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Common ‘Cents’ in the Classroom

Economics professor Connel Fullenkamp also teaches for the International Monetary Fund

Connel Fullenkamp, a Duke professor of the practice of economics, teaches Corporate Finance, Principles of Economics and finance electives in the Duke Economics department. Photo courtesy of Duke Economics
Connel Fullenkamp, a Duke professor of the practice of economics, teaches Corporate Finance, Principles of Economics and finance electives in the Duke Economics department. Photo courtesy of Duke Economics

Name: Connel FullenkampPosition: Professor of the practice of economics, Duke EconomicsYears at Duke: 17

What I do at Duke: Every semester I’m teaching at least two courses. One of them has always been Corporate Finance and others have been Principles of Economics or finance electives. I’ve taught most of the core courses in the department for undergraduates. My day is spent holding office hours, doing troubleshooting as the director of undergraduate studies and all the administrative stuff that goes with that.

If I had $5 million, I would: take most of it and sink it into my wife’s company so she can do the projects she wants to do. My wife is a drug discovery researcher and has a lab in downtown Durham. Her vision is to create a set of cancer drugs that work together to attack the disease from several angles.

My first ever job: My siblings (two brothers and a sister) and I would mow lawns with our father over the summer. That’s actually how my family would afford to go on vacation. I grew up in the Midwest, so we’d drive to Washington D.C. or drive to Massachusetts or Texas.

My dream job: It just really doesn’t exist, but I think there’s a huge need for someone to come in and redo the complete educational system in the U.S. That includes things like daycare. There’s a huge need for an integrated system that brings kids up from a very young age to young adulthood. It’s the most pressing long-term issue in society.

The best advice I ever received: ‘Assume that everything you ever do is going to be found out by everybody.’ That was given to me by Cecil Mackey, who was a professor of economics at Michigan State, and he was president at the university for a while and I got to work with him while I was there.

What I love about Duke: I do some research and I enjoy it, but the teaching side is really what I like about this. Duke allows me to do some work with The Great Courses (that provides multimedia courses to the public) and some work with the International Monetary Fund, in which I teach government officials. That is really fun and challenging, and it helps me teach the students here at Duke because I learn about all kinds of real-world experiences and problems and bring it back here.

When I’m not at work, I like to: My wife and I are old house junkies and we do a lot of home repair and improvement when we have time. We live in a big brick foursquare off of East Campus, and it’s actually the newest house we’ve ever owned. It was built in 1939. I just finished a project to reinstall drywall.           

Something most people don’t know about me: I bike to work every day. I almost never drive the car to work. I worked with one of our departmental administrators to get a better bike rack installed out back (of the Social Sciences Building.)

An interesting/memorable day at work for me: The day that I won the Duke Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award (bestowed entirely by students). That was in 2005. I never expected to win the award, so it was a complete surprise. Winning the award means that you’re making a really big, positive impact on students. It was both deeply gratifying and humbling.