Economics department dodges cut

After proposing a compromise with Southern Miss administration officials, faculty members in the department of economics dodged the elimination of their program before the Tuesday deadline to notify tenured and tenure-track professors of their termination.

Economics professor Mark Klinedinst said details of the compromise will be discussed sometime next week.

The department has proposed moving the economics bachelor's degree program to the College of Arts and Letters. Before the suggested shift, five current economics faculty will retire: Mark Klinedinst, George Carter, Bill Gunther, Trellis Green, and Ed Nissan.

Four who are not eligible to retire, Sami Dakhlia, Akbar Marvasti, Daniel Monchuk and Deniz Gevrek, will remain as economics faculty.

Denise von Herrmann, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, seemed in favor of the move. She said many economics majors had shown interest in attaining a liberal arts degree rather than a business degree.

"I was against terminating [the department]," said the Academic Planning Group member. "I understand the value of an economics program and voted to keep it."

She said if the shift occurs, economics would complement the other social sciences housed in the College of Arts and Letters.

Dakhlia said he's looking forward to working with von Hermann to explore ways to make economics a "strong asset to the College of Arts and Letters both as a major and as a minor."

Dakhlia was touched by the support for the economics department that students and other faculty members showed through petitions and protests.

"They chose to become vocal and made their opinions and voices be heard…they made all the difference," he said.

Klinedinst lamented that the faculty was not consulted sooner to come to a compromise.

"We realize the university is having a tough time," he said. "People involved have given their lives for this university; we don't want to see it suffer." 

In the end, however, Dakhlia said the appeal they made was strong.

"I know we made our case and I guess in the end reason prevailed," he said.

Klinedinst said he wanted to help preserve USM's reputation by salvaging the program.

"Cutting the economics department didn't make sense," he said. "It didn't even make dollars and cents."