His focus is on international issues, but for Associate Professor of Economics Michael Jenkins SLU’s small liberal arts campus is the ideal place.  He admits it was the idea of teaching at a liberal arts college that brought him to St. Lawrence. “I decided when I was an undergraduate that I wanted be a professor,” he says. “I attended a liberal arts college and knew from that experience that I wanted to teach at a liberal arts institution.”

Most students have a difficult time honing in on one discipline early in a liberal arts education, but not Jenkins. He chose economics after his first undergraduate course in the discipline. “I can recall the professor telling us the first day of class, ‘Learning economics will change your life,’ and it most certainly did for me,” he explains.

Jenkins strives to have a similar effect as he tries to help students better understand international finance and globalization.  He hopes students can “apply these theories to engage in an informed discussion on the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF),” along with the idea that globalization affects many people in different ways. “I want them to understand that globalization is neither the demon nor the panacea that many make it out to be,” he says. “It’s much more complicated.”
           
After completing his undergraduate work at Bridgewater College, Jenkins went on to receive his M.A. and Ph.D. from Penn State University. He spent six years living in the United Kingdom, where he landed his first teaching job at a British university. His time abroad has led to his involvement with SLU’s international education; he has taken students to Canada, France, China and Senegal. 
                                                                                  
--Beth Spadaccini ’11