Ramapo’s team of participants who competed in the 2nd district section in the Fed Challenge 2011 competition are (L-R-Seated): Petar Dobrev ‘12, Nikhil Bhatia ‘14, Smeeda Das ‘12, Martin Cohen ‘12, John Merchant ‘11, Laura V. Arias ‘12, and Marta Zborowicka ‘10. (L-R-Standing): Associate Professor of Economics and founder of the Fed Challenge team Alexandre Olbrecht, Assistant Professor of Economics Timothy Haase ’06 and Associate Professor of Economics Xiaoyu Wu. The College Federal Reserve Challenge of the Federal Reserve System is a yearly academic competition sponsored by several reserve banks and is administered by the Eastern Economic Association in the 2nd and 3rd Districts. The Challenge consists of teams of three to five students from the area colleges and universities who create a professional presentation delivered to a panel of academic and professional economist judges. There are three rounds of competition, and successful teams win recognition, with the first place team continuing to Washington D.C. to compete against other regional winners at the Board of Governors.
moving in the right direction. Just a few months earlier, longtime supporters, Richard and Millicent Anisfield, had announced a donation of $2.5 million gift to launch the construction of a new business school building, endow the deanship and student scholarships, and fund faculty research at Ramapo. For the success of the accreditation process, their timing could not have been better. The gift was the largest in the history of the College, and it would prove vital to Ramapo’s application before the AACSB. “It was clear,” Chakrin says, “by virtue of the Anisfield gifts and the strong support that we were receiving from President Peter P. Mercer and the entire administration, that the College wanted to achieve this objective.” The building, which bore the Anisfield name, provided much more than just a new home for the business school. Opened in the fall of 2007, the school was Ramapo’s first new academic building in nine years. Standing five stories tall, the building includes 14 classrooms, two lecture halls, a student lounge, and
Nancy Anisfield, Anisfield School of Business benefactor Richard Anisfield, Board of Trustees member W. Peter McBride, Trustee Gail Brady, President Peter P. Mercer, and Trustee David Schlussel at the dedication of the Global Financial Markets Trading Lab and the 5th Floor of the Anisfield School of Business.
a 1,400-square-foot trading lab with an electronic ticker that delivers up-to-theminute news reports and real-time data on stock prices, exchange rates, and other market reports. The school is also home to the Eastern Economic Association (EEA), whose executive director is Alexandre Olbrecht, a Ramapo associate professor of Economics. Olbrecht’s role
with the association puts him in some rarefied company. A past president of the EEA is Harvard economist N. Gregory Mankiw, a former advisor to President George W. Bush. The current president is Paul Krugman, the Princeton economist and New York Times columnist who in 2008 received the Nobel Prize in
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