was asked to teach these other classes.
In the fall of 2006 and spring of 2007 this continued. As noted in the Rocky Mountain News article, in 2005-2006 Professor Paquin was voted Faculty Member of the Year by the student body.
The trouble began in December of 2006. At this time every year CCU faculty members are given a letter of renewal, a letter of dismissal, or a letter of dismissal with "concerns". Professor Paquin got the latter, which means officially he is not re-hired, but he has an opportunity to get his job back if concerns are dealt with. Professor Paquin was never given clear reasons as to why his contract was not renewed. This is where the Christ/Capitalism issue came into play. However, Professor Paquin was listed in the Fall 2007 Academic Catalog and asked to develop a curriculum for a new class to be offered. I have a lot more details...
CCU has hired another faculty member with a history background to teach in the Global Studies department.
Basically, as an alumni, it is embarrassing to see faculty members treated so poorly. Secondly, CCU is at a crossroads and President Armstrong is trying to give it an identity (Strategic Objectives). Unfortunately, current students and faculty members do not have a legitimate voice in determining this identity/direction. The vague Strategic Objectives are being implemented and faculty, staff, and students that disagree with or simply question these objectives will be dismissed.
Posted by: CCU Alumni | Aug 15, 2007 1:53:53 PM
Why does a university, which is so deeply devoted to free enterprise, fail to offer an economics minor, let alone an economics degree?
Posted by: Amanda | Aug 16, 2007 10:43:40 PM
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