Tara N. Westerhold

Economics and Decision Sciences

WESTERN COMMITMENT SCHOLARSHIP:
Rewarding Academic Achievement
(4-years)

The Western Commitment Scholarship is a new program intended to reward students with excellent academic ability who demonstrate achievement in high school by offering 4-year scholarships towards the cost of attendance at Western Illinois University. New freshmen who submit all application materials for admission by May 15 are automatically considered for Western Commitment Scholarships. No separate scholarship application is required to be considered for a Western Commitment Scholarship. Awards are based on student's high school GPA and ACT/SAT score. High school GPA will be based on weighted or unweighted GPA, which ever is higher, and converted to a 4.0 scale. The ACT score considered is the highest composite score submitted to WIU. Students can enter as new freshmen in any semester but the Western Commitment Scholarship may only be used for Fall and Spring semesters. The scholarship will be distributed half in the fall semester and half in the spring semester. Western Commitment Scholarships are renewable for up to four years (eight semesters) of undergraduate study at WIU by maintaining eligibility requirements. Students may move up in scholarship levels if they improve their ACT/SAT scores prior to the start of the academic year.

CAREER PROSPECTS

Highest-paying majors: Economics

WSJ: From College Major to Career

msn.com: 10 jobs that pay $85,000

Economists: What they do?
(from: careers.msn.com)

Economists study the production and distribution of resources, goods and services and apply economic analysis to issues in a variety of fields, such as education, health, development and the environment. Some economists study the cost of products, health care or energy. Others examine employment levels, business cycles or exchange rates. Still others analyze the effect of taxes, inflation or interest rates.
Median annual pay: $89,450

EVENTS

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Associate Professor
430f Stipes Hall
309/298-1313
TN-Westerhold@wiu.edu

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Ph.D., University of South Carolina, 1998

Upper Division and Graduate Course Responsibilities:

Econ 330: Intermediate Microeconomics
Econ 548: International Economic Relations

Tara Westerhold brings her specialization, Experimental Economics, inside the classroom. In all of her classes she uses classroom experiments or "games" as a means of allowing the students to observe firsthand economic incentives and the individual and/or social outcomes of choices. Economic experiments are playing an increasingly important role in classroom instruction as well as in academic research. In addition to traditional field studies, Tara is currently using an experimental approach in her research work on government procurement auctions. Most recently, she examined the state analog of the "Buy American" legislation in South Carolina and is currently pursuing a similar line of research for procurement in Illinois. In addition, she is the faculty advisor of the Economic Student Association and the Omicron Delta Epsilon.

Western Illinois University: Macomb Campus

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Tara N. Westerhold