Classes start today and I'm relatively excited since I'm trying something different this year. Here is an email that went out to "Appalachian and the Community Together" participants:
Subject: Seeking Benefit-Cost Analysis Projects for Fall Course!
Greetings ACT Community Partners!
Does your agency need assistance with analyzing the efficiency of its overall operation, utilities, or a specific program? In hard economic times, evaluating your efficiency can help you find funds within your budget that can be used in other ways. Each fall semester, John Whitehead teaches a course on benefit-cost analysis -- a carefully performed analysis that weighs the social benefits and costs can be an important component of agency decision-making. Students in his course are capable of performing any component of benefit-cost analysis including benefit analysis, cost analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis and full blown benefit-cost analysis depending on agency needs and data availability. Students are interested in a wide range of government, non-profit agency, or business projects or programs. Previous projects include an examination of the installation of energy-efficient lighting in the ASU Plemmons Student Union and the relocation of the ASU Challenge Course from its Broyhill campus location to Camp Broadstone.
If you are interested in participating with this class in Fall 2009, please contact John directly at the phone/email below.
ECO 4660. Benefit-Cost Analysis
Fall 2009
Instructor: John Whitehead
Office: Raley Hall 3094
Phone: (828)262-6121
e-mail: [email protected]
Last year I experimented with this with smaller on-campus projects. This year we'll be doing full-blown benefit-cost analysis projects for real people/agencies. One of these projects is to evaluate the Appalachian Institute of Renewable Energy's goal of one megawatt of solar power in Boone by 2012.
Here is a link to the course syllabus: http://www.appstate.edu/~whiteheadjc/ECO4660. Comments welcome!