Season’s greetings!
I think it is fair to say that not only do I get to work with the best students, but also I get to work the best and most respected colleagues in our field. K-State personal financial planning, or PFP, is a leader in the fields of financial planning, financial counseling, and financial therapy, and we continue to be recognized as one of the top programs in the country. Across our all of our programs, we strive for excellence in not only teaching our students the necessary skills to succeed, but also providing our students experiences that will develop them into better professionals. Both aspects are important to help bridge the gap between education and practice.
Sonya Britt, PhD, CFP® associate professor of personal financial planning, along with co-authors Jeff Hill, Ph.D., Ashley LeBaron, and Roy Bean, Ph.D., all of Brigham Young University, won the 2016 Financial Planning Association’s Best Theoretical Research Award for their presentation and associated paper, “Savers and Spenders: Predicting Financial Conflict in Couple Relationships.” Congrats to Dr. Britt on this wonderful achievement!
Ron Sages, AEP®, CFP®, CTFA, EA, assistant professor, was a recipient of the 2016 Great Plains Interactive Distance Education Alliance (GPIDEA) Faculty Excellence Award for his instruction in the Master’s Program’s Capstone Course. The award was presented in April at the GPIDEA annual meeting in Kansas City.
Ann Coulson, CFP® was quoted in 
The personal financial planning student team has emerged from the final competition in the 2016 Financial Planning Challenge in third place, winning a $1,000 cash award for the Personal Financial Planning Program. Only eight teams nationwide are admitted into the final competition, which was held September 14-16, 2016, in Baltimore, Maryland.
The K-State FPA chapter has been active this fall. Students have had the opportunity to learn from professionals in the field at chapter meetings. Fifteen students, plus Ann Coulson and Roxanne Martens, attended the FPA of Greater Kansas City’s career day at the University of Missouri-Kansas City on October 7. The chapter held a penny drive at Bosco Plaza to raise money for Shepherd’s Crossing, a local not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing compassionate and caring assistance to those in need of a listening ear and financial support.
Sarah Asebedo, Ph.D., CFP® successfully defended her doctoral dissertation in May. Her dissertation was titled: Three essays on financial self-efficacy beliefs and the saving behavior of older pre-retirees. Asebedo’s research employed a psychological framework to investigate the saving behavior of older pre-retirees through three essays using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). Understanding the connection between psychological characteristics and saving behavior is critical as this population attempts to bridge the retirement saving gap. Of these characteristics, financial self-efficacy beliefs (FSE) are theoretically vital to saving behavior. With the FSE beliefs of older adults weak and vulnerable to decline, more research is needed to understand how FSE beliefs affect saving behavior and how FSE beliefs can be supported.
Personal Financial Planning doctoral student Kate Mielitz received first place for the poster she presented at the K-State Personal Financial Planning Doctoral Student Practice-Oriented Research Poster Competition during the August doctoral student intensive session. Her poster, “Ready for Release: Financial Knowledge of Inmates in a Transitional Center Program,” summarized a paper she presented at two conferences this fall. Her research was supervised by Morey MacDonald.
Christina Glenn, supervised by Stuart Heckman, received second place for her poster, “Financial Help-Seeking Behaviors and Outcomes of Millennials.”
Ben Strother, supervised by Stuart Heckman, came in third with her poster: Financial Impact and Duration of Disability across the Lifespan.”
Merrill Lynch awarded the PFP program $25,000 to support student scholarships, PFP brand recognition and experiential learning for students. Partial funds were used to help build awareness on the K-State campus through the pizza giveaway held in October. 
PFP students and faculty gave away over 250 pizzas to students and in giving out free slices were able to interact with students, discuss PFP as a major and talk about career opportunities in financial planning. Christina Glenn, doctoral student, and Lindsay Adams, senior in PFP, were both awarded $4,000.