JMU - Department news
Department news
Wall Street 101, presented by Goldman Sachs
November 12, 2009, 7PM
Kevin Langlais, Vice President, Public Sector and Infrastructure Banking, Goldman Sachs [JMU 2000] made a presentation on Goldman Sachs at 7PM, on Thursday, November 12th.
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Finance Career Night
September 22, 2009, 7-9PM
Recent JMU Alumni were on hand to discuss their experiences looking for a job and on the job:
- Aaron Graham, JMU '08 (Primatics)
- Gothemi Gunasekera, JMU '08 (Fannie Mae)
- Jennifer Frazier (Rosetta Stone)
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Meet the Firms Night
September 16, 2009, 6-8 PM
Meet the Firms Night is an opportunity for Accounting, Finance, and other majors to look at job opportunities at accounting, consulting, and financial service firms, as well as government agencies.
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Internship Information Night
September 15, 2009, 6:30-8PM
Interns from Summer 2009 internships talked about securing an internship and their internship experiences. Student interns on this panel:
- Vincent Boccio, Citigroup
- Steven Hu, Freddie Mac
- Megan Hurley, Securities and Exchange Commission
- Eric Pasciutti, IBM Global Solutions
- Justin Quaglia, Goldman Sachs
Sponsored by the Madison Investment Fund.
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Resume Workshop
September 8, 2009, 6:30-8PM
Finance and Business Law faculty provided students with a presentation on resumes in finance, and provided one-on-one assistance in improving students' resumes.
Outstanding seniors
Three of our seniors were recognized May 8, 2009, as outstanding seniors:
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Kurt Martinson
2009 Outstanding Senior in Finance
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Brian Scott
2009 Outstanding Senior in Quantitative Finance
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Jeff Livermon
2009 Outstanding Senior in Economics
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"First Paycheck" Presentation, April 14th, 7PM
Bruce Bracco (Freddie Mac), Brooks Marshall and Scott Lowe presented personal finance information for graduating seniors at 7PM in Room 107 ZSH. Sponsored by the Financial Management Association.
John Allison, Chairman of BB&T, April 14th, 5PM
John Allison IV, Chairman of BB&T, made a presentation entitled "Principled Leadership" at 5PM on April 14th, in 2301HHS.
Economic Update, April 7th
Barkley Rosser, Lou Betancourt and Pamela Drake provided an economic update at 7PM in Room 107 ZSH. This update included the current state of the economy, the bailout situation (including AIG), and the proposed fix for the "legacy" (a.k.a. toxic) assets.
Personal Finance After Graduation, March31st
Bob Hill, a Financial Advisor, Principal and District Advisor, with First Comment Financial Services made a presentation to the Financial Management Association on personal financial planning: Tuesday, March 31st, in Room 107 ZSH. All students are welcome to attend.
Madison Investment Fund members attending RISE
Members of the Madison Investment Fund (MIF), along with the adviser, Elias Semaan, attended RISE, a Global Student Investment Forum, at the University of Dayton, March 26-28. MIF presented their 2008 fund results, in competition with funds at other universities. MIF members attending the RISE conference were:
- Ryan Carrigan
- Alyna Galli
- Eric Lane
- Robert Lurie
- Kurt MartinsonM
- atthew Reustle
- Justin Qualgia
- Eric Pasciutti
Spring Career Fair, March 23rd
The Spring Career Fair was held Monday, March 23rd, from Noon until 4 PM in the Festival Ballroom.
Presentation by Gene Donnelly, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, March 3rd
Gene Donnelly, of Pricewaterhouse Coopers, will be making a presentation to students and facutly at 7:45 PM in Room G5 ZSH. All students are welcome.
2008-09 CFA Investment Research Challenge
The team representing James Madison University in the 2008-09 Challenge:
- Joseph Bove (Senior, Finance major)
- Steven Hu (Junior, Quantitative Finance major)
- Justin Qualiglia (Sophomore, Finance major)
Advisors: Pamela Peterson Drake and Brooks Marshall
Mentor: Brett Wilkinson [Senior Manager, Primatics Financial, LLC]
Finance Career Night, February 3rd, at 7 p.m.
A panel of recent graduates discussed job searches and job opportunities. Sponsored by the Financial Management Association. Panelists:
- Bruno Dieseldorff, UVA Investment Management Co.
- Chris Gandia, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
- Brandon Newbill, Dominion Resources
- Mike Keith, McLean Advisors LLC
From Ponzi to Madoff
On January 20, 2009, Professor Pamela Drake discussed Ponzi schemes, starting with Charles Ponzi, and relating Ponzi's scheme to that of Bernard Madoff. She addressed the following questions:
- How do these schemes work?
- Why do people fall for these?
- What happens to the "investors" and their money?
Goldman Sachs' Wall Street 101
In November, 2008, Thornton Lurie (Vice-President, Investment Banking) and Tim Craighead (Managing Director) discussed the different dimensions of investment banking and the role of Goldman Sachs in the investment community.
Distinguished Speaker at Morgan State University
Pamela Peterson Drake was the 2008-09 Distinguished Speaker for the College of Business at Morgan State University, and made presentations to both the faculty and the doctoral students about developing research from the current economic crisis.
[Pictured: Phyllis Keys, Pamela Peterson Drake and Shannon Finney]
Madison Investment Fund in the news
The Breeze interviewed Madison Investment Fund president Eric Lane and advisor Elias Semaan for an article about the effect of the current economic crisis on the fund. You can find November 3, 2008 Breeze article here.
Sub-Prime in Prime Time
On Ocrtober 28th, a panel of three faculty members provided insights in to the current economics issues. The panelists were:
- Luis Betancourt, PhD, CPA, Accounting
- Pamela Peterson Drake, PhD, CFA, Finance
- Barkley Rosser, PhD, Economics
CFA Investment Research Team
The JMU CFA Investmetn Research Team (Joe Bove, Alyna Galli, Steven Hu and Justin Quaglia) participated in the interview of Norfolk-Southern Corporation CFO James A. Squires at the University of Richmond. This interview is part of the investment research conducted by teams partitipating in the CFA Investment Research Challenge. Professors Brooks Marshall and Pamela Drake accompanied the team to this event.
[Pictured: Alyna Galli, Steven Hu, Justin quaglia and Joe Bove]
Thanks to our panelists for the Finance Internship Night, September 23, 2008
Several of our finance and quantitative finance students volunteered their time to talk to other students about their internship experiences:
- Whitney Madison (Intern at Freddie Mac)
- Jeff Livermon (Intern at Goldman Sachs)
- Amrou Kotb (Intern at Dominion)
- Matt Ruestle (Intern at Lehman Brothers)
- Kyle DiGangi (Intern at Alliance Bernstein)
Our alumni returned to JMU to participate in the JMU Career Fair, September 22, 2008
Alumni from many companies returned to talk to JMU students about opportunities at their companies. Firms represented included Accenture, CarMax, BearingPoint, BB&T, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Pictured here are JMU Alumni Keith Henderson (JMU'08) and Christopher Johnson (JMU '04):
Thanks to our panelists for the Finance Career Night, September 9, 2008
We thank our panelists who participated in the Finance Career night, September 9th:
- Ryan Hoffman, with BB&T Capital Markets
- William Loomis III, CFP, with RBC Wealth Management
- David Powers, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
- Thomas Rea, with United Banks
Congratulations to JMU students passing Level I of the CFA exam
Four of our graduating seniors who took Level I of the Chartered Financial Analyst exam in June 2008 passed. Congratulations to Aaron Graham, Matt Kattler, Eric Laidlow and Nicholas Ramm.
Faculty participation in JMU's CyberCity Summer Program
Daphyne Thomas, Scott Lowe and Pamela Drake participated in the Summer 2008 CyberCity camp. Daphyne Thomas is a co-coordinator of the program, Scott Lowe taught video-creation to the attending teachers, and Pamela Drake instructed campers on Web Page creation.
Faculty participation at the Eastern Finance Association annual meeting
- Wilson Liu presented his paper with Jau-Lian Jeng entitled "Do Idiosyncratic Risks in Asset Pricing Models Contain a Hidden Non-Diversifiable Factor? A Diagnostic Testing Approach."
- Jonathan Godbey presented his paper with Mark Bertus and Jimmy Hilliard entitled "A New Approach to Minimum Variance Cross-Hedging."
- Jason Fink, Kristin Fink and Jonathan Godbey presented their paper entitled "Firm Age and the January Effect."
- Wilson Liu presented his paper with Hung-Gay Fung and Yiuman Tse entitled "Inter-Market Linkages: The Case of DJIA Index Futures and Exchange-Traded Funds."
- In addition to these papers, Jason Fink, Jonathan Godbey and Wilson Liu participated by chairing sessions and discussing papers.
Professor Drake's Book Published by John Wiley & Sons
The Complete CFO Handbook: From Accounting to Accountability, by Frank J. Fabozzi, Pamela Peterson Drake and Ralph Polimeni, has been published by John Wiley & Sons [ISBN: 978-0-470-09925-1]. In this book, the authors address the changing role of the corporate CFO, from the traditional accounting function to the current role that involves the corporate strategy and accountability to investors and regulators.
Topics covered include the implicaitons of Sarbanes Oxley Act of 2002, capital structure, structured financing, strategy, risk management, financial analysis, performance measurement, transfer pricing, costing, budgeting, and capital budgeting.
Faculty participation at the Financial Management Association annual meeting
In October 2007, several faculty members attended the annual meeting of the FMA, an international association of fiannce academics and practitioners.
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Jason Fink and Kristin Fink, along with Michael Albert, a doctotral student Duke University and JMU alumnus, presented their paper entitled "Adaptive Mesh Modeling and Barrier Option Pricing Under a Jump-Diffusion Process";
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Jonathan Godbey and Elias Semaan discussed papers of colleagues at other schools; and
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Pamela Peterson Drake was a panelist on a session entitled "Finance faculty mentoring: How important is it?", chaired a session, and discussed a paper of another colleague.
Faculty awards
Congratulations to Elias Semaan and Daphayne Thomas, who have been recognized for their efforts at the recent College of Business luncheon. Elias Semaan, assistant professor in finance, received the Dr. Otto G. Brenner Memorial Award in recognition for his teaching excellence. Daphayne Thomas, professor of business law, received the Community Service Award, along with faculty members Harry Reif and Tom Dillon, in recognition of their work with the CyberCity summer program.
Success on the CFA Level I exam
Jonathan Godbey, Daniel Bise, Paul Meierdierck, and William Tabir, candidates for the CFA charter, passed the Level I exam in June, 2007. Jonathan Godbey is an assistant professor in finance at James Madison University, and Daniel, Paul and William are recent JMU graduates. Daniel Bise has joined the Private Equity Partners division of BlackRock, Paul Meirdierck is with LaSalle Investment Management, and William Tabir is employed with Fannie Mae.
The CFA charter is awarded to candidates who sequentially pass the Level I, II and III examinations, and meet the ethical and professional responsibilities of a CFA charterholder. For more information about the CFA Program, visit the CFA Institute online.
Congratulations to Jonathan, Daniel, Paul and William, and happy studying (and good luck) for the Level II and Level III examinations.
Successful Presentation by Finance Faculty
Jeff Evans, part-time instructor in Finance, and his brother made a successful presentation to the Chrysler Group Executive Committee (EC) at the third Venture Capital Initiative Innovation Day in Auburn Hills held on April 30, 2007. Jeff is from Chrysler's Mid-Atlantic Business Center and his brother Ryan Evans is from Chrysler's Great Lakes Business Center. They presented a subscription-based leasing plan that would retain more customers and sell more vehicles while offering customers good value. EC members were intrigued by the idea and wanted a more in-depth analysis of the potential risks and benefits. Jeff and Ryan were 1 of 3 presenting groups out of 318 submissions.
Students Granted Finance Awards
Congratulations to the following finance award recipients:
Outstanding Student in Finance: Andrew K. Lucas
Outstanding Student in Quantitative Finance: Anne K. Stilwell
Joseph T. Kosnik Scholarship: Stephen G. Stover
Shelly Wheeler Financial Engineering Scholarship: Benjamin P. Young
Philip H. Maxwell Scholarship: Christopher W. Mather
Dr. Liu's Book Published by Elgar Publishing
China's Capital Markets, a book co-edited by assistant professor of finance Dr. Wilson Liu, was published in May, 2007 by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., an international academic publisher in economics, management, law, environment, public and social policy.
The book presents research on China's fast-changing stock and bond markets, futures and over-the-counter markets, regulatory issues, and the development and roles of financial institutions such as brokerage firms, banks and insurance companies. Also addressed are the recent performance of equity markets, the emergence of small and medium enterprises, and the state banks' bids to be listed in overseas stock exchanges.
It is a timely academic work as China's accession agreements to the World Trade Organization promised to open up the financial sector to foreign competition by the end of 2006, affording a wealth of opportunities for domestic and international investors.
More information about the book can be obtained here and here.
Dr. Elias Semaan Voted "Outstanding Teacher"
In just two years as a faculty member in the College of Business, Dr. Elias Semaan, an assistant professor of finance, has made a positive impression on his students. Recently, they selected him as the Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher in the College of Business.
The award is important because it gives students the opportunity to honor a teacher who has had a significant impact on their education, says Professor Joyce Guthrie, associate dean of student services. "It's from the student body saying, ‘Wow, we think this individual is really good,'" she says.
Comments from students indicate that Semaan is not only knowledgeable about the subject matter, but that he also cares about each student. He is known for encouraging students to succeed in the classroom, as well as helping them to find internship and other professional growth opportunities. In casting his vote for Semaan, one student wrote, "[Dr. Semaan] refuses to let any student fail. He knows each and every student's weaknesses and wants to help them.
College of Business Co-Valedictorians
The College of Business is proud to recognize two of its graduating seniors, Michael Albert and Ken Hart, as the co-valedictorians of the James Madison University graduating class of 2006.
Both Michael and Ken are graduating with perfect 4.0 GPA's and will be receiving the Bachelor of Science in Quantitative Finance at this year's commencement. It is unusual to have co-valedictorians and probably unprecedented to have the co-valedictorians from the same major. Although both are double majors they will be graduating with the Quantitative Finance students.
Ken, a native of Pittsburg, is a double major in Quantitative Finance and Economics with a Mathematics minor. He is also a member and sector manager of the Madison Investment Fund (MIF) and was a member of the MIF team that won the International/National title at the R.I.S.E. competition for the best student managed value fund. This year he received the outstanding senior in Economics Award and shared the outstanding senior in Quantitative Finance Award with Michael. Upon graduation Ken will be joining the asset backed securitization division of Bank of America.
Michael, a native of Harrisonburg, is also a double major. In addition to Quantitative Finance he also majored in Mathematics and completed a minor in Physics. This year Michael received the J. Emmert Ikenberry Mathematics Prize and the Mathematics Research Award and shared the outstanding senior in Quantitative Finance Award with Ken. Michael intends to take a year for traveling and exploring other activities before entering a Ph.D program in the fall of 2007.
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Department of Finance and Business Law
JMU College of Business
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James Madison University
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
Phone: (540) 568-6530
Fax: (540) 568-3017
Last Modified: 11/13/2009
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