Newsletter 2006

Greetings to our alums, friends, and students! Best wishes from the faculty and staff of the Department of Finance for a safe and prosperous 2007. As I write this, the University is back in business after being closed for two days due to severe winter weather conditions. This is only the second time in my 18 years at BGSU that the University has closed for an entire day due to snow. All of Wood County has been under a Level 3 Snow Emergency. For those of you who moved to warmer climates, don’t you miss Northwest Ohio in February?

We have reached a milestone with this newsletter. This is the 10th newsletter that the Department has published. During that time we have witnessed the graduation of more than 600 students with a specialization in Finance and/or Financial Economics. We hope that we have helped in some small way to make your lives a little better, at least through your Finance education. There were a couple of major changes in the Department faculty this year. First, as noted in last year’s newsletter, Dr. Mingsheng Li joined the Finance Department in August, teaching primarily in Corporate and in International Finance. Second, Dr. Raj Padmaraj has retired after more than 32 years at BGSU. Dr. Padmaraj joined the faculty in the CBA in Fall, 1974. I know that he would enjoy hearing from all of his past students.

The number of students indicating that they are pursuing the Finance specialization increased significantly during the Fall, 2006 semester, with 225 students versus 195 in the previous academic year. The number of students specializing in Financial Economics is holding steady in the 15-18 range. We graduated 61 students in Finance last year, about the same number as occurred in 2005. To assist our students, the dollar amount of scholarships offered in the Department, through the generosity of our alums and friends, increased nearly 50% over 2005. More than $13,000 in scholarships was awarded to some very deserving students.

An exciting development in the Department has been the allocation of $250,000 by the BGSU Foundation Office for management by our students in Portfolio Management (FIN 435/MBA 551) and a newly formed Investment Advisory Committee. The fund is called the BGSU Student Managed Investment Fund. Students in the Portfolio Management course, led by Dr. Frank Laatsch, are analyzing the investment potential of different i-share products and making recommendations to the Investment Advisory Committee. The investments that have been made and current portfolio value can be found on the Finance Department website. One of our alums, Mac Plumart (1998), was instrumental in pushing this idea forward. Thanks also go to Mr. Doug Smith, President of the BGSU Foundation and to the Foundation Finance Committee members who approved the idea.

We continue to work in cooperation with the Finance Department at the University of Toledo to offer a Financial Planning Education Program, a series of six courses that, when completed, enables a student to sit for the national CFP® exam.

We would enjoy very much hearing from you. Please take a few minutes to fill out the form at the end of this newsletter, go to alumni update form.