In a McConnell Hall classroom, Adam Smith is going loggerheads with Karl Marx on the subject of competition. Things are just getting out of hand when John Maynard Keynes steps in to offer a moderating opinion. Speaking through the medium of UNH graduate students, these giants of economic theory have been brought together courtesy of Bruce Elmslie, a man whose strategies for making economics fresh and interesting in the classroom inspire emulation on the part of colleagues and rave reviews from students.

“Bruce’s classes come alive with policy debates and experiments, which many of us borrow,” says colleague Michael Goldberg, associate professor of economics. “He continually brings into his classroom innovations that engage students in the material.”

Searching for the source of Elmslie’s motivation to keep his work vital after more than a decade of teaching is pleasantly bewildering; his interests are legion. He is known not only as a dedicated teacher, but also as a research machine, publishing more than 25 articles in 10 years, with six more papers in the pipeline. His academic expertise jumps from the history of economic thought (he is internationally regarded for his study of Adam Smith) to international economics to one of the most contested subjects in the €eld of economics today—the sources of economic growth. He is a golfer who played college tennis, a writer of short stories whose tastes in reading range from the southwestern mysteries of Tony Hillerman to the existentialist prose of Eastern Europe’s Jerzy Kosinski. He plays classical guitar, but loves listening to Lynard Skynard, Jethro Tull, and ZZ Top.

It doesn’t take long to €nd the thread that weaves such contrasting interests together, however; Elmslie is open and curious to the core.

“I love exploration, whether it’s of new ideas or mountains,” says Elmslie, for whom a backcountry hike with students and colleagues is likely to become a day-long conversation about philosophy, economics, or a research project. “I enjoy having a number of projects going at once. The ideas come from conversations, articles, books, life at home—context does not matter as long as you are interested in exploring and open to possibilities.”

One might expect that pursuing most every passing interest would translate into a phenomenal workload—and it does. Alongside teaching four courses a year and conducting research, Elmslie twice has served as coordinator of the graduate studies program in economics and cocreated a bachelor of science degree in quantitative economics. He recently spent a semester as the faculty coordinator with UNH’s study abroad program in Budapest, and looks forward to integrating this program into the curriculum for business administration students. His publication record prompts frequent requests to referee for top journals in his €eld and he is currently chairing a committee for the History of Economics Society on graduate education in the history of economic thought.

Yet for a man who is proli€c in the classroom, the research arena, and in his professional community, Elmslie is remarkably unconcerned about the outcomes of his curiosity.
“When I came to UNH, I felt like the luckiest man in the job market; this may have been the only position that allowed me to combine my research interests,” he says. “I never expected tenure, I just welcomed the opportunity to work hard at something compelling. I think that’s key to staying active—don’t do things with a reward in mind, do them because they compel you to or, simply, because you love to do them.”

—D. J. Leonard,
University Publications