Mission Statement

The mission of the SLU Economics department is to provide excellent undergraduate economics instruction that is focused on helping students understand the functions of markets and other economic and policy-making institutions and their importance for economic and social outcomes.  We also provide students with opportunities to learn and communicate economic ideas through writing, speaking, critical thinking and engaging in independent research.  We encourage them to connect economics to other disciplines and to consider the relevance of the economic way of thinking to issues of broader social concern.  We believe that this mission is best forwarded by a departmental culture of active and relevant scholarship among the faculty.

Program Goals

• To challenge students intellectually through the study of Economics.
• To develop familiarity with regional, national and global economies.
• To develop an understanding of the scope, limitations, history, and applications of modern economic theory.
• To equip students with mathematical, statistical, writing, and research skills needed to interpret economic data and scholarly research
• To develop in students a range of transferable skills that will be of value in their careers.
• To inspire and prepare interested students to pursue graduate work in economics.
• To help students learn to present economic ideas and research in ways that are clear, organized, and well-documented, use technology effectively, and demonstrate an awareness of their audience.
• To provide courses for students in other majors and minors with an exposure to the “economic way of thinking” and its application to various social issues. 
• To provide all students who take Economics an understanding of the place of economics in the liberal arts and contribute to their becoming informed and engaged citizens.

Student Learning Outcomes

The department is committed to a program that seeks a systematic understanding of the achievement of our goals in support of our mission statement.  We believe success is appropriately assessed as students complete the major.  Through our commitment to a capstone experience for majors, the department will assess students in order to determine the following:

• how well students understand economic thinking;
• how effectively they select and use economic arguments;
• how relevant, clear and coherent are their economic explanations;
• how successfully they use and interpret evidence;
• the extent to which they show evidence of independently acquired knowledge; and
• their ability to use a variety of information sources.

For our minors, we hope to achieve as many of these learning outcomes as possible, with a greater emphasis on those toward the top of the list above.