(L-R) Mallie Hale, UAH Vice President for University Advancement/Executive Director of UAH Foundation; Floresha Watkins, Vice President for Community Relations, Regions Bank; Dr. Jason Greene, Dean UAH College of Business; Sean Kelly, Executive Vice President and Market Executive, Regions Bank; Dr. Helen Lien, UAH Major Gifts Officer.
Michael Mercier | UAH
The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, announced that the UAH College of Business (COB) has received a $30,000 gift to fund a new Financial Wellness Program.
This support will enable the COB to fully implement a Financial Wellness Program that will provide students the opportunity to learn about financial planning and garner tools and resources to help safeguard their financial futures.
“We are grateful for the commitment of Regions Bank to UAH, our students and the financial wellness of our community,” says Dr. Jason Greene, dean of the College of Business. “Students who are selected to participate will complete a three-week program in which they are taught sound principles influencing financial wellness, such as personal budgeting, saving, credit cards and debt. In addition to being better prepared with financial knowledge, students who complete the program earn a scholarship that is made possible by the Regions Bank gift.”
To prepare for this new offering, the COB piloted a program in 2020-2021 that generated noteworthy results indicating that such a program would greatly benefit the student population as a whole.
Floresha Watkins demonstrates the Regions Bank app to Dr. Wafa Orman, Associate Dean UAH College of Business. Looking on are Sean Kelly and Dr. Jason Greene.
Michael Mercier | UAH
“With support from Regions Bank, the College of Business developed a financial wellness curriculum that is delivered to students, with a focus on students with financial need,” Dr. Greene explains.
The purpose of the pilot program was to test the effects of a financial literacy program on the financial knowledge of students. The study was designed to determine if participants scored higher on a financial literacy instrument when first provided a program covering topics such as budgeting, saving money, resources and student loans.
“Over the past year, we have run a pilot study of the financial wellness curriculum we have developed,” says Dr. Wafa Orman, COB associate dean and associate professor of economics. “We hypothesized that developing students' financial knowledge would also increase their resilience and sense of self-efficacy. Students who participated in the program saw a statistically significant increase in their financial knowledge scores (about 16%) that persisted even three months later. They also saw improvements in their resilience and self-efficacy scores immediately after the program. We look forward to rolling the program out more broadly, and hope that many of our students can benefit from it. We are deeply grateful to Regions Bank for their support of the pilot program, the scholarships and their assistance in developing the curriculum.”
The pilot study showed student knowledge in each of these areas would be improved considerably by implementation of such a program. Going forward, support from Regions Bank will allow the COB to offer the program to a wider audience, with preference for Pell Grant recipients, with an incentive to participate of $500 administered through financial aid. Students who participate will also take part in both pre- and post-program surveys.
“The College of Business is honored to have excellent community partners like Regions Bank,” Dr. Greene says. “This gift is just the latest example of their outstanding commitment to UAH and our community.”
Regions Bank Financial Corporation is a member of the S&P 500 Index and is one of the nation’s largest full-service providers of consumer and commercial banking, wealth management and mortgage products and services. Regions Bank serves customers across the South, Midwest and Texas.
The UAH College of Business contributes to the economic vitality of Huntsville and beyond through its mission to fuel innovation in business, spark ideas through research and launch the careers of students. With its faculty of outstanding teachers and accomplished researchers, it offers accredited business degree programs at the undergraduate level in six major areas and at the graduate level through seven master's degrees programs, including a flexible MBA program that can be taken online, in-person or a combination of both.