St. Norbert College: 2012-2013 iOme Challenge winners announced

From: Mike Counter, St. Norbert College, www.snc.edu, 920-403-3089, mike.counter@snc.edu

DE PERE, WIS: The iOme Challenge, a national effort to address the nation’s financial crisis, announced that a team from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville has won this year’s annual contest. Jessica Nichole Tenbroeck (team leader), David Fry, Jonathan Sessions, Chelsea Padgham, Kayla McMurry, Thea Aub and Margaret Ross collaborated to win this national retirement-preparedness competition for college students.

The University of Tennessee-Knoxville team will be awarded $10,000 and an expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to present their report to members of Congress and other national policy-makers at the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER) conference in April. Dr. Ken Baker served as the team’s faculty adviser and will receive a $2,000 cash prize.

Judges also gave special-recognition awards to teams from Virginia Tech University and the University of Georgia for their essays. Teams from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Bentley University, John Brown University, the University of the Incarnate Word and the University of Hartford were given special-recognition awards for their videos.

To read the winning essays or view the videos, visit www.iomechallenge.org.

iOme (I-owe-me) was established in 2009 with the support of PAi (Plan Administrators, Inc.) and is organized and administered by Dr. David G. Wegge, professor of political science and executive director of the Strategic Research Institute at St. Norbert College, De Pere, Wis. Adi Redzic serves as iOme’s managing director. The organization focuses on challenging college students to change the world by investing now in their lifelong financial security. In addition to the annual contest, iOme also conducts an annual national study of the Millennial generation (The Measure of Millennials) and facilitates an iOme Money Smart Week video contest in collaboration with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago’s Money Smart Week program.

This year, teams participating in the challenge were asked to imagine they were serving as President Obama’s council of economic advisers and to develop a policy proposal to be introduced in Congress in January 2013 that would create incentives and remove barriers to financial savings for the millennial generation. Teams were also required to submit a short video that would help sell their plan to the Millennials, the public and the members of Congress.

Finalists were judged by a blue ribbon panel of distinguished experts that included:

Dr. Angela Lyons, associate professor in the department of agriculture and consumer economics at the University of Illinois, and former consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Financial Education.

Mr. Martin Merzer, retired reporter with The Miami Herald, member of two Pulitzer-Prize winning teams from The Herald and is the author of “Democracy Held Hostage.” The story of the 2000 Presidential Election in Florida.”

Dr. Michael Price, associate professor of economics in the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Ms. Laura Schwartz, former White House director of events in the Clinton administration and author of “Eat, Drink & Succeed.”

Dr. Charles Wise, three-time recipient of the William and Frederick Mosher Award, and founding director of the John Glenn School of Public Affairs at The Ohio State University.

Next up for iOme is its annual Money Smart Week video contest scheduled for April 20-27, 2013. For more information or to view the videos from last year, visit: http://iomechallenge.org/iome-money-smart-week-video-contest-12/.

The 2012-13 iOme Challenge was sponsored by Sage North America, the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA) and Plan Administrators Incorporated (PAi).