Tourre Wins Teaching Assistant Award

University of Chicago economics students may have lost a great teacher when the school decided to remove former Goldman Sachs executive Fabrice Tourre from a course.

Tourre, who was found liable for fraud over a Paulson & Co.-linked collateralized debt obligation in February, had been set to teach a class on economic analysis last semester. But in March, the school removed him from the class, saying he’d teach only graduate students.

Those graduate students may be pretty lucky: Tourre was named the best teaching assistant by the school’s core economics students.

Chicago did not say why it had reassigned Tourre, who is studying for a Ph.D. in economics at the school.

Tourre was found to have misled investors in and the insurer of CDO ABACUS-2007-AC1 about Paulson’s role in selecting the securities that went into the deal. He said last month that he would not appeal the ruling or the $850,000 in fines and restitution ordered against him.