A Message from the Chair

As the new Chair of the Dornsife Department of Economics, I send you my warmest greetings. It is an honor to be the first woman to hold this position. The department has evolved into a vibrant learning community recognized for academic excellence. In five years, research rankings advanced from the top-30 to 13th. Your gifts of time and philanthropic support have given us the resources to provide a more holistic student experience and expand our academic talent.

A bit about me. In 1994, I began my career here as an assistant professor. My teaching and research focus is macroeconomics and international economics, which led me to also serve as a consultant with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis and Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Bank in D.C. But my greatest satisfaction comes from advising and mentoring doctoral students, many of whom have become friends. Not as commonly known is my passion for working with Thoroughbred ex-racehorse rescue and retirement foundations, which includes organizing volunteers and connecting with potential donors.

Based on that experience, I appreciate the importance of partners and look forward to developing a relationship with members of the Economics Leadership Council (ELC), Women in Economics (WIE), and others who have played such key roles in our accomplishments. The ELC and WIE have created networking opportunities for alumni and students. They have sponsored special events to help reconnect alumni with the department. And they have advocated support for the Economics Opportunity Fund which finances these programs and other strategic initiatives.

My task now is to build on these remarkable achievements and grow our faculty.

Our ambitious goal is to become a top-10 economics department. For this, we must substantially increase the size of our core faculty. Data suggests that USC Economics has a deficit of at least 25 percent in the number of our core faculty relative to other departments consistently ranked in the top-10.  Increasing those positions is key in our quest to attain and sustain top-10 research productivity. It is also essential if we are to continue serving our exploding student population with access to innovative new undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

We face challenges in meeting these ambitious goals, but they are exciting challenges, born of terrific recent success and achievable with your support! I look forward to us facing and meeting them together. I thank the past chairs of the Economics Department who have, through their efforts, led us to this exciting place of opportunity. I thank the alumni leaders and friends of the department for their dedicated support.

Warmly,
Caroline