UT Tyler Office of Marketing and Communications

UT Tyler Provides Professional Development Through Partnership

August 21, 2013

Media Contact:  Hannah Buchanan
Editor/Writer–Strategic Communications & Media Relations
Marketing and Communications
The University of Texas at Tyler
903.539.7196 (cell)

August 21, 2013

The University of Texas at Tyler provides professional development for K-12 economics and finance teachers through a partnership with Texas Bank and Trust, Dr. Martin Slann, UT Tyler College of Arts and Sciences dean, announced.

UT Tyler launched the Center for Economic Education and Financial Literacy in the summer of 2011 with an initial $15,000 of funding, and TB&T has committed to a second $15,000.

The UT Tyler Center for Economic Education and Financial Literacy provides continuing education for K-12 teachers through workshops that instruct the teachers in basic economics and personal finance and demonstrates how to integrate this information across subject areas and grade levels.

“It is our mission, and that of our funders, to promote economic and financial literacy in Texas students so that they will become more educated citizens, voters, consumers, borrowers and investors,” said Susan Smith Doty, center director and UT Tyler senior lecturer in economics. “We not only teach the teachers but we also provide the teachers with curriculum tools developed through our network of university centers and state and national councils.”

The center is one of seven university centers for economic education and financial literacy in Texas. Affiliations include the Texas Council on Economic Education in Houston and the National Council for Economic Education in New York. Doty also serves on the executive committee for the National Association of Economic Educators representing university centers around the country.

“Our original agreement with Texas Bank and Trust called for CEEFL to conduct two workshops a year but we have been able to leverage that funding with the TCEE and CEE through additional mini-grants to conduct an average of 15 workshops a year,” Doty added. “About 20 teachers attend each workshop, and each teacher reaches 100 students. Our funders have a great appreciation for that multiplier effect.”

Workshop topics include “Teaching Economics Through Children’s Literature,” “The Stock Market Game,” “Entrepreneurship Economics,” “Financial Fitness for Life,” “Economics in World History and World Geography,” “Personal Finance in the Math Curriculum” and more.

For more information, contact Doty, 903.566.7459 or sdoty@uttyler.edu.

One of the 15 campuses of the UT System, UT Tyler offers excellence in teaching, research, artistic performance and community service. More than 80 undergraduate and graduate degree programs are available at UT Tyler, which has an enrollment of almost 7,000 high-ability students at its campuses in Tyler, Longview and Palestine.