by Katie Baird, Associate Professor

I’m spending the fall with the University of Bergen’s Department of Economics as part of the UW-University of Bergen’s exchange program, and came here accompanied by my husband.  To date I have helped write a grant proposal to the Norwegian government’s Ministry of Education.  If it is funded I will participate with faculty at the University of Bergen in a randomized experiment in Bergen schools to investigate if hiring additional teachers improves elementary students’ performance in reading and math.   There appears to be a deep commitment to figuring out how to improve Norway’s educational  system, perhaps partly because of the country’s proximity to the star of Finland. 

The department is exceptionally welcoming to outsiders, and everyone switches from Norwegian to English when I am present.  I participate in the department’s weekly seminars and periodic presentations by graduate students, enjoy the free coffee, and appreciate the camaraderie that comes from frequent gatherings in the coffee room and lunch rooms where staff, faculty and students gather on a daily basis.  The egalitarian ethos runs deep here.  As for work, I’m completing a couple of ongoing research projects, and using the expertise around me to develop a new one related to vocational education in Scandinavia, which forms an important component of the education system.  I’ll be presenting my work to faculty and staff sometime later in the quarter.

Fortunately, it is still light enough outside to appreciate how beautiful Norway is.  However, it does gets darker and colder by the day!

See the original article detailing the faculty exchange program here!