HUNTINGTON -- A team of seven Marshall University students went to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Va., to take part in the College Fed Challenge on Oct. 26.

The students left the night before and traveled back to Huntington the afternoon after the competition. The competition is designed to help students become more knowledgeable about the Fed and the process used by the Federal Open Market Research Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve System's monetary policy setting body.

Each school participating sends a group of three to five undergraduate students to give a presentation and then participate in a question-and-answer session.

"Seven of us came to the event," said Alicia Hess, a senior majoring in economics and finance. "Five of us had speaking roles, and we had one alternate in the event (in case) someone was unable to perform. For the presentation we pretended to be members of the Federal Open Market Research Committee. We studied the economy and gave our projections of what we thought was going to happen based on a number of indicators."

The students began preparing much earlier.

"We started doing independent research over the summer," said Elizabeth Truex, a senior economics and finance major. "Once the semester started, we worked on our presentation over the fall. We agreed on the format of the presentation, but we had debate over our findings in our meetings. Since our presentation was conversational we were allowed to have debate within it."

This year, 11 other schools participated in the event. Each team gave a 20-minute presentation, which was immediately followed up in a question-and-answer session. Students were invited to analyze current economic conditions, suggest prospects for near-future economic conditions and identify and discuss significant issues. Students were also asked to recommend whether the Fed should increase, decrease or take no action with regards to the Fed funds rate. The teams were then judged on a 41-point scale. Marshall scored 37.

"The plan is to participate again next year. We will start recruiting students who have the ability in mid- to late spring," said Roger Adkins, professor of economics at Marshall who took the group. "This is very, very difficult work in the end that takes bright students and hard work. These students went well beyond what you would do in a typical class."

Eligible students for the group were screened, interviewed and chosen during the spring semester. Students then began working on scripting and preparing their presentation six weeks before the event. Students were given a list of materials to research over the course of their summer break.

"I studied the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) then discussed the components of that which are government spending, investment, net exports and consumption," Truex said. "The GDP measures everything produced and purchased in the country in a year."

"I was the labor market person," added Hess. "I studied the employment rates as well as changes in the labor market caused by the recession."

Fellow participate Sam Waugaman, a senior history and economics major, studied the new Fed facilities.

"I studied the way they were working," he said. "I was suggesting ways to reverse the current Fed balance sheet."

Marshall was the only school from West Virginia represented in the regional event. Teams were not allowed to watch other school's presentations. The winning team was James Madison University, who will move on to a national competition. Virginia Commonwealth and Liberty University were announced as finalists.

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Courtesy of Roger Adkins

Marshall professor Roger Adkins took a group of students to the Federal Reserve Bank in Richmond, Va., to compete in the College Fed Challenge on Oct. 26. The group included (front row left to right) Elizabeth Truex, Sam Waugaman, Alicia Hess, Kevin Nguyen, (back row left to right) Eric Singley, Megan Patrick, Adkins and Brandon Smith.

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