Professor Sharon Erenberg

Eastern Michigan economics professor Sharon Erenburg usually gives multiple-choice tests to the 70-plus students in her "Principles of Macroeconomics" class. The class size just doesn't lend itself to a lot of writing assignments.

But last fall, as part of a pilot assessment of Eastern Michigan's revised General Education standards, Erenburg tried something different with one section of the class.

She had her students in her class read an article from CNNMoney.com about the Federal Reserve lowering interest rates. Then, in an assignment worth 20 percent of their grade, they had to explain, in detail, the role of the central bank and the effect of that rate decrease on the economy.

She also set up a rubric that specified how much detail and accuracy they needed on each question to receive an "A", or a "B", and so on.

"It was interesting," she said. "The cooperation level was extremely high. They really got into this assignment. I don't know if it’s because I told them it was part of a pilot, but they really seemed to appreciate the rubric itself and the opportunity to write and analyze as opposed to just coming in to take a multiple-choice test."

The first year under EMU's new general education requirements is filled with these kinds of stories, example after example of points where the academic rubber meets the real-world road.

“In our MA program, we teach students how to model and analyze data and use their results to draw conclusions and make decisions. In today’s world of data-based decision-making, these sorts of skills are very marketable.” James Thornton.

See Interview with casenotes.

L to R: Jonathan Williams, Jason Blanchard, Mushfiq Hasan, Gaber Burnik, Paul Burkander.

EMU's Fed Challenge team competed against 22 other college teams at the Chicago Fed on Monday, November 10, 2008. The Fed Challenge requires a team on 3 to 5 students to provide a 20 minute presentation on the current economic situation, the outlook for future economic activity, and based on this, a recommendation for monetary policy.  Teams are graded on their knowledge of the Federal Reserve and macroeconomic goals and theory, on their presentation and analysis of key measures of economic activity, and finally on their performance as a team.  This is followed by 10 minutes of Q&A from judges who are drawn from the professional staff at the Fed.

EMU scored a grade of 91 or A- and finished 3rd in the morning competition in a group of six colleges including Northwestern and  University of Chicago.  Northwestern, a perennial winner of the competition won our morning competition and proceeded to win the afternoon competition.  They will represent the Chicago district at the national competition in Washington, DC in early December.  EMU increased its score by 10 points compared to its 2007 performance.  Preparation for the 2009 competition will begin on an informal basis during Winter 2009.  Contact Dr. Crary dcrary@emich.edu if you are interested in being considered for a position on the 2009 team.  Our goal for next year: BEAT NORTHWESTERN!