Prevent Stanford from Cutting Professor Scott McKeon's Classes

I took ECON 102A, ECON 102B, and ECON 137 all with Scott. They were some of the best classes I have taken at Stanford and also provided some of the most relevant learnings for my post-Stanford career. Stanford is one of the best lecturers/professors out of all the lecturers/professors whom I have met in the Economics department, Computer Science department, and the GSB.

After taking 102A/B my freshman year, Scott set the bar for the quality of instruction I expect at Stanford. After two years, this bar has yet to be met again. Scott is irreplaceable. Let’s avoid a horrible mistake.

Prof. McKeon is one of the best professors at Stanford. He is so kind, thoughtful and a great lecturer.

this is an absolutely ridiculous failure by admin—scott is one of the best teachers i’ve ever had and you could ask anybody who’s taken his class and they would say the same

Now that I’m a few years out of school, it’s hard to remember too many details on specific classes or professors. Scott McKeon is the exception. He is a great lecturer, despite dealing with what some may consider a boring and/or difficult subject. In addition, he clearly cares deeply about his students and wants them to learn and succeed. It would be a real shame to lose him!

I took Professor McKeon’s classes back in 2012-2013 and they’re still among the best classes I’ve ever taken. This is after 5+ years of postgraduate studies.

Scott made statstics fun. That's a unique and irreplaceable ability.

Stanford Econ 2020

I learned more in Scott McKeon's statistics classes than in every other Stanford Econ class. Please save Professor Scott McKeon.

Scott is by far the best teacher I've ever had. His dedication to the craft is second to none. He approaches the quantitative materials in a way that is both intuitive and engaging. Above all, he is genuinely invested in his students' learning.

Best teacher

Scott was the best professor I had during my time at Stanford - he was a fundamental part of my education, and inspired my interest in economics and decision making. Removing Scott is an incredible disservice to future economics students and I implore the department to reconsider.

Scott was by far among the best instructors I've had during my academic career. It would be a shame to deny the incoming generations of Econ students the privilege of being in Scott's class. Many of the concepts that Scott reinforced served as a foundation to my current role in data consulting. I urge you to reconsider this decision. -Greg Chi (Class of 2019)

One of the best professors at Stanford

I think Professor McKeon is a fantastic professor who deeply cares about his students, courses, and the content he teaches. It is rare to come across a teacher as devoted as he is. Considering the huge role he has played in so many students' lives I would highly advocate for keeping Professor McKeon. I would ask that those controlling the budget for the relevant area make sure to keep him in his full capacity, so more students can continue to be inspired by the phenomenal teaching he accomplishes.

Scott is easily one of the best professors I have ever had in terms of both teaching and care for his students. Not only did Scott make the challenging material of Econ 102a and b understandable, he actually made it enjoyable and I could not imagine taking those classes with any other professor. My Stanford experience would not be the same without Scott's classes and cutting him as Lecturer would be a huge mistake.

Scott McKeon has been a foundational support to many Economics majors, myself included. I had the fortune of taking his trifecta of courses (ECON102A, ECON102B., and ECON137), all in which Scott has been able to strike a rare balance between difficulty of course and an incredible degree of interestingness. To this day, Scott's courses and life lessons continue to be impactful and relevant, at work and in day-to-day conversation. I firmly believe in restoring Scott's course trifecta under his care.

I took Econ 102A in my junior fall on a whim. My friends in economics and public policy told me Scott was a great instructor and I needed to take a class with him, and I was burnt out from all the writing and reading in my history major courses. I never intended to major in economics, but Scott made his class so interesting that I enrolled in a full economics course load the next quarter, luckily including Econ 102B, and declared economics that winter. I went on to take Econ 137 this past fall. I am eternally grateful to Scott for not only introducing me to the economics major in such an engaging and exciting way, but for being the most engaging and exciting instructor I’ve had while at Stanford. While I’ve enjoyed all of my economics courses and have largely thought the instructors have been quite good, if Stanford economics and public policy want their students to become excited by their core classes, to gain a strong understanding of statistics, regression, and decision analysis, and remain in these majors, the more classes Scott is able to teach the better.

Scott is hands-down one of the best lecturers I ever encountered during four years with both the Stanford Economics and Computer Science Departments. He made econometrics simultaneously rigorous and extremely accessible. He taught both of the classes I took with him methodically and memorably, and he taught me love for a challenging subject even while giving me some of my hardest-earned grades. I have no knowledge of who wrote the petition text above, but agree wholeheartedly that the Economics Department would be missing an incredible asset if they were to reduce Scott’s teaching hours. The Econ Department faces *stiff* competition from other departments on the quality of teaching, especially in early, core, required classes. Scott is an excellent lecturer and the quality of Stanford students’ undergraduate education would be most benefitted by more access to Scott, not less.

Scott was easily the best quantitative teacher I've ever had. It would be a shame for the next generation to not the rock-solid grounding that Scott provides.