Personal Financial Planning has added two new faculty members and articulated goals as it prepares to meet the challenges of providing premier technologically advanced education, increasing financial literacy among students, and conducting cutting edge practical research.
One of our primary short-term goals is to grow the size of our undergraduate degree program to at least 100 students within the next three years to meet the growing demand for financial planners, said Sonya Britt, Ph.D., CFP ® and program coordinator.
Martin Seay and Cliff Robb joined the program this semester.
Robb, associate professor who was on the faculty at the University of Alabama, is a specialist in financial literacy (with an emphasis on the relationship between financial knowledge and observable financial behavior), college student financial behavior, and financial satisfaction and well-being.
Seay, assistant professor who earned his Ph. D. in housing and consumer economics with an emphasis on family financial planning from the University of Georgia, specializes in the intersection of housing wealth and family financial well-being, including investment in rental real estate, reverse mortgages, and reverse mortgage fraud.
Meet Professor Robb
He majored in psychology at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tn., and received his master’s degree in consumer economics and personal financial planning from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. His Ph.D. is from the University of Missouri where he was a teaching and a research assistant.
Dr. Robb has published in the Journal of Financial Therapy; Journal of Consumer Affairs; Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory, and Practice; Journal of Personal Finance; Journal of Family and Economic Issues and others. He serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of Consumer Affairs, the Journal of Personal Finance, and the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning.
He has written three book chapters on “Rent v. buy,” consumer understanding of credit cards and financial literacy.
Dr. Robb spent most of his life in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He and his wife Ebba have two sons, Hall, age 2, and Sam, 1.
Meet Professor Seay
Before moving to Manhattan, he was an adjunct professor at Brenau University in Gainesville and a graduate teaching assistant at Georgia. Publications include a book chapter in Progress in economics research: Vol. 23 titled “Home equity conversion mortgages: A product for an emerging demographic” and “Reverse mortgage fraud against seniors: Recognition and education of a burgeoning problem” in the Journal of Housing for the Elderly.
Dr. Seay’s career objective is to provide meaningful and impactful research into consumer financial issues while training ethical, thoughtful, and well-rounded financial planners.
He and his wife Katie, director of financial planning for The Trust Company in Manhattan, moved here this summer with their two dogs, Red and Kaylee. Both Seays grew up in Georgia “so we are nervous about the winter,” the professor said.
Britt outlines goals
The University’s goal is to be recognized as one of the nation’s top 50 public research universities by 2025. http://www.k-state.edu/2025/
Britt reported that the program strives to be recognized nationally and internationally as providing holistic training as well as innovative and applicable research in financial planning, financial counseling and financial therapy. To achieve its goals by 2025, Britt outlined the program’s strategy:
- Foster connections among students, alumni, faculty and friends of K-State personal financial planning;
- Raise funds to support an on-site technology classroom for undergraduate and students to learn critical skills necessary in today’s job market;
- Improve financial literacy of college students;
- Publish research in nationally recognized, peer-reviewed financial planning journals;
- Develop endowed funds to support student and faculty research projects and associated travel.