1:31 p.m., Nov. 14, 2008----The University of Delaware won the preliminary round of the College Fed Challenge Competition, held Nov. 5-6 at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Baltimore Branch. The win entitles the team to advance to the Fifth District championship in Richmond on Tuesday, Nov. 18.

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A total of 15 schools competed in Baltimore, with second and third place going to Lafayette College and Gettysburg College.

This is just the third year that UD has participated in the competition, which is aimed at encouraging better understanding of the nation's central bank, the forces influencing economic conditions in the United States and abroad, and the ways the economy affects the public. Last year's UD team placed second in the preliminary round.

The 2008 team includes undergraduate students William Dowd, Alex Eiermann, Claudia Flores, Scott Ohlmacher, Darren Weaver, and alternate David Bendet. Vera Brusentsev, visiting assistant professor of economics, coached the students, with additional support provided by economics faculty members Jeffrey Miller, James Butkiewicz and Bert Levin. Two additional students, Aleks Volkov and Mike Garde, helped the team prepare for the challenge.

The challenge required the students to make 20-minute presentations on monetary policy. They were scored on content, teamwork, responses to questions, presentation, and style.

“This is economics in action,” Brusentsev says, “and students tell me that they learn so much from this experience because they can apply the theory they are taught in their classes.”

“These students bring a tremendous amount of interest, passion, and energy to the challenge,” she continues. “They already have a lot of commitments, but they still find time to fit this in between their classes and other activities.”

Ohlmacher, who played a leadership role on the team, has been a part of the Fed Challenge for eight years--since his freshman year of high school. He plans to go on for a Ph.D. in economics and then become involved in economic policymaking, particularly monetary policymaking. “That's been my dream ever since I became a part of Fed Challenge all those years ago,” he says.

According to Ohlmacher, this year's UD presentation features a lot of dissent. “I think it reflects the reality of policymaking right now,” he says.

“The success of the Fed Challenge team is a great example of what UD students can achieve,” Saul Hoffman, professor and chairperson of the Department of Economics, says. “These students worked very hard and they learned an amazing amount--and this was certainly an interesting macroeconomic environment to be analyzing, to say the least. The team benefitted from the coaching of a great group of our faculty who specialize in macroeconomic policy. We hope this is the beginning of what will be a tradition of UD students having success in the Fed Challenge competition.”

“Your students' performance was outstanding, particularly on the Q & A portion of the competition,” Karen Kokernak, economic education specialist at the Baltimore branch and one of the challenge judges, wrote in an e-mail message to Brusentsev.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is one of 12 district reserve banks that, together with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., make up the Federal Reserve System.

The Fed Challenge is one of many educational programs offered by the bank in the belief that “a stable monetary system depends on informed citizens.”

Competition judges included representatives from the Baltimore Fed, the Maryland Council for Economic Education, and the Maryland Coalition for Financial Literacy, as well as faculty from The Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Article by Diane Kukich