Economist Amanda Bayer Receives Grant to Attract Students to Field
Economist Amanda Bayer Receives Grant
to Attract Students to Field
by Alisa Giardinelli
1/3/2011
Associate Professor of Economics Amanda Bayer is the recipient of a pedagogy grant from the Consortium on High Achievement and Success, (CHAS) of which Swarthmore is a member. Bayer plans to create a wiki on best teaching practices in economics, in particular those that will help attract and retain women and underrepresented minorities in the field. She also plans to employ students to assist in literature reviews, content creation, and editing.
"Women and people of color are severely underrepresented in economics - as undergraduate majors, faculty, and at all stages of the pipeline in between," Bayer says. "I believe a wiki would encourage and facilitate communication between specialists and practitioners. Ultimately, the objective is to deliver the collected wisdom to economics departments and teachers of undergraduate economics courses in a convenient, convincing, and user-friendly format."
Bayer's research interests include microeconomics, game theory, labor markets, and discrimination. Each year, she teaches a course, Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Economics, in which she uses economic theory and statistical tools to analyze the sources of social and economic inequality and examines the roles of race, ethnicity, and gender in the development of economic theory and policy, evaluating economic models and government policies as products of economic and cultural environments. Bayer joined the faculty in 1992.
Founded in 2000, CHAS is composed of 25 select liberal arts colleges and small universities dedicated to promoting high achievement, leadership and personal satisfaction of students on member campuses, with a focus on promoting success among students of color. CHAS develops programs to engage the whole student academically, socially and culturally.
