Dr. Margaret Brooks believes learning how to manage personal finances is vital to success in life, and for more than two decades at BSU, she has helped teach people those skills.
Those efforts earned Dr. Brooks national recognition when the Institute for Financial Literacy chose her to receive its Educator of the Year award for 2016. Dr. Brooks and a second recipient received the awards at the organization’s recent conference in Orlando, Fla.
“Receiving this award is wonderful because it not only provides professional recognition, but also helps bring more visibility to the issue of financial literacy,” said Dr. Brooks, director of BSU’s two-decade-old Center for Economic Education and its new Office of Financial Literacy Initiatives.
Dr. Brooks was joined at the conference by Jing Li, a visiting international scholar from China, who is at BSU this year and working with her on financial literacy issues.
In addition to her work at BSU, the award recognized Dr. Brooks’ contributions as leader of two Rhode Island non-profit organizations that promote financial literacy.
Teaching young people skills like budgeting and investing provides them a needed foundation for making critical educational, career, and other decisions, according to Dr. Brooks, also a veteran professor of economics.
The BSU Center for Economic Education trains primary and secondary teachers on how to incorporate economics and financial literacy in their lessons. In recent years, its focus has shifted more towards financial literacy.
“Financial literacy is coming to the forefront because of all the awareness we’ve had recently about the impact of student loan debt and related issues,” Dr. Brooks said.
The launching of the Office of Financial Literacy last September is providing BSU students, employees, and community members an opportunity to sharpen their knowledge of the subject. The program has already hosted a global symposium for visiting high school and middle school classes, sponsored a speaker, and organized a Financial Literacy Day.
“We plan to have a variety of ways to reach out to students on the topic of financial literacy,” Dr. Brooks said.
