Do you ever look at your bank account and ask yourself the question, “Where did all of my money go?” Do you ever wonder how you are going to deal with finances when college is over? Well ask no further, because Longwood University has an on campus resource called The Center for Financial Responsibility (CFR).
CFR has been available to students since 2012 and it offers many resources and assistance to help with everything related to personal finances. CFR’s mission is to provide knowledge regarding financial literacy.
Danielle Hennessey, is the Assistant Director for CFR. As the Assistant Director within CFR, Hennessey recruits high schools to take a personal economics course which they receive college credit for; she recruits for Longwood. Taking a personal finance and economics course is mandatory for highschool students in order to graduate within the state of Virginia. Longwood’s course is online and students take it during the summer and on the last day of the course they visit Longwood for a tour.
“We are trying to gain student outreach to be a part of Longwood and come see it for when they think about graduating and going to college (hopefully) they’ll chose Longwood,” said Hennessey.
Hennessey also holds many interest meetings with students and parents who want to learn more about CFR.
“I also work on gaining relationships with real estate folks throughout the state, another one of our (CFR’s) goals is to gain real estate concentration within the NBA so I get to meet with people and gain those relationships,” Hennessey explained.
As far as Hennessey’s involvement within campus, CFR holds many workshops that are free to the students and are typically held in the afternoons. Their recent workshop was on credit card basics which covered how to manage a credit card. Some of the things they worked on within the workshop was spending, credit reports, researching a credit card before signing up, and knowing what cash advance is. Whenever there is a workshop coming up it can be found on the weekly email, on flyers and on the posters that CFR provides.
“Mostly for those I try to get professionals around the community, I’ve had a bank manager from First Bank come and do that one (workshop) on credit cards,” said Hennessey.
CFR also gives students the option to make an appointment with them to ask questions regarding personal finance. Some areas they focus on is helping to build a budget and or answering any questions regarding applying for a credit card.
CFR also posts articles and videos on social media concerning smart spending and living on a budget for the students.
There are many posters throughout campus that are meant to give students information that deals with personal finances.
“Personal finance affects absolutely everyone and if you can have a basis then that will help understand,” said Hennessey.
To make an appointment with CFR one can email Hennessey, hennesseydm@longwood.edu or call the office phone at (434) 395-2835.
Danielle Hennessey who is the Assistant Director for the Center for Financial Responsibility.
