For Immediate Release—Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2006

Contact:

Mary E. McCrank

Media Relations Officer

(585) 245-5516

mccrank@geneseo.edu

SUNY Geneseo Takes Second Place in College Fed Challenge in New York

GENESEO, N.Y.—A student team from Geneseo placed second in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 2006 College Fed Challenge in November, placing second to Rutgers University of Newark, N.J.

Geneseo's team won $3,000, plus $7,000 for the college's School of Business. Rutgers University of New Brunswick, N.J., took third place, and New York University's Stern School took fourth place in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY) competition.

The Moody's Foundation established the competition and provides the monetary awards. This is the fourth year Geneseo has participated, and placed, in the competition. Last year, Geneseo's team participated in the national championship before the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors and placed a very close second to Northwestern University of Chicago. In 2004, Geneseo placed second in the FRBNY competition, and in 2003, the College's team placed third in the FRBNY contest.

This year's team included the following Geneseo students: Sergey Zinger, a senior economics major from Fairport, N.Y.; Mohammed Partapurwala, a senior political science major from Brooklyn; Jared Strohl, a senior economics major from Briarwood, N.Y.; Jenny Syverud, a senior mathematics major from Canandaigua, N.Y.; Sean Cogliardi, a senior international relations major from Italy; Jillian Ryan, a junior economics major from Amherst, N.Y.; Kale Smimmo, a junior economics major from Middle Island, N.Y.; AJ Hameline, a senior economics major from Holland Patent, N.Y.; and Greg Kaleka, a junior physics major from Rochester, N.Y. Leonie L. Stone, assistant professor of economics, and Christopher Annala, associate professor of economics, are advisors to the team.

The College Fed Challenge is designed to help business, finance and economics undergraduates become more knowledgeable about the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the decision-making process of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's monetary policy-setting group. Teams of students engage in mock discussions of the Federal Open Market Committee that sets short-term interest rates. The teams make a recommendation about whether to change interest rates and why, just as the real FOMC does, and must support their analysis and arguments.

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