The First Annual EENE Meeting

June 11, 2024

The last week of May is always busy for the Lab, but this year’s trip to Atlanta was our busiest yet. It started with George and I participating in the RBG (Relevance, Belonging, and Growth mindset) mini-conference where we made lots of new friends talking about how aspects of student mindset differ across students in different courses and at different kinds of institutions. Kristine West, Caroline Kraft, and Joy Moua from the Minnesota Center for Diversity in Economics did a fantastic job organizing productive activities, conversations, and presentations throughout the day.

Then, after a breathless and inspiring CTREE, we rolled right into the first annual meeting of the Economic Education Network for Experiments (EENE). We had 40 members in the room in Atlanta, and another 25 on Zoom. The meeting opened with George sharing an informal history of EENE and moved on to a discussion of our guiding principles. Brandon Sheridan presented some provocative initial results from our first EENE project (the Academic Mindset Study), and we talked about our plans for the next year.

Then we got to work, breaking into 12 topic-focused groups to develop research studies that will leverage the network. I honestly didn’t know how well this process would work, but it succeeded beyond my most optimistic expectations. Everyone took their job seriously, and we had a lot of fun at the same time. The presentations and discussions that followed were collegial and productive. And the resulting ideas are super-promising!

We will be building on the momentum of the meeting this summer as we continue to develop these ideas into projects that leverage our network of instructors and researchers to answer important questions in economic education.

And of course, the meeting wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing research assistants Kareena Stowers and Vidya Balaji who worked super hard organizing the conference and the simultaneous Academic Mindset Study data collection.