Geoffrey Schneider

"Bucknell manages to combine cutting-edge research with excellence in teaching, and I think it has found the right balance. That's one of the reasons I love to work here."

Associate professor of economics
Director of the Teaching and Learning Center

Geoffrey Schneider, associate professor of economics, was named the inaugural director of the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) when the TLC was founded in 2006. The Center was founded to promote advanced faculty development in teaching, including the use of a more student-focused instructional model, which allows students to take greater ownership of their education.

Schneider, the 2006 recipient of the Class of 1956 Lectureship for inspirational teaching, practices what he preaches. His favorite class to teach is "South Africa: Apartheid and After." As the semester progresses, Schneider employs a carefully constructed method to turn over more and more of the class to students.

By semester’s end, Schneider says, he often talks for fewer than 15 minutes in a three-hour seminar, with students taking charge of the discussion and debate. “What I love about this approach is that the class is every bit as sophisticated as if I were leading the discussion, but the students are directing most of the content,” he says.

Schneider is a true believer in the teacher-scholar model. "The universities I attended had lost their way. Teaching was an afterthought, an annoyance that had to be tolerated, so one could get on to the real business of the university — research," he says. "Bucknell manages to combine cutting-edge research with excellence in teaching, and I think it has found the right balance. That’s one of the reasons I love to work here."

Schneider is the 2005-06 recipient of the 1956 Lectureship for Inspirational Teaching.

Teaching Areas

Economic principles and problems
African economic development
Political economy
Comparative economic systems
South Africa: apartheid and after
Best practices in college teaching

Research Interests

African economic development
Comparative economic systems
Comparative institutional advantage
Regional economic development
Teaching and pedagogy

Recent Publications

"Uneven Development and Grounded Comparative Institutional Advantage: Lessons from Sweden and Mondragon," with Paul Susman. Forum for Social Economics, December 2009.
"Democratizing the Classroom: Sequencing Discussions and Assignments to Promote Student Ownership of the Course." Review of Radical Political Economy, 2010.
Economics: A Tool for Critically Understanding Society, 9th Edition, with Tom Riddell, Jean Shackelford and Steve Stamos, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2010.
"Comparative Institutional Advantage and the Appropriate Development Model for sub-Saharan Africa." Forum for Social Economics, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2008.