I Am Now Officially Dr. Hollar!

I successfully defended my dissertation earlier today and am now officially Dr. Hollar! It has a been a long road getting here, but a journey I am very happy to have both started and finished.

The image above is the introductory slide for my defense presentation. I decided to have a little fun with it.

I am profoundly grateful to my dissertation committee, to GMU, and to all my family and friends who supported me these past few years.  And a special word of thanks to Marymount University who not only provided me with a faculty position prior to graduation, but also gave me the time and support to successfully finish my PhD.  I continue to feel like I landed a dream job in a dream location.

Next stop, tenure!

Muslims From Abroad Are Thriving in Catholic Colleges

A recent New York Times article mentioning Marymount University on why Muslim students (particularly females) often feel most comfortable at Catholic Universities:

The flow of students from the Muslim world into American colleges and universities has grown sharply in recent years, and women, though still far outnumbered by men, account for a rising share.

No definitive figures are available, but interviews with students and administrators at several Catholic institutions indicate an even faster rate of growth there, with the Muslim student population generally doubling over the past decade, and the number of Muslim women tripling or more.

At those schools, Muslim students, from the United States or abroad, say they prefer a place where talk of religious beliefs and adherence to a religious code are accepted and even encouraged, socially and academically. Correctly or not, many of them say they believe that they are more accepted than they would be at secular schools.

Many Muslim students, particularly women, say they based their college choices partly on the idea that Catholic schools would be less permissive than others in the United States, though the behavior they say they witness later can call that into question.

They like the prevalence of single-sex floors in dorms, and even single-sex dorms at some schools. “I thought it would be a better fit for me, more traditional, a little more conservative,” said Shameela Idrees, a Pakistani undergraduate in business at Marymount University in Arlington, Va., who at first lived in an all-women dorm.

Read the whole thing.

Questions: Are Catholic Universities attractive to Muslim students because of a lower perceived cost of maintaining their religious identities? Is this perspective correct? Would this also be true at Protestant universities in the US relative to secular schools? Why or why not?

Related article: Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives by Larry Iannaccone.

A New Year Begins at Marymount

(Photo taken last Monday on Marymount's campus with my iPhone 4S using ProHDR.)

A new academic year has started here at Marymount University. Last week was full of faculty meetings. My first class meets early tomorrow morning. Excited by the new begininng and can't wait to meet my new students!

Transit of Venus

I am currently at a Transit of Venus Star-Watch Party here at Marymount University. It is the last time Venus will pass across the Sun's surface in our lifetime.

Below is a video explaining the astronomical event and why it is important:



You can watch the Transit of Venus live here.

Tenure Track at Marymount University!

I just accepted a full-time tenure-track position as an Assistant Professor of Economics at Marymount University here in Arlington, VA.  Got my office this past week and classes start on Tuesday.  As part of my responsibilities, I will be director of Marymount's Economics in Society undergraduate program.  It seems a perfect match on many levels.

The position is heavily oriented toward teaching.  To make this position even sweeter, the university is a 10-minute walk from home.  The Economics in Society program also seems a perfect match to my academic training and research interests in economics of religion, law and economics, and public choice.

This first semester, I will also continue to adjunct at Catholic University -- teaching two courses at Marymount (Principles of Macroeconomics and Business and Economics of Sports) and two courses at Catholic (Principles of Microeconomics and Quantitative Methods for Decision Making).  I expect it to be a busy and wonderful semester.

Getting this position at Marymount in many ways a dream come true for me.  This is exactly the type of job I was hoping for when I entered GMU's PhD program in the exact location I hoped to stay in.  I am deeply grateful and profoundly elated.