John Kruggel and his colleagues in the Center for Economic Education are the recipients of the prestigious Albert Beekhuis Award, presented by the Council for Economic Education.

The annual award recognizes the center's outstanding programs for teachers and students and the excellence of its community-outreach efforts.

Kruggel and other representatives of the center accepted the award on September 26 at the 63rd Financial Literacy and Economic Education Conference in Cleveland, Ohio. Read more here about the center's stellar performance.

Ron Rubin, senior lecturer in the Department of Finance and Business Law, and advisor to JMU’s Financial Management Association chapter helped lead JMU’s chapter to earn the Superior Chapter Award for the 2023 – 2024 academic year.

Awarded to less than ten percent of FMA chapters, achieving this honor requires a high level of effort and commitment from our students and faculty like Ron.

JMU’s FMA chapter is recognized worldwide for this honor on FMA International’s website and in FMA International’s publications.

Blue Ridge Bank Faculty Fellow and associate professor of Finance Carl Larsson has been named this year's winner of the Dr. Otto C. Brenner Award for Outstanding Teaching.

He serves as the faculty advisor to the "JMU Banking Dukes," a student team which participates in such prestigious national competitions as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Academic Challenge and the Community Bank Case Study Competition sponsored by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. The team was crowned champion of both contests in 2022.

John Kruggel and Lynne Stover, of the Center for Economic Education, each brought home an award for outstanding achievement in curriculum development from a recent conference sponsored by the National Association of Economic Educators. 

Ethics, Economics, and Social Issues, a curriculum co-authored by Kruggel, the center’s director, won “Silver” recognition in the curriculum-design category.

Saving the Day: Garrett Morgan’s Life-Changing Invention of the Traffic Signal: Using Children’s Literature to Teach Human Capital, Public Goods & Services, and Costs & Benefits, a lesson co-authored by Stover, was awarded “Platinum” recognition in the lesson-plan category.

Associate Professor of Computer Information Systems and Business Analytics, Baback "Bobby" Vaziri, was nominated and selected as this year's recipient of the Distiguished Teacher Provost Award.

Bobby said that throughout his eight years at JMU, he has sought to improve the rigor and academic quality of the instruction in his class rooms in order to foster an environment of engaged learning. He has collaborated on research projects focusing on academic motivation, and strives to implement the innovative approaches these projects suggest.