When Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein ’61 took the helm of Ec 10 in 1984, he immediately eliminated the so-called “radical sections” that taught students Marxism alongside traditional economics.

Since then, the structure of the course has largely stayed the same.

In Feldstein’s first year, 1,072 undergraduates took the course, known officially as Social Analysis 10, “Principles of Economics.” Ec 10 enrollment has fallen to 620 this spring, but the course still ranks as one of the College’s largest.

After 21 years, Feldstein—who has probably taught more undergraduates than any other professor in Harvard’s history—is handing the reins of the storied and controversial course to the man who wrote Ec 10’s textbook, Freed Professor of Economics N. Gregory Mankiw.

The new course head gives little indication that he wants to deviate from the model that Feldstein maintained over two decades, one that has firmly established Ec 10 as a Harvard institution.

“My first job is not to break a very well-functioning machine,” Mankiw says. The primary change he says he is planning is a radical cut in the number of supplementary articles in the workbook.

But teaching fellows (TFs) say they have had conversations with Mankiw about more fundamental changes to the course—ones that many believe are long overdue.

In particular, some of the characteristics that have made Ec 10 unique have also drawn the most criticism. No other introductory economics course at Harvard’s peer institutions is indivisible and full-year, and none has been subject to as many complaints of conservative bias as has Ec 10.

Ec 10 is also the only course, among Harvard’s entire undergraduate curriculum and the introductory economics courses at other top schools, that is taught almost completely in section but features tangential lectures from stars in the field.

Of all of Ec 10’s characteristics, the latter is the least likely to be altered. But TFs say that Mankiw appears very open to allowing students to drop the course, with credit, after the first semester. And to a lesser extent, TFs say, Mankiw has discussed with them the allegations of a conservative bias.

With a new steward, Ec 10 is at a crossroads, as Mankiw has the opportunity to shift away from the well-worn path that Feldstein has set and move toward the drastically different approach that other colleges are taking to teach the principles of economics.

BIAS OR BALANCE?

“Bias” is a favorite buzzword of many critics of Ec 10.

Two years ago, Students for Humane and Responsible Economics (SHARE) gathered over 700 signatures on a petition for an introductory course proposed by Barker Professor of Economics Stephen A. Marglin ’59 that would offer, Marglin said, a “more balanced perspective of views.” The petition was only partially successful, with the economics department overwhelmingly rejecting the proposal but the Core Curriculum Committee approving the course to fulfill the Social Analysis requirement.

Whether or not Ec 10 is actually biased, however, depends on one’s definition of the word.