THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 17, Fall 1999
William A. McEachern, Editor
Web Profile
Although there is abundant variety in Web pages across departments, most have a home page that links to details about their undergraduate program, faculty, and course offerings. Departments with a graduate program typically provide a more elaborate network of links with information about seminars and workshops, graduate applications, job market candidates, research publications, working paper series, and, in a few cases, faculty openings.
Some departments present the course catalog on-line, using an Acrobat reader. This turns out to be an unattractive option because: 1) the entire catalog must usually download before department pages can be accessed, 2) the text is less readable than regular Web entries, and 3) departments that use on-line catalogs seem to get lazy about doing anything else on line-that is, a catalog usually crowds out other useful information.
I was most interested in how departments go about promoting economics to undergraduates-that is, what they say economics is, why students should select this major, and what graduates can do with a degree in economics. Some departments offer little or nothing beyond curriculum requirements. For example, Harvard, Princeton, Indiana State, Case Western Reserve, and the University of Helsinki take a just-the-facts approach.
But most departments provide at least some rationale for pursuing economics as a major. Many couch this in a frequently-asked-questions format while others offer an on-line handbook. Some emphasize the success of their graduates. For example, Auburn lists two pages of positions currently held by their economics graduates. Skidmore has a Web page tracking graduates in a "Where-are-they-now?" fashion. Other departments, such as Iowa, list famous people who majored in economics.
Some offer lists of jobs for economics majors. For example, Auburn identifies about 250 employers looking for economics majors. Salary information is also ubiquitous on department sites. Many cite studies showing median earnings by college major. Incidentally, money is the second most commonly used icon appearing on department Web pages (most common is the building in which the department is housed). Money does double duty both as a subject of economics and as a suggestion that economics majors get their share of it. Some home pages, such as Amherst's, open with a collection of world currencies. TCU's Web site shows money falling from the sky. Eastern Michigan has rotating dollar signs on each side of its "Welcome" sign. And Trinity College in Connecticut stretches a dollar bill across the top of its home page.
Dozens of departments publish on-line newsletters including Bucknell, Colorado, Drexel, Skidmore, LSU, Texas A&M, UT-Arlington, and Carleton College. Newsletters offer convenient ways of bringing together relevant but disparate information.
Incidentally, Web addresses for all economics department sites mentioned here can be found at ideas.uqam.ca/EDIRC/index.html. Since department addresses are so readily available (any search engine will turn them up), I do not include them here but will provide addresses to other sites (though I will spare you the http:// prefix).