These fellowships encourage our graduate students to achieve the highest levels of excellence. Gift funds also help fund our visiting speaker series which is so vital to the life of any academic department. The series which we would love to expand allows us to bring in interesting and talented people from other parts of the country. At the same time the seminars allow for the interchange of new ideas and knowledge on the frontier. Vital also to our mission is our ability to send faculty and graduate students to conferences.
Conferences provide the forum in which new ideas are tested and discussed.
Participation at conferences both promotes the Department, its faculty and graduate students to the larger community, and generates an excitement that is indispensable in promoting academic excellence. Your gift funds have also been used to promote the Undergraduate Economics Club which has no budget of its own, to help them bring in speakers and to cover events such as the Open Forum. As the Department community grows further in stature on the campus, in the state and in the broader community so too do the demands on these funds. We thank all of you who have contributed to the Department over the past years and hope that you will continue to help the Department. We have sought to use your gifts wisely and be good stewards of the trust you placed in us.