About Us
Charity-Joy Acchiardo
Acchiardo is the director of the Financial Responsibility and Economic Education Program at UT-Austin, Faculty Fellow of the Civitas Institute, and Associate Professor of Instruction in the Department of Economics at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the faculty lead for UT’s OnRamps microeconomics and civics courses for high school students. She is an Economic Educator Fellow at the Fraser Institute, Canada’s top-ranked think tank, and has served as the Executive Director of the Journal of Economics Teaching. Professor Acchiardo’s passion is sharing her joy about economics with others, and she is a frequent speaker, both domestically and internationally, at workshops for educators and students.
Susanna Pierce McConnell
McConnell is a curriculum consultant, Master teacher for the Council of Economics Education and the Foundation for Economic Education, and an AP Economics at Westlake High School. She strives to make teaching and learning meaningful for teachers and students. In her past 15 years in education, she has taught social studies in the US and abroad, participated in Harvard’s Globalizing the Classroom Fellowship, and has traveled with US teachers to schools in Japan and South Africa on two remarkable Study Tours. Susanna founded the Teacher Innovation Academy on her high school campus where she has facilitated PD the past 5 years for 30 educators who strive to share best practices through innovation. She now serves as the Director of the Teacher Innovation Academy at Eanes ISD. Susanna earned degrees in Spanish and International Economics and her Master of Arts in Teaching from Trinity University in San Antonio. Her greatest joys are finding the many connections of economics to the real world, traveling, speaking Spanish, and spending time with her family.
Partners
