But Laibson says that Mankiw’s enthusiasm and affability could keep students coming to Sanders even if the number of lectures were increased.

“In many ways, I could see Greg managing to carry off many lectures, maybe two lectures a week, with a thousand people in the audience,” Laibson says. “Greg could do that and it would be inspirational.”

The twice-weekly lecture model would mirror the approach that most other colleges take to introducing economics to undergraduates.

It could also address the common complaint that the quality of a student’s Ec 10 experience hinges on the TF.

“I had two different TFs,” Banta says, referring to the fall and spring semesters. “It was like taking a completely different course. In a lot of ways it seems to me your experience in the entire course is based on your TF.”

Bringing up another familiar grievance, TF Jesse G. Barnes says that lectures and sections seem disconnected under the current structure.

“There is no kind of systemic incorporation of, ‘Here’s what section material talks about, here’s what lecture material talks about, here’s how they go together,’” says Barnes, who is leaving Ec 10 after two years as a TF.

But while they express these reservations, the TFs and most students interviewed for this article still stop short of suggesting a far-reaching overhaul of the Harvard institution that Mankiw is now inheriting from Feldstein.

As Barnes puts it, Ec 10 “is unique in, certainly, not only negative ways.”

—Staff writer Anton S. Troianovski can be reached at atroian@fas.harvard.edu.