Dear ICES Students:

While this letter is for those economics PH. D. students who consider themselves part of the ICES program, it is being sent to all students on this list server because I have no way to identify those students until they advance to candidacy. All ICES faculty except Professors Houser and McCabe will be leaving GMU for Chapman University in Orange, California. The only unsettled question at this writing is whether they will leave next month or next year. Which departure date they choose, however, has no substantive impact on the contents of this letter.

So if you are an ICES student who has not yet advanced to candidacy, you need to read this letter. And even if you have advanced to candidacy, you should also read on because you can be affected by these changes as well. Indeed, I will divide the remainder of this letter into two categories that relate to those two sets of students.

NOT YET ADVANCED TO CANDIDACY

Ph. D. students are required to pass two field exams in addition to micro and macro exams before advancing to candidacy (and also to accumulate 48 hours of course work and have your dissertation proposal accepted by your dissertation committee). For students who have chosen to work within the ICES program, the requirement of field exams as been abolished because participation in the ICES program involves an extensive and intensive set of activities beyond the 48 hours of course work that serves in lieu of field exams.

Starting now, this abolition is abolished. From this point on, all Ph.D. students will have to pass the requirement of two field exams before advancing to candidacy. Starting January 2008, we will add experimental to our list of field exams, with Professors Houser and McCabe serving on the committee (and with a third faculty member to be named later).

Those ICES students who entered GMU in August 2006 are clearly subject to this new rule, as you are now only at the stage where you are now about to take the micro and macro exams.

ICES students who entered prior to August 2006 but who have not yet advanced to candidacy are in a different, more compromised position, and it is you who are the prime intended recipients of this letter. Only I don’t know who you are, so you must identify yourselves to me if you want to file for an exception to this change in rules.

Here is the deal: if you want to be exempt from the new requirement of two field exams (one of which would, presumably, be experimental), you must write me to this effect by 1300 on Friday 24 August 2007. If I do not have your request for exemption in hand by that time, you automatically will be subject to the requirement of two field exams.

If you do request an exemption, I will adjudicate your request. Let me note briefly the principles I will follow in that adjudication. The prime issue I will look at is whether you are almost ready to advance to candidacy. You must present me with evidence and testimony to this effect; in some fashion you must show me that you are well along in the process of forming a committee, and are not just thinking about doing so.

Another issue arises at this point, but it pertains as well to those ICES students who have already advanced to candidacy, so I will cover that issue in the next section of this letter. So please read on.

ALREADY ADVANCED TO CANDIDACY

GMU policy states clearly that all three members of dissertation committees must be full-time GMU faculty members at the time the dissertation is defended. For some of you, the precise character of your futures depend on just when the ICES faculty leave GMU. The principles in play, however, are invariant to that departure date.

If you can defend your dissertation before those faculty leave, you are done regardless of when they leave. But if they leave before you are able to finish, you will have to reconstitute your committees. At this point, expectation and anticipation enters the picture. If you truly expect to finish before they leave, it’s smart to stay on your current heading. If not, you will have to change your heading through re-constituting your committee, and doing that sooner rather than later will surely contribute to your timely completion.

As for those students who have not yet advanced to candidacy, some of you might be in the position of being almost ready to do so, and to do so with those faculty who will be departing. If they don’t depart until 2008 and if you and they conclude that you can finish before their departure, you should continue with your current plans and I will grant your request for exemption from the field exam requirements.

SUMMARIZING AND MOVING ON

I realize this is a terribly long letter, and is irrelevant to nearly all of you as well. For this imposition I apologize, but I know of no other way to deal with this situation. Let me summarize: (1) we will start offering fields in experimental in place of the ICES program; (2) all students are now subject to the requirement of two field exams before advancing to candidacy; (3) ICES students who have not yet advanced to candidacy can petition me for exemption by demonstrating both that their committee formation is at hand and that everyone involved is convinced that the dissertation will be defended before the
departure of the ICES faculty.

By way of one final remark while I am thinking of it, let me also say that I subject all requests for exceptions, exemptions, appeals, and the like to rigorous scrutiny. The simple economics of this situation is that I bear the costs of these actions, and in two respects: (1) there are supporting documents I must prepare at the time and (2) there is even more work I must bear in the form of even more documentation if you don’t conform to the initial promises.

Doing the latter is something I dislike especially intensely, and to avoid having to do this is the reason I apply rigorous scrutiny to all such cases in the first place. If I carry forward your case to higher authorities, it will only be because you have convinced me that I will never be asked to repeat that action. Therefore, do not presume that I will automatically support your petitions, for I will not do so unless you present me with compelling reason to believe that I will not again have to have such matters cross my desk.

Yours Sincerely, REW

Richard E. Wagner
Department of Economics, 3G4
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: 703-993-1132
Fax 703-993-1133
Home page: http://mason.gmu.edu/~rwagner

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