Each year, UIC honors some of its most dedicated and outstanding teachers with the Award for Excellence in Teaching. The winners, who receive a $5,000 salary increase, are selected by past recipients of the award from nominations made by departments and colleges.

Ben Ost
Associate Professor, Economics
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Years at UIC: 15

What courses do you teach, and what topics do you find most engaging or meaningful to teach?
I generally teach undergraduate labor economics, graduate econometrics and graduate economics of education.

My favorite topic to teach in labor economics is the effect of automation on the labor market. By studying historical examples along with empirical evidence and theory, I hope students develop a more nuanced view of how workers are affected by technological change. In addition to its importance, teaching about automation gives me an excuse to wear my Substitution Effect and Scale Effect hats. And this year, students had fun debating with ChatGPT about whether AI is eventually going to lead to mass unemployment for humans (it promises it will not).

My favorite topic to teach for graduate econometrics is how regression analysis compares to exact matching because understanding precisely why the two approaches can yield different answers gives students a much deeper understanding of both approaches.

My research focuses on the economics of education, so teaching that class is a real privilege. I'm always excited to teach Steve Rivkin's influential paper on teacher quality because he is a member of the economics department at UIC, and it is a beautiful paper.

What do you hope students take away from your courses?
My undergraduate students know that they only need to remember one thing: The job market is not a game of musical chairs where people compete over a fixed number of jobs. (If the labor market was like musical chairs, the unemployment rate would have skyrocketed between 1950 and 1990 as tens of millions of women joined the workforce.)

I hope my graduate students are prepared to conduct high-level research.

What do you enjoy most about teaching at UIC?
I love working with a range of students, from undergrads who need a lot of support to doctoral students pushing the research frontier.

What advice would you give to students interested in teaching careers?
Teaching is hard work, but it is an incredibly rewarding career. Go for it!

What's something you've learned from your students over the years?
I've always been impressed by students who successfully manage competing responsibilities like work, school and familial obligations. Through my conversations with such students, I've gained perspective on how structural challenges shape student outcomes, and it's pushed me to make my courses more equitable and compassionate. Also, this week one of my students taught me that if you hold down your pen at the end of drawing a demand curve on an iPad, it makes the line perfectly straight!