Changing Culture in Economics Education

Connecting students with industry and building a sense of belonging

This past week, we held The Econ Games 2022 Conference by Fischer Homes at the Univeristy of Kentucky. By all measures, it was a success. I would love to detail every accomplishment, but there are too many to share. I will have to share them over several weeks. You can follow me on Instagram as I post pictures and reflections of our experience. (See some LinkedIn post below)

Students were challenged to help Fischer Homes identify their expansion cities. One hundred students from nine universities worked for 24 hours to collect data, analyze it, and make a case for three out of ten cities. The Econ Games ended with presentations to a panel of judges. The top four teams were:

1. University of Southern Indiana

2. University of Kentucky - Team 2

3. University of Kentucky - Team 3

4. Northern Kentucky University

These two days in Lexington, KY were amazing! New bonds were created, students and faculty left challenged. I am excited to regroup with my students this week and reflect on what we did well, lessons learned, and what we need to improve on.

One thing my students have already told me that they want to work on is public speaking and storytelling with data. We often push the technical skills or the economic theory in economic education. What our students need is more frequent communication practice. I will be working with my students, through our professional development meetings, to provide them with more practice communicating.

The Econ Games were started because students wanted to do more outside of the classroom. It will continue to grow and impact more students, by us listening to what students need. Thank you to all the students that took the time out of their busy schedules to challenge themselves outside of the classroom.

Thanks also goes out to Fischer Homes for sponsoring this year’s program. We are looking for a sponsor for 2023. The conference will be held in Cincinnati/NKY in March of 2023. You can see that the data sponsor gets a lot of brand recognition in addition to the ability to recruit students directly. This helps reduce your talent acquisition costs and increases the ability to recruit top students from universities across America. Reach out if you would like to discuss this opportunity.

Thanks to Darshak Patel, Jeni Al Bahrani, and Reva Schottenstein-Reed for helping organize this event with me. See you next year, or in our Summer Data Camps.