The Center for Economics and Personal Finance Education at New Mexico State University was officially chartered by the National Council on Economic Education in May 2005 after two years of very intensive work both with New Mexico State, public schools, the NM Public Education Department, and with the National Council on Economic Education. Last summer it conducted its first workshops for high school teachers which were very well received. High school teachers in social studies, mathematics, and personal finance/business attended four half-day workshops organized and delivered by faculty from the College of Business. The Center received an appropriation from the State Legislature in Spring 2005, and has received several other grant awards, many from the National Council on Economic Education, to conduct specialized workshops in the Spring 2006. It is collaborating with the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas to stage a very large workshop on globalization for high school teachers to be held in Las Cruces on April 29 of this year. Additionally, the New Mexico Public Education Department has commissioned the Center to write a web-based high school economics curriculum and to provide teacher training on the use of that as well as on the use of Virtual Economics 3.0. The first draft of that curriculum is projected to be completed by April 1, 2006. Related to that is the receipt of a grant award from the National Council to evaluate the effectiveness of the web-based and Virtual Economics 3.0 resources on teacher and student learning. The work on that project will be conducted during the summer and fall of 2006. The Center was officially inaugurated at a reception on March 10 at the Fulton Center, NMSU campus. In early March, 2005, the Center hosted a Study Tour of Mr. Sadoyvv and Mr. Petro Lasiychuk from the Ukraine.

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