Tuesday, August 19, 2008
New York, NY University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) President Dr. Thelma B. Thompson spoke on the importance of every American being financially smart before an audience of Fortune 1000 executives recently at the American Express Headquarters in New York City.
Thompson s message comes from UMES successful implementation of the Department of Labor s Wi$e-Up program. It s an eight-chapter course targeted to Generation X and Y women to improve their understanding of credit, savings, insurance, investments and other issues dealing with money management. It is not only important to get the standard education, but we need to require courses like Wi$e-Up so that our young people learn to manage their money properly before entering the real world, said Thompson. So at UMES, we offer Wi$e-Up as a free course; but one in which each student will earn one-credit upon completion.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, the event s guest speaker, congratulated Thompson and her Wi$e-Up staff for their outstanding replication of the program.
In addition, Lucia Bruce of the Women s Bureau thanked Thompson and Marvin L. Jones, director of UMES Residence Life.
Said Bruce, Under your leadership the University has successfully demonstrated its commitment by directly linking financial literacy to academic achievement. We applaud UMES!
UMES is the first historically black university to offer the Wi$e-Up Financial Education Program. On-campus coordinator Larita Hugee, Wennett Jones-Johnson of UMES Residence Life, and UMES Major Gifts Officer Paul Butler also attended the New York City conference.
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Paul Butler, major gifts officer, UMES Office of Development, 410-651-8448, pbutler@umes.edu.
Contact: Suzanne Waters Street, director, UMES Office of Public Relations, 410-621-2355, sstreet@umes.edu.
Photo Caption: Pictured left to right are Wennett Jones-Johnson, Larita Hugee, President Thompson and Paul Butler.x
