JANINE BERG
Ph.D. Economics, 2002

Even before obtaining her Ph.D. in 2002, Janine Berg had built an impressive professional background. She had served as staff economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the City of New York, forecasting city tax revenues and analyzing labor markets, and interned at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, DC, where she worked on a tourism aid package for Trinidad and Tobago and reported on labor market reform in Barbados. She recently joined the Labour Market Analysis and Policies Division of the Employment Sector of the International Labour Organization in Switzerland. "Janine is an exceptional young scholar," says Assistant Dean Robert Kostrzewa, "and an outstanding researcher."

"I feel that I am a better policymaker because of the education I received at New School University," says Janine. "I not only benefited from the knowledge and experience of the faculty, but also from the student body." Although the students are from diverse backgrounds, they share a similar social commitment that, she says, was a constant reminder of how important their studies were. According to Janine, the Graduate Faculty is unique in that "it is one of the few programs in the United States that hasn't forgotten that economics is a social science." She has noticed throughout her work experience that economics departments in other countries do not teach a broad spectrum of study that includes Keynes or Marx and, as a result, there is a narrower approach to tackling economic problems. "As an economist educated at the Graduate Faculty," she states, "I am confident that I have received a complete education in my field."

COURTNEY JUNG
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Graduate Faculty
Faculty Member, Eugene Lang College

As an educator at the Graduate Faculty and Eugene Lang College at New School University, "Courtney Jung is the very ideal of a junior joint faculty member," says Dean Richard Bernstein. "She is a splendid teacher for graduate and undergraduate students." Professor Jung is the director of the Janey Program in Latin American Studies at the Graduate Faculty, where she teaches courses in Comparative Politics, Democratic Transitions and Consolidation, and Political Institutions and Identity Politics. At Lang College, she teaches courses on Ethnic Conflict, South African Politics, Democratic Theory and Practice, and Social and Historical Inquiry. She has done fieldwork in South Africa and Mexico, and was recently awarded a prestigious Sawyer Seminar grant by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Professor Jung's cross-divisional teaching experience emphasizes that the University does not deliver a single "quality of education," as each division is very different. "At Lang, the high quality of education lies in the small seminar-style classes and in the close engagement of teachers with students. Students are able to take a very proactive role in shaping their own learning process. Students come to the Graduate Faculty on the other hand, because they know they will be exposed to thinkers and ideas that they would not read or discuss elsewhere."

For Professor Jung, New School University's unique history has an important impact on the School's intellectual program. Faculty and students feel a commitment to thinking deeply about "real existing problems" and about the ethics and morality of our own critical inquiries. The University's New York City location means "we can attract a rich and diverse group of students and faculty. Visitors are constantly coming through, and so our intellectual community is always changing, which challenges, and sometimes wholly upends, our frames of reference. New School University has no insulation from the rest of the world."