Tuesday evening, I had the privilege of attending a great event sponsored by Delta Sigma Pi.  The event celebrated the hard work and encouragement of members.  It also was the fulfillment of many years of work to establish a scholarship for students attending the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis. 

The DSP members work Colt events to raise funds for their Kappa Sigma Chapter.  Extra funds from these events were placed in a fund to establish a scholarship with the IU Foundation.  The idea of a scholarship started in 2000 and Tuesday evening the Chapter presented a check for $10,000 to the IU Foundation. 

The dedication and spirit of giving back to the community demonstrates the awesome leadership of the Delta Sigma Pi Kappa Sigma Chapter.  I believe they are the first Delta Sigma Pi Chapter to establish such a scholarship for their school. 

I want to thank the chapter for their leadership, vision, and persistence in pursuing such a goal.  They are truly an inspiration to all of us. 

The Chapter was also included in a special segment on Fox 59 news, Hoosiers Give Back.  See the link below.

http://www.fox59.com/pages/video/?clipId=3239503&topVideoCatNo=97185&c=&autoStart=true&activePane=info&LaunchPageAdTag=homepage&clipFormat=

Our team took second place in a statewide competition hosted by the Indiana CPA Soceity. 

On Friday October 17, 2008, four students competed in a case competition.  All Indiana Colleges and Universities were invited to participate.  Teams of four students from each college are given a case to answer.  A panel of Indiana CPAs reviews and judges the written case solutions.  The top six teams are chosen to make an oral presentation. 

The 2008 case discussed a hypothetical large local Indiana CPA firm.  The teams were asked to present strategic recommendations to the firm partners about challenges and opportunities for the firm.  Some challenges/opportunities related to the firm structure, particularly to diversity and work/life balance issues.  Other challenges/opportunities related to changes in client services, particularly related to emerging continuous assurance services and to consideration of alternative billing structures.

Congratulations to our team members:
•         Chad W. Beauchamp III
•         Molly Utterback
•         Melissa Utterback
•         Shu Ting Zhao

The University of Southern Indiana finished first, and the Purdue Calumet team placed third. 

For more information on the Case competition, see the following link.
http://incpas.org/Students/Events/CaseStudyCompetition.aspx

Want to go to France next summer?  Join our NEW international experience

In Summer 2009, we will be offering a special block section of D301 International Business that will include a trip to France.  This is going to be a great opportunity!  The class will be offered in the Summer I session.  It will include 2 weeks in the class, seven to nine days in France, and then the final week in the classroom.  The class will be scheduled in a block with a general education course POLS Y350 – Politics of the European Union that will look at the political and social structure of the European Union.  This will provide a good combination of business and culture to understand how business operates in Europe. 

The location of our trip will be Strasbourg France.  From Strasburg we will be making a number of trips to locations in the area.  This will be in concert with faculty in Strasbourg, who are helping to organize the local arrangements.

For a short tour of Strasbourg visit, http://www.strasbourg.com/

Strasbourg is also located in the beautiful Alsace region of France, http://abcoffrance.com/alsace/

French is not a requirement of the course.  The six credit hour block will be able to be used to complete the international dimension for Kelley students.  D301 may be taken either before or after ICore, so students in their sophomore through Senior years are encouraged to participate in this opportunity.

The block course will be limited to 20 students.  Students wishing to participate in the course will be asked to complete an application for the course.  We are just in the early stages of obtaining information on the course.  Soon we will more information on the cost of the program, the locations that we anticipate on traveling to in France and Germany, and the structure of the course.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity!  Make plans with your academic advisor to participate in this special block section of D301.  Email Maureen Kinney telling her your interest in the course, so that as we obtain information, we can have you on our mailing list (maukinne@iupui.edu ).

The Alsace region surrounding Strasbourg is a vibrant business region and draws foreign investment from a number of large multinational companies.  Companies within reach of Strasbourg include Lilly France, Roche, Dow France, Wrigley France, Smart France, Fischer Bioblock, Mercedes Benz, and Heineken Breweries. 

Strasbourg is situated on the Franco-German border. Strasbourg was German controled from 1871 until the end of World War I and again between 1940 and 1944. The city and people have a distinctive local identity. The name Strasbourg comes from Strateburgum, ‘the city of the roads’, because of its strategic geographical position on the west bank of the Rhine.

Top Sights

• Council of Europe
• European Court of Human Rights
• European Parliament
• The Cathedral
• La Petite France
• Ponts Couverts
• Musée Zoologique

Korea 10
The end of my summer at Yonsei

The hospitality shown by the Yonsei staff has truly made this a great experience.  I enjoy doing many different types of things in the summer and this is one of those experiences that I may do again in the future. 

 The scheduling of classes during the summer allowed me time to interact with the students and experience the culture and beauty of Korea.   I enjoyed the interaction with the students both during class and in meetings with students outside of the classroom.  Not all of my students were business majors, so I found it interesting working with students in the sciences or engineering.  Many of the students in my class were also interested in masters programs, so I was able to answer some of their questions in considering their future goals.  I encouraged several of them to gain a few years of work experience before applying to a program, so they could attend a better Master’s programs.  Most MBA programs require at least 2 years of work experience.  The better the program, the better the job opportunities.  If you ever researched MBA programs, the salary differentials for graduates of top quality programs and lower level programs are huge. 

The weekends allowed me the opportunity to travel and experience many of the great palaces, temples, and mountains of Korea. It is a great country. These are the main items that I wrote about in my earlier blogs.  I would have never considered Korea as a travel destination before hosting a foreign exchange student from Korea, but having experienced the wonders of Korea, I would enjoy returning again. The kindness shown by our exchange student’s family made for a great trip and many connections.

Korea 9

Bukhansan National Park

Bukhansan National Park is just to the North of Seoul.  It is one of the areas, we almost did not go to.  As I always find at home, the closer an area is to your house, the less likely you are to go to it.  Over our time in Korea, we visited the port city of Busan to the South, Seoraksan National Park to the Northeast, and the beaches to the west.  This weekend, we decided to stay in Seoul and see the wonders of Bukhansan.  We had heard it was beautiful, but this trip became a highlight of our trip to Korea. 

Bukhansan is known for Bukhansan Peak and for Dondosan peeks.  We choose the tallest peak at about 873 meters.  My children set a fast pace, determined to get to the top before the sun set.  The weather was perfect  The day before it had rained, so today was humid but a bit cooler.  The climb up to the peek was one of the more strenuous climbs that I have been on.  At times the huge rocks of the cliff jutted out of the ground at very steep angels, but the cables along the trail, gave us something to pull ourselves up with.  At times, I wondered how some of the climbers were able to stay on the rock without the use of the cable. 

Once at the top, the beauty below was amazing!  To the South is the city of Seoul.  We made it to the top just prior to sunset, so the sun was far enough down in the sky that it seemed to shimmer off of the buildings below.  To the North was the beauty of many other cliffs.  There are many areas to hike in at the park and the trails are full of people.  We also watched others rock climb using ropes and pulleys.  It is a great location.

Bukhansan National Park is in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the highest number of visitors per square foot, over 5 million people visit Bukhansan each year.  It is well worth the trip.

Unfortunately, I did not get many pictures from the top, as I forgot to recharge my camera battery before leaving.  But here are a couple of pictures that you might enjoy.

http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Bukhan1.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Bukhan2.jpg
http://asiaenglish.visitkorea.or.kr/ena/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=312935

Lotte World, Everland, and Carribean Bay

If you have teenage children, you couldn’t imagine visiting another country without visiting their amusement and water parks.  In the Seoul are the amusement parks include Lotte World and Everland and the water park is Caribbean Bay.

Lotte World is a large indoor amusement park with some rides that are also located outside.  We visited Lotte World on a rainy day, so we spent most of the time indoors.  Fortunately, late in the evening, the weather cleared and we had enough time to go on almost all the rides that were outside.  It was a good time and worth the visit.  The rides were not huge, but we did enjoy the trip.
http://www.lotteworld.com/Global_eng/01_Adventure/AA001.asp?mn=Mn101

Everland is a bit harder to get to, but worth the trip.  It is South of Seoul and one must take a bus to get to the area, since no metro connects to this park.  We enjoyed several large roller coaters, include a wooden roller coaster that has the steepest ride for a wooden roller coaster in the world (77 degrees).   The coaster opened up just a few months earlier, so the line was a bit long (about 80 minutes), but well worth the weight.  They also had a coaster that had two upside down loops and several twists that took you upside down.    The rock and roll rides in the park were set to shake you about like I have never been shaken before.  The unexpected nature and direction of the ride made it a great deal of fun.  I posted a few pictures below of some of the rides.
Wooden Roller Coaster Ride as shown on YouTube http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=AKHgOggts_M
If you like to be shook around, take a ride on a guitar, http://kr.youtube.com/watch?v=pGCpZWGU8IU

The water park, Caribbean Bay was a disappointment.  It was overpriced, oversold, underwaved, and a basic waste of time.  The lines for any of the rides were over 2 hours.  The wave pool was so crowded that they really could not get the waves going well.  We were glad to be back home after a long day of being on our feet.
  

Seoraksan National Park

Seoraksan National Park is located to the Northeast corner of South Korea.  It is known for its natural beauty and, of course, hiking trails.  This weekend we choose to brave the traffic and I rented a car.  Driving in Seoul is no fun.  Not only is it more congested than any city I have been in, but figuring out the streets and the signs in another language adds to the complexity.  A navigational unit that gave directions in English was a definite plus, but I was very glad once we got out of the traffic and into the country.  To get to Seoraksan, you either take bus or rent a car, there is no train going to this part of the country, which is why fewer foreign tourists visit this area.  But if you enjoy hiking, it is a must-see in Korea. Driving across the countryside was great, but if I did this trip again, I would probably take the bus and leave the driving and traffic to someone else.  Buses are also able to get to places faster since some of the highways have dedicated bus lanes.  Both on the way into and out of Seoul the stop-and-go traffic added about 2 hours to our trip.

Unfortunately, it rained all day Friday and Saturday while we were there.  Hoping the rain would clear up, we visited the town of Sokcho, walked around the beach, up to a lighthouse, and drove around the town.     

On Saturday, we decided that rain or not, we were hiking the mountains of Seoraksan.  The rain was a steady rain, without much wind.  It actually had some advantages to it.  The weather over the last couple of weeks had been near 90 F, and the humidity was also very high, making all our hikes very hot adventures.  With the rain, it was actually comfortable hiking.  No more sweating on the walks up the mountain, unless if the kids turned it into a run up the mountain, which we did on some sections of the trail.  Usually the steeper parts where my wife did not join the kids and I. 

The first hike was to a waterfall.  The rain also had some advantages here.  Unlike park in Seoul where we went to see a waterfall and found it had no water, there was plenty of water running through the park on this day.  The waterfalls were beautiful with the extra water.  We did about a 3 hour hike in the morning and a 2 hour hike in the afternoon.  If you don’t enjoy walking up the mountains, they also had a cable car for one of the mountains in Seoraksan.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Seorak1.jpg

On Sunday, we had a break in the rain, so we quickly got on the trails to see a few more sites.  Our hotel was located in the park, so we did not have far to go to start our journey.  Just behind the hotel was a large Buddha, about 30 meters high.  While there are many Buddhist temples throughout Korea, it was also interesting seeing all the Christian churches.  Estimates suggest that about 40 percent of the population is Christian.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Seorak2.jpg

Next we traveled up a steep trail to get to the peak of a mountain.  At the peak, a Buddhist monk had made a temple.  Many of the Buddhist shrines are near or high up in the mountains.  I sometimes wondered on our trip if this cultural history gave rise to the great interest in hiking in Korea.  I suspect that if I did a bit more studying on this, I could find a link.  The first picture is the Buddhist temple at the top of the mountain.  I wonder how the monk originally got to this cave.  He must have been a great rock climber.  For us to get there, they connected a set of stairs to the side of the mountain.  You could look over the edge of the stairs and see down 100s of feet.  See the picture of us walking down. 
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Seorak3.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Seorak4.jpg

We also visited Siheungsa temple.  This is a Zen temple  built around 652 A.D.  Some suggest this is the oldest Zen temple in the world writes Dr. John Carter Covell.  It actually predates many of the temples in China and Japan by several centuries.  
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Seorak5.jpg

It is always interesting seeing Korean hiking.  Many Koreans carry a great deal of hiking equipment, backpack and hiking sticks.  You can tell how serious they are about hiking.  As we hiked more in Korea, we lighted our pack each time, till near the end of our trip we left the backpack behind.  Every hiking trail we have been on there are vendors selling a variety of food, water, soda, juices, Gatorade, and ice cream.  Instead of carrying as much stuff, we started to rely on finding supplies as we walked up the mountains.  For me, it made it much more enjoyable not to carry the extra load.  A common tradition seems to be hiking to a location and having a great meal also.  Many of the trails had places to get great Korean meals on the trail.  Every once in a while, you would see a man carrying two large propane tanks up the mountain so that the restaurants in the mountain could cook the food for their guests.  I loved the hiking in Korea.  Always great trails and great food.

Busan

We traveled to the port city of Busan on the Southern par t of Korea.  From Seoul to Busan took only about 2.5 hours on the KTX rail.  The KTX will travel at speeds of up to 300 km/h (about 180 mph).  It is a great way to get around the country in a fast smooth ride.

We first went to Haeundae Beach, which is the most popular beach in Korea.  The waves were great and the water wasn’t too cold.  We had a great time jumping around the waves. 
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Busan1.jpg

The following day we took a bus to Taujongdae Park.  It is on a peninsula that juts out into the ocean.  We did some extensive walking along the coastline and then visited a lighthouse at the end of the peninsula. 
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Busan2.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/Busan3.jpg

Friday, we traveled to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea.   The DMZ is about an hour north of the Seoul area.  It was very interesting hearing the history of the DMZ and seeing the area around the DMZ.  Basically it is a 4 kilometer segment of land between North and South Korea that cannot be developed.  While there, I tried to scan the area through binoculars.  I have heard many stories of the variety of animals and birds that live in the area.  It was a beautifully clear day, but unfortunately I did not see the wildlife  I was looking for.  On a clear day, one can see well into North Korea.

Here is a picture of the North Korean Flag from several kilometers away.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ2.jpg

I we also visited a monument in hope of the unification of Korea.  The world split in two is depicted as being pushed back together by people from both sides.   Below is a picture of my family at the site.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ1.jpg

The picture below is the freedom bell
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/DMZ3.jpg

These two monuments demonstrate the desire by many to see the reunification of North and South Korea.  Learning about the information made me wonder if North and South Korea can someday be reunited like East and West Germany.

Tuesday after class, my boys and I decided to go for a hike up one of the many mountain areas in and around Seoul.  Rather than building developments on these mountainous areas in Seoul, they are kept as parks and hiking is a very popular past-time in Korea.  We went to an area known for its man-made waterfalls.  The hike and the scenery were great.  I enjoyed going through the woods and seeing the many vistas of the city.  It has been not rained in the week that we have been here, so many of the waterfalls in this area were dried up, but as I said, the views of the city were great and it was well worth a hike up the hill.

Some of the paths on the hill were steep enough that they placed ropes along the walkway to help you keep your balance and to pull yourself up the rocks on the hill.  I especially found two things very interesting on our hike.  One was the number of people on the trail.  We walked by many people as we went up the hill.  It was by no means crowded, but for a weekday afternoon, there were definitely more people than we had expected.  Many of the people went up the hill and had a picnic.  The second was the fitness centers at the top of the hill and several locations along the way up the hill.  Clearly, the walking up the hill gives a good workout for the legs, but with the equipment on the hill, you could also get an upper body workout if you liked.  It was something I would have never thought of on a mountain around the city.  It must have taken a bit to get all the equipment up the hill.

The boys like a fast paced walk, so I worked hard to keep up.  Once at the top we took several pictures of the city below. 
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea3b.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea3a.jpg

Then the decision, do we take the same way down or do we take another path and figure out how to get back home from wherever we end up.  It’s never any fun visiting a new city if you don’t let yourself get lost, so we decided on the later.  Once down the other side of the mountain (it was not a very tall mountain), we walked through the town till we got to a major street.  Once there, we looked for signs of the metro stations and checked out our map.  Under some of my poorly designed walking plans, it took a bit longer than we thought to get to the station, but we found our metro station and headed for Seoul Station near our hotel and a well earned pizza at the Pizza Hut near the metro station.

We spent about 30 minutes getting to the location on metro, 30 minutes returning, and a bit over 3 hours of fast paced walking up the mountain and back down. 

My two boys (both age 15) and I have been in Korea for about a week.  The flight was long, taking about 20 hours in the plane and airports as we traveled around the world.  We left at 8 am on Tuesday and arrived in Seoul about 3:30 pm on Wednesday.  As we flew, the sun was shining the whole time.  It was like following the sun around the earth.  3:30 pm Korean time is 2:30 am Eastern US time.  The jet lag disappeared after about a day.

The first evening in Seoul we went out to eat with some of our friends from the area.  Great Barbeque, a traditional Korean meal!  The first full day in Seoul we walked around for about 4 hours to see different parts of town.  There are some great sites in Seoul.  

Transportation is always my first concern in a new city.  Our hotel is near the center of Seoul and Yonsei University is to the Northeast, about 12 kilometers from our hotel.  The metro is the primary mode of transportation.   The entrance station is a bit more than 1 kilometer from our hotel and the exit station is the same.  So I’m getting in a great deal more walking than I typically do.  The metro is very easy to use with station names listed in Korean, English, and via a number system.

I only have 19 students in my Finance class, much smaller than the typical classes I teach.  I am enjoying the smaller class size, especially once we get to grading assignments.

Over the weekend, we used a tour bus to take us to some of the sites in Seoul. There are way too many to see in such a short time, so we focused on 3.  We visited

the War Memorial of Korea and museum,
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2b.jpg
Namsangol Traditional Korean Village
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2c.jpg
and Changdeokgung Palace.
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2d.jpg
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/korea2a.jpg

It seems like all spring and summer I have been getting ready for our trip to Korea.  I will be teaching a corporate finance course (basically F301) at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea.  The course will be 6 weeks, with classes meeting for 100 minutes on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  This will be the first time that I teach outside of the U.S.   

I obtained my visa, allowing me to teach in Korea, my international driver’s license, prepared the syllabus and handouts for the class.  Also, I need to have more items with internet access through the syllabus hyperlinks, rather than OnCourse.  This is when I miss having OnCourse and realize the convenience of having our university system in place for linking articles, example assignments, and assignments.   The goal is to have as much in place as possible prior to going to Korea, so I can spend the 3-day weekends traveling with the family, rather than preparing materials for my class.  We also have a family living in our house in Indiana, so that the pets are taken care of while we are gone.  It’s great sometimes how things work out.  Our friend and her family have an internship in Indianapolis, so they were looking for a place to stay over the summer, and this works out great.

The whole family will be traveling and we hope to see as much of the country as possible.  We plan to mainly travel using train, but for some of the local travels, we may rent a car.  We will also be visiting with Hyunju, our foreign exchange student that stayed with us last year and several our kids’ high school friends (other exchange students) that our children met while attending Lutheran High School. 

A lot of planning and it is about to come to fruition.  I’ll type several blogs in the near future from my course and my families’ travels from Korea.

Canada Fishing Blog

This week, my twin sons (Aaron and Joshua) and I traveled to Kashabowie, Ontario for a family fishing trip.  My father, my bother David and his step-son Bo, my brother Bruce and his son Ryan and two family friends travelled joined us on the trip (total of 10 people).  Kashabowie is West of Thunder Bay about 60 miles.  The lake is called Shebandowan Lake.  It is about 35 miles long.   My brother Bruce and his son have been up here several times.  This was the first time for the rest of us.  The lake has very little development around it.  The set of cabins and the camp ground near us are just about the only signs of development that I saw around the lake.  The lake was formed when they dammed a river.  The valley had many high peaks and cliffs, so the lake has lots of little islands that stick out in the water, creating great places for fishing.

Seven days of no internet and no cell phone.  A little nervous about the electronic disconnection, but generally I found it invigorating to be away from everything; not needing (being able) to check in on work or other items.

We mainly fish for walleye and northern pike.    We primarily catch and release over the week.  We catch enough for our dinners and kept the larger fish that we are permitted to bring back to the states with us.  We each brought back our limit of walleye (3 under 18 inches and one over) and our limit of lake trout (2 permitted).  We also brought back a couple of northern pike, but the primary goal is lake trout and walleye.

The first day, we focused on walleye, using leeches as bait.  The second day we focused on casting for northern pike, and the third day we went trolling for lake trout.  On the third day, we portaged our boat to a second lake, Greenwater Lake.  There are no roads that go to Greenwater, so we had to carry the boats, motors, and other equipment from one lake to the next over an area of about a quarter mile.  Fortunately, my brother and his friends planned for the trip, by making a set of wheels to help transport the boats.

At Greenwater, I caught two lake trout and two northern pike.  One of the northern pike was 39 inches long.  It took close to 20 minutes to pull the northern into the boat.  It’s the largest fish that I ever caught.  When it bit on the bait, it took off and the drag on my line spun. Each time I would pull it with 15 to 20 feet of the boat, it would take off to the bottom of the lake, pulling out the drag on the line.  I pulled it up to within 20 feet of the boat about 6 different times.  The goal was to wear the fish out so we could get it close enough to the boat to net it and pull it in.  Once pulled in, we measured it, took several pictures and released it.  If it made it to 39 inches, it deserves to live another day.  It was a great time!  See a picture at the following link
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada1.jpg

While fishing for walleye and northern, we also caught a good number of bass.  In fact, I think I probably caught more bass than either walleye or northern.  Regulations in Canada only allow you to bring back 2 small bass, under 14 inches, so we caught and released the bass.  My largest bass on the trip was about 19 inches, weighing 5 pounds.  This is by far the largest bass I have ever caught as well.  I probably caught about 4 bass each day that were over 15 inches.  See a picture on one of my bass at the following link
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada2.jpg

You can also see a picture of some of the lake trout caught on our trip
http://bus.iupui.edu/carow/pictures/canada3.jpg

Aaron and Joshua also caught the largest fish of their lives.  We usually fish for bass, sunfish, and crappie in Wisconsin (occasionally northern pike), but chose to go to Canada for a great family get-together and some of the larger game fish.  Aaron caught a 24 inch walleye, Joshua caught a 27 inch northern pike.  Each caught loads of fish, especially small-mouth bass.

We fished close to 8-12 hours each day, played a few games of cards, and had a great time telling stories about our fishing adventure. 

Hope you are also having a great summer.   
 

New General Education requirements

For students first entering the Kelley school in Fall 2008, we have new general education requirements.  While students who entered Kelley prior to the Fall 2008 semester may continue with the old general education requirements, we believe that many students will prefer the new requirement.  For this reason, we are also giving students who entered the Kelley school prior to Fall 2008, the option to switch to the new general education requirements.  Effectively, if you are already a Kelley student, you will have the choice of adopting the new requirements or continuing with the old requirements.  If you do decide to adopt the new requirement, please contact a Kelley advisor, so we can place your interest in adopting the new standard in your file and provide you advice as to which may be the best choice for you.

Now you should all be curious as to what the new standards are and how they compare to the old standards.  First, the new requirements provide greater choices for Kelley students, second, the new standard raises the standards.

In the prior general education requirements, you needed a minimum of 12 credits in humanities, 6 credits in social science, and 5 credits in science.  With the new requirements, you will need a minimum of 24 credit hours of general education, with a minimum of 6 credits in humanities, 6 credits in social science, and 5 credits in science and mathematics.  For example, a student could take 9 credits of humanities, 9 credits of social science and 6 credits of science and mathematics to complete their requirements.  Another students might take 6 in humanities, 6 credits in social science, and 12 credits in science and mathematics.  This should make it easier for Kelley students to obtain an emphasis in another area of interest outside of business.  As another example, we frequently see Management and Marketing students consider a minor in sociology or psychology (both of which fall under social science).  Under the old requirements, only 6 of the credits in these non-business areas counted for the general education requirement, under the new requirements, 12 credit hours for this non-business area will count toward the general education requirement, making it easier for students to obtain a secondary emphasis in a non-business area of their choice.

Since our last revision, there have been many changes in the courses offered at IUPUI.  So as you evaluate the new general education requirements, you will also note that courses from several additional schools were added.  So your options in this area have also increased.

As stated earlier, the standard also increased.  The minimum is 24 credit hours in general education and of these 24 credit hours at least 6 credit hours must be at the 200 or higher level.  In the past, some students completed their general education all through 100 level courses.  Under the new requirements, students will have to take a minimum of 6 credits at the 200 or higher level courses.

See our updated link on General Education Requirements (http://kelley.iupui.edu/undergrad/academics/general.cfm ) for information on both the old requirement and on the new requirement.  The two sets of requirements will be available via this sight for several years, so students can make comparisons.

Have you ever wondered what the process is for changes, like this, in our curriculum?  For a change in the general business requirements, the process begins with a subcommittee of the general education committee.  For a change in the requirements for a major, the faculty members in that discipline make a proposal to the undergraduate policy committee.  The undergraduate policy committee then discusses and votes on the proposed change and takes it to the general faculty.

For the most recent general education requirement changes, a subcommittee of the undergraduate policy committee (UGPC) gathered information on general education requirements from other schools on the IUPUI campus, gathered information from other business schools in Indiana, and evaluated the requirements at Kelley Bloomington.  Once this information was gathered, we asked Kelley advisors how students use the general education requirements.  The Kelley advisors provided detailed feedback from students on what Kelley students frequently ask regarding courses that they would like added to our general education list.  The advisors also provided information on student comments about general education.  Any proposal must be consistent with the Principles of Business Learning (http://kelley.iupui.edu/undergrad/academics/principles.cfm ) and must meet the requirements of AACSB, the premier business accrediting agency (http://www.aacsb.edu/accreditation/standards.asp ).

Based on this feedback, the sub-committee presented alternatives for the undergraduate policy committee to consider as changes in the curriculum.  The first full-meeting of the UGPC was to discuss items in general and suggest alternatives that the committee should entertain.  A good deal of discussion was making sure that any proposals were consistent with the goals of why we have general education requirements.  The general education requirement provides students with a diverse background to understand the world in a broader context.  All businesses operate within the general role of society and gaining a broad background provides the basis on which businesses operate.  At the second meeting, the subcommittee presented several options for the committee to discuss and vote on.  The discussion on these proposals continued for a third meeting as well.  This is only the first stage of changing the curriculum.

Once the curriculum was approved by the UGPC, it goes to the Indianapolis faculty meeting.  This is where, all the Indianapolis faculty may discuss the proposal and make amendments to the proposal.  The faculty members take general education very seriously, so there was a good discussion on the proposal prior to passage.

Next, the proposal goes to the Academic Council.  The Academic Council includes the dean, the associate deans, program chairs, and department chairs from the Kelley School, including Bloomington and Indianapolis.   This group can be viewed as the watchdog of Kelley programs.  The goal is to make sure that Kelley provides the highest quality programs and opportunities for our students.  In this group, we also evaluate resources needed to implement new programs and requirements.   The Academic Council can accept, reject, or send the proposal back to one of the prior levels for changes.

The final step in changing the curriculum is a vote by the entire Kelley faculty, including both Bloomington and Indianapolis faculty members.  Again, this group usually accepts, rejects, or sends the proposal back to one of the prior levels for changes.

Once approved by the entire Kelley faculty, the proposal becomes the requirement for the program.  In taking this proposal through the different levels, it was impressive to see the questions regarding implications and implementation that were addressed by each of these groups.

It’s interesting to note, that there are many proposals that go even further in the system.  For example, our new Masters of Taxation program, started in a Masters committee, moved to the Indianapolis faculty, then to the Academic Council, to the entire Kelley faculty, to the IUPUI Academic Policies and Procedures Committee, to the Dean of Faculties, to the Chancellor, to the President, to the Board of Trustees for the IU system, and then to a statewide committee on higher education.  It’s entirely, possibly that I may have missed a step in this process. 

And you thought that changing something in Congress took a lot of layers!

Graduation

Congratulations to the class of 2008.

It was a great ceremony on Sunday evening, May 11.  Yes, Mother’s Day.  I know my mother was extremely proud of my accomplishments when I received my degree.  I’m sure each of your mothers were also very proud to see you walk across the stage and receive your diploma.  For those graduates who are also mothers, a special congratulation in your ability to balance a family and complete your degree. 

I’m always impressed with the ability to handle multiple tasks while going through school.  Many manage school, jobs, and family as they maneuver their way through the curriculum.  A job well done!

So what’s next?  I hope you have a couple of weeks to recuperate with the completion of school.

I remember my graduation summer.  It was definitely a busy time.  Curious how many years ago that was? Well, I graduated with my Bachelors degree in 1988. Yes, 20 years ago!  That May, my wife and I looked for work in Lafayette, Indiana.  She found a job on a hog farm near Waynetown, I ended up deciding to do a little summer work in St. Louis, instead of Lafayette.  In the Fall, I started the PhD program at Purdue University, the Monday following my wedding.  Doesn’t that sound like a great honey moon to start a graduate program.    Finding new jobs, working, getting married, and starting the PhD program, it was definitely a busy time, but all well worth it.

I announced the names of all the graduates this year.  I hope I pronounced everyone’s name correctly.  My apologies, if I mis-pronounced your name.  It is always a great time seeing the excitement of graduation.

Have a great summer!

Best Wishes as you start you move forward with your career!

Capsim Competition

Congratulations to Nathaly Reyes and Jacob Wilkes!  They took second place in the Capsim Global Business Simulation Competition.  The competition had a record-breaking number of participants.  The challenge “provides an opportunity for students of all levels – from first-year undergraduate to MBA students to find out if they have what it takes to run a multi-million-dollar company,” a Dan Smith, president of Capsim.

Nathaly Reyes and Jacob Wilkes entered the Capsim Competition.  The competition is an international competition that includes both undergraduate and MBA students.  642 teams began the competition and 266 teams persisted to the eight round of the competition.  The top six teams in the preliminary competition get the prestige of going into a final round against each other.  A school can only have one team in the final round.  Kelley Indianapolis had a second team (Jessie Cartine and Leinid Grabovsky) that was in the seventh position.  In total we had eight teams placing in the top 10 percent of the teams entering the competition.

Each of the teams were in our new spring J411 Analysis of Business Decisions course.  J411 uses the Capsim simulation where students compete against other teams of students in their class in an industry.  Effectively, the teams are running a company for eight periods.  The simulation helps students hone their business skills and consider the impact of different business decisions on the success of their firm in a competitive industry.  The competition was an optional opportunity for students participation.

The capstone provides an experiential learning component for Kelley students.  Congratulations to each of the teams that entered the competition.  A job well done!

Our Kelley student organizations can be very proud of their accomplishments.  As demonstrated by three recent awards, they are leading the way to the future. 

We have many very vibrant clubs and organizations.  We are especially proud of the recent accomplishments of our Kelley student organizations. 

I especially want to congratulate Kelley School of Business Student Government (KSBISG)! On April 17 at the Leadership Recognition Reception KSBISG was recognized three times.

Student Council of the Year:  Kelley School of Business Student Government

Advisor of the Year:  Maureen Kinney

Co - Sponsorship of the Year:  Undergraduate Student Government & Kelley School of Business Student Government for the IUPUI and UMASS Basketball Game on December 1, 2007 at the Jungle

Please congratulate the leaders of KSBISG and each of our student organizations!!

Getting involved, not only in attendance, but also in leadership roles in the student organization and sub-committee roles to help organize events are great ways to learn about leading a group or organization.  This is also the reason that companies prize applicants with club experience.  Helping to organize events and lead student clubs gives an additional sense of experiential learning.  See the organizations on the following website for some of the many Kelley organizations.

http://kelley.iupui.edu/undergrad/studentLife/organizations.cfm

Our Entrepreneurship Club lives up to its name.

On Friday, April 18, I attended an afternoon workshop hosted by The Entrepreneurship Club of IUPUI.  Just a few months ago, this club was just a thought in a couple of student’s minds.  It had its first meeting in February and by April 18, it was hosting an event with 10 speakers.  Over the afternoon, I think over 40 people attended the event.   The event lasted from 3 pm to 7 pm.  Speakers talked about starting a business, the process of patenting, private equity and funding, operations, a panel by the faculty, Entrepreneurship in Indianapolis, Technology, and the perspective from the eyes of an entrepreneur.

It was a great event.  Coming from a finance background, I especially enjoyed listening to Nana Baffour, a CFA with Knox Lawrence International in NYC.  He runs and owns a private equity firm that purchases and sells small businesses.  He spoke of the challenges of funding.  In fact, the challenges of funding a small business were one of the main topics.  Raising funds for a start-up is truly a difficult process.  However, all the participants, acknowledged that the prospects for start-up companies in Indiana had improved significantly in the last several years.  Tom Mason spoke from the perspective of the Indiana Venture Center, discussing the ways they help entrepreneurs.  Jeff Ready is a local entrepreneur in the software industry and spoke on his perspective of the need for persistence and belief in your endeavor.

I’m looking forward to more of the events by the Entrepreneuership Club as they continue to expand and grow.  The club is reaching out for not only Kelley students, but any students interested in entrepreneurship.  Find out about their next event at http://www.eciupui.com/

Kelley at Indians Baseball Game

On Monday April 14 Kelley School student, staff, and faculty attended a Indians baseball game.  I had a great time at the game.  It’s great getting to know people on a less formal basis than the usual school environment. 

 It was a bit cold with temperatures only in the low 50s, but the Indians put on a good game, beating the Northfolk Tides by 3 to 2.  We scored in the first, sixth, and seventh inning.  The Tides scored in the 5th. 

Several of the students competed in the dizzy bat race.  Hope you will join us next year.

For a recap of the game, go to

http://www.minorleaguebaseball.com/multimedia/video.jsp?sid=t484

Great Leaders SERVE

On March 25, the Dan Cathy, President & COO of Chick-fil-A, spoke at the Kelley School in Indianapolis on “Tools Needed to be an Effective Leader”.  Mr. Cathy provided reception with food and drink, followed by a presentation and a great networking opportunity with Mr. Cathy.  We had well over 100 students attend the event.  It was a great turnout for a great speaker, who is known for his high standards and moral character.

He began by focusing on the Chick-fil-A story.  How it was started and how it grew.  Some of the key points he brought out in this early discussion was remember to focus on high quality customer service and employee retention.  Chick-fil-A has an excellent retention rate.  Chick-fil-A has over 1300 locations in 37 states.

He quoted Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller’s book, The Secret:  What Great Leaders Know and Do.  In the phrase Great Leaders SERVE, you can breakdown SERVE into five phrases:

? See and shape the future
? Engage and develop others
? Reinvent continuously
? Value results and relationships
? Embody the values

To find out more about Chick-fil-A, visit their website at http://www.chick-fil-a.com/#story

Midwest Finance Association

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Midwest Finance Association meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

It was a great conference.  Have you ever wondered what academics would do at a conference?

This is a research conference.  As a research conference, I submitted a copy of one of my research papers to the conference.  Even though the conference was early March, I submitted my paper back in September.  The conference committee then reads the papers and decides what papers to allow on the conference.  For this particular conference, around 60% of the papers were selected for presentation.  The other 40% of the papers were rejected.  Some conferences have higher acceptance rates and some lower.  The selectivity of the conference submissions is one way to measure the quality of the conference.

Fortunately, my paper was selected for the conference.

At the conference I presented the manuscript, Demutualization: Determinants and Consequences of the Mutual Holding Company Choice.  The mutual holding company structure is a unique structure that some mutual thrifts (also called savings and loans) use to become publicly traded companies.  It is a relatively new structure, so not many people are familiar with it.  A mutual thrift is owned by its depositors, much like a cooperative.  The depositors vote to take the company public and sell stock in the company.  As a depositor in one of these thrifts, you have the right to purchase a new share of stock at the time of the initial public offering (IPO).  On average the stock price increases by 25 percent on the first day that the company is traded on the exchange.  A Mutual Holding Company only sells some of the stock, saving the other portion for a later offering, usually referred to as a second stage offering.  My coauthors and I document the stock returns from investing in these companies and provide explanations for why the company may choose a Mutual Holding Company structure instead of simply going fully public in a single stock offering.  If you are interested, see a copy of the paper at the following link.
http://www.mfa-2008.com/papers/MFA2008_Symposium%20Session_MHC.pdf

Another person at the conference reads and discusses my paper.  The job of the discussant is to provide critical feedback that will help the author in the publishing process.  As a discussant you want to be tough but fair, it is the only way to help the author improve their work.  My discussant was a member of the Federal Reserve Board which is one of the regulatory agencies for banks.  The individual gave some good feedback that my coauthors and I will use in writing the next draft of the paper.

The paper is currently under review at a finance journal.  The journal has about a 10% acceptance rate, so it is difficult to get the paper published.  In finance, most of the top quality journals have around a 10% acceptance rate with some of the best journals accepting less than 5% of the papers that are submitted for publication.

At the conference, I also served as a discussant.  I discussed the manuscript Effects of National Recognition on the Influence of Credit Rating Agencies.  It was an interesting paper and I hope the authors found my comments useful in their next revision.

At the conference, I also look for new ideas and colleagues to work with.  As you hear the presentations of other people, new ideas for papers come into your mind.  Once I return, I usually start working on one of these ideas, or write some notes on the idea so that I can pursue it at a later time when I have completed some of the other papers that are currently on my desk.

Of course, I also enjoyed the great city of San Antonio.  Our conference was on the River Walk.  There are loads of great restaurants.  I focused on the Mexican cuisine this time, but also enjoyed some Irish food.  The weather was in the 70’s and sunny, a perfect time to enjoy a walk around on the river front and around the town.  Of course, one has not truly visited San Antonio unless if they “Remember the Alamo”.

All in all, it was a great mix; a few papers and presentations during the day, some great food in the evening, and perfect weather to visit the Alamo and a couple of markets.

Teaching in South Korea.

I encourage every student to consider how they can internationalize their college experience.  Take a class that includes a trip to another county.  Even better, spend a full semester at a university in another county.  Go to France, Spain, England, China, India, Australia, you name it, but experience a culture other than our own.  It will be an experience to remember and open your eyes to another way of thinking.

As a college student, I did not do an exchange program, but I did spend 40 days traveling Europe.  An experience I will always remember as one of the best times of my life.  I saw over 25 cities, learned about culture, about history, and met a great deal of new people.

Well, this summer, I’m taking my own advice!  I’ll be teaching at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea.  Fortunately, their classes in the summer program are in English, because I currently only know a word or two in Korean and probably mispronounce them horribly.

The program is six weeks long.  Classes are taught on Monday through Thursday, giving a series of long weekends to travel the country.  I plan to see many of the cities in Korea and go to some of the national parks.

I’ll teach Financial Management.  It is equivalent to our F301 course, but without the ICore project.  I’ll present the course in a slightly different manner for this international audience, but I’ll cover all the same material.  For an international audience, I plan to start with the chapter on International Finance, then present the rest of the material.  This way, I can switch between different currencies to emphasize that Finance is really the same in every country, it’s just a different currency symbol that is in front of the numbers.

Initially, I thought there were be a language barrier in going to Korea, but based on talking with our Korean exchange student and several friends who have been to Korea, it has a low language barrier.  All children are taught English and many Koreans are eager to speak English.  Even some of the signs around the county are in English, making it easier to get around.  I do plan to learn a little Korean to get around the city.  I think it’s a sign of respect to learn about the language of the county you visit.  

If you are interested in Korea, I encourage you to consider this exchange program.  You’ll spend six weeks in a beautiful county.  International Dimension is one of the areas where all Kelley students must complete 6 credit hours.  Participating in an exchange program is one way of meeting this requirement.   See a Kelley advisor for more details on how courses from the program can transfer.

A couple of links might be helpful.  The following link provides an overview of the Yonsei exchange program
http://summer.yonsei.ac.kr/introduction/wel.asp

This link provides a listing of the courses that are taught (in English) in the Yonsei exchange program.  Click on the course area, to obtain a listing of courses in the area of study.
http://summer.yonsei.ac.kr/program/courses.asp

Go international with your degree.  You’ll have a great time travelling and gain an experience that will set you apart in your interviews.

Kelley House

Looking for a great place to live?  Check out Kelley House!

This is a brand new opportunity for business students to live on campus in a residential based learning community.  These units are reserved for business students who what to live in the IUPUI Campus Apartments.  Kelley House apartments have a private bedroom in a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment.  The apartments are by the White River on the East side of campus. 

We have two housing units reserved for business students.  These are the Morton-Finney House and the Fox House.  The houses are named after community leaders from Indianapolis.  John Morton-Finney (1889-1998, that’s 108 years) was an educator, lawyer and humanitarian.  He earned 12 college degrees and taught Greek, Latin, German, Spanish, and French at Crispus Attucks High School.  Lillian Fox (1866-1998) was Indianapolis’ first African American female journalist, who founded the Woman’s Improvement Club.

Kelley House was the idea of several of our Kelley students that live in campus housing.  In the last year, the students completed surveys indicating interest.  I’m thankful to this group of students who brought such a great opportunity to our attention.  I think this will be a great opportunity for students to get to know each other better and learn from each other.  I’m looking forward to the many activities that this group can be involved in. 

Living in a learning community with other business students provides a great opportunity to get to know other students with similar interests, create life-long friendships, and be close to other business students that can help you understand the topics covered in business courses.  Studies from the experience of other universities have shown that students who live in learning communities earn higher grades, make friends faster, and graduate at higher rates.

Check out the website on IUPUI campus housing.
http://www.iupui.edu/~sldweb/housing/

Please visit the following link for information regarding Kelley House:
http://www.iupui.edu/~sldweb/housing/reslc/kelley.html

If you do not currently reside in Campus Housing please visit the following link to apply:
http://www.iupui.edu/~sldweb/housing/docs/Housing_Application.pdf

All questions regarding the application, facilities, fees, etc. should be directed to IUPUI's Office of Housing and Residence Life: 1-800-631-3974 or reshalls@iupui.edu.

Students frequently ask me about careers in finance.  However, some of the best people to ask are the employers and recent graduates of Kelley.  I enjoy having lunch with the employers to obtain feedback our changes in the workplace and new ideas that they are working with. 

Our career placement center is also working with employers to provide students more information about careers and career paths.  On January 31 at noon, you have another opportunity to meet with 6 employers who will discuss career opportunities in finance and their own career paths into the field.  This is a great opportunity not only for our junior and senior students, but also for freshman and sophomore students that want to find out about opportunities available to them.  If you would like to attend the free luncheon, contact our Kelley School of Business Career Placement Office.

http://www.kelley.iupui.edu/default.cfm?ID=68

There are also some great websites to view.  Here are three that I like to refer students to

http://www.careers-in-finance.com/

http://news.efinancialcareers.com/SECTOR_PROFILE

http://www.jobsinthemoney.com/

Enjoy surfing and finding out more about finance.

Finals and projects are graded; grades are entered.  What a relief.  It's time to breathe again.

As students, I'm sure many of you feel the same way.  It's good to relax without the presure of the next final or the next project.  it's good to spend some time with family and friends.  I hope you are able to get to your destination safely and enjoy the Christmas season.

All my Christmas shopping is complete and there are still 5 days left till Christmas.  My wife and I signed over 100 cards and delivered them to friends.  We have about 50 to go.  It's a good time to remember the friendships and stay in touch, even when you have not seen the individuals for several years.  I enjoy finding out how the friends from my college days are doing.  I hope the friendships you make in college last a life time.  This summer will be my 20th year since graduating from Truman State University in Missouri.  Several of my college friends and I plan to do a roadtrip and visit our old haunts this next summer.  Should be a great time.  Over the holidays, I hope to get some of these plans set up.   

Merry Christmas!

Ken Carow

ICore Projects

A hectic week has come to an end with the climax of ICore project presentations.  ICore is a combination of three courses, Marketing, Operations, and Finance.  The project integrates the three courses.  At the start of the semester, student teams propose a new project for a company. 

The project must involve a significant expenditure for equipment, land, and/or building.  It must introduce a new product to the market and new operations. 

The students work on developing a marketing program and designing the appropriate operations of the project throughout the semester.  For finance, they use this information to determine the expected revenues and expenses that the company will have if they implement the project.  Based on these estimates they make a recommendation to the company about whether they should implement the project. 

The ICore project results in two grades.  The first grade is part of the course grade.  Generally the Core project composes 15 to 20 percent of each course grade.  The second grade is for experiential learning.  Experiential learning is a special designation for courses that combine the knowledge that you learn in the classroom and applies that knowledge to a realistic project.  Unlike the normal grades, the experiential component of the project is graded as either satisfactory or not satisfactory. 

Occasionally one of the ICore proposals is implemented by the company that the students work with.  This semester, a group of ICore students worked with the Christamore House to evaluate whether Chistamore House could implement a before school care program.  They evaluated the target market, the number of peopled that would used the new program, the revenue from the new program,  the number of people needed to be hired, how the program would be operated, and whether the program would return the investment and expenses incurred. 

Two representatives from Christamore House attended the presentation and were very impressed with the concept.  They had some excellent questions.  Based on discussions of the proposal, they stated they will be taking a closer look at implementing the project.  

It’s great when you see one of the projects proposed by our ICore teams implemented in the community. 

To learn more about the great programs at the Christamore House, visit http://www.christamorehouse.org/.  “The Christamore House, in partnership with the communities of Marion County, is dedicated to empowering individuals and families towards self sufficiency through diverse social, educational, recreational and health programs.” [Christamore Mission Statement]

McDonald's Commercial
 
One of your fellow students, Derrick Snodgrass, is featured in a national McDonald’s commercial.  It's great to see our students taking the limelite.  Good work on the commercial Derrick.
 
You can see the commercial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuFxBttdiVs

International Business and understanding international relationships is huge in business today.  It is hard to find any business that is not affected by international relationships that may include competition, suppliers, customers, workers, ect.   In November, we will have the Chinese ambassador to the US speak in Indianapolis.  This is a great opportunity for the Indianapolis business community and our students.  For more information on the presentation, visit

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6761.html?emailID=6761

The visit is sponsored by the Kelley School CIBER.  CIBER is the Center for International Business Education and Research.  The Center creates opportunities for our students to interact with international speakers and business leaders.  The Center also promotes research related to international business leaders.

Come find out more about international relations and network with the local business community.

What a great event.  Our Kelley Indianapolis students were one of eight teams competing in the annual Kelley - Krannert case competition.  The competition this year was hosted by Krannert.  Four teams are from Indiana University Kelley School of Business with one of the teams coming from Indianapolis.  Four teams are also from Purdue University's Krannert School of Business.

The winning Kelley team members -- Andrew Starks, Paul Hwang, Charlene Gonzalez and Andrew Heckman -- shared a $1,200 prize. 

The competition is an annual competition between Kelley and Krannert.  Our Indianapolis teams have consistently placed very well, frequently being in the top three over the past several years, but this is the first win by the Kelley Indianapolis students.  We are extremely proud of their accomplishments.

As commented to me by Tim Bennett, who attended the competition with our students, "Our team’s PowerPoint and overall presentation demonstrated their clear understanding of the case, excellent analysis and evaluation skills, and ability to think critically and quickly process the facts during the Q&A."

The teams present to a group of business leaders, so this is more than an academic exercise.  IN prior competitions, I have seen some of the business leaders ask the students to set up an interview with the company.  The competition is know to bring real case problems to life.

Please join me in congratulating Andres, Paul, Charlene and Andrew.  For a copy of the press release, please click on the link http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/6627.html?emailID=6627

Classes are well on their way.  Some courses have already had a first exam, but not mine.  My first exam comes in the first week of October.  I’m sure many of the students in my course are beginning to worry about their first exam.  Questions are starting to come in class as to the style of the exam, how many multiple choice? How many problems?  Will there be any essay?  How many questions? 

Understanding how a professor writes an exam helps students understand how to best prepared for their exams.  In F301 Financial Management the exams are generally a combination of short multiple choice and problems.  While students first entering the class frequently wish more of the exam was multiple choice, after taking the exam they frequently prefer the problems.  This is because for a multiple choice question a student either receives all the credit or none of the credit, while for problems; students can receive partial credit for their answers.  IN finance there are several areas where a student can make a mistake in solving problems, so partial credit gives credit to the student for the portions of a problem that they solve correctly. 
Some of my favorite problems for the first exam in finance are the same types of problems that everyone faces in their life.  If I take out a mortgage on a house, what will the payments be?  How does the bank determine how much I need to pay if I pay off the loan early?  What is the implied interest rate in that health club membership that has been offered to me?  How much should I save to prepare for retirement? When leasing a car, what is the interest rate that is being charged on the lease?  Is it better to lease or purchase a car?  Each of these types of problems are presented in a financial management class. 

We also cover the basics of valuing stocks and bonds.  I always wish I had more time in financial management to cover these topics in more detail.  In financial management we discuss the basics of what types of debt there are, how to value basic debt, and why firms may choose to use debt in their firms.  In stock, we look at basic valuation and how changes in growth, cash flows, or risk can change the value of a stock.  Many of the students in the class are very interested in gaining a better understanding of investing in stocks and bonds.  While we cover the basics in financial management, these topics are mainly covered in our F303 Investments course.

The key is practice!  As students prepare for the exam, I can never emphasize enough how important it is to practice by doing problems.  Many students think that just watching the professor complete problems or seeing how the professor writes the solutions for a set of problems is sufficient.  But this is like watching a Peyton Manning throw the ball and assuming you can step in a take his place on the team or watching a famous ice skater complete a championship performance can result in your entry onto the Olympic skating team.  Practice, Practice, PRACTICE! As I remember my coaches say when I played sports and so it goes for finance.  The more practice the more likely you are to understand and do great.

Best of luck on your exams!

So, what do you think of the remodeled alcoves on the second floor? 

It looks great to me.  Different design companies have designed the alcoves to provide unique learning spaces.  Each of the spaces has a group of sponsors that have covered the costs.  Among the many industry sponsors we also have two student groups, SAC at the undergraduate level and the Graduate Business Council at the MBA level.  The cooperation between designers, sponsors and students have made the alcove remodeling is an example of what can be accomplished when we bring our Kelley community together.  The alcoves are not done yet!  There will be monitors and computers to go with our new surroundings.  It’s a great way to begin a new year.

I’m preparing for a fall section of Financial Management as part of ICore, an evening MBA class on Asset Valuation and Strategy, and an online MBA class in Financial Management.  The last couple of weeks, I have been updating the articles, materials and notes in preparation for each of these classes.  Last year, I began using the new OnCourseCL, however, with the significant updates to OnCourseCL, placing the materials on line was much more involved than I anticipated.  After we overcome a few problems in terms of speed of access, the new version of OnCourseCL will be a much improved version compared to last year’s version.  I was glad to find several of my suggested improvements in the new OnCourseCL version, including better email and the ability to time when items go live on the course.

I have now completed placing up most of the notes for the semesters, many of the primary articles, and now the main item in preparing for class will be following current events to apply them to class and working on the design of assignments.  

I hope you are as excited about the start of the new semester.  With all of the additional work also comes getting to know a new group of students and conveying the key concepts in finance, a subject that no one can live without.

Have a great semester!

This morning, I read an interesting article on Joe Slaughter, CEO of Herff Jones.  If you purchased a class ring for your high school, you may have purchased it from Herff Jones company.

What I found interesting was the recognition of mentors that Joe Slaughter recognizes in his success.  His high school and chemistry teacher that taught him that "big problems were nothing more than small problems waiting to be solved.” A college professor taught that the importance of communication.  In summary, "insight and knowledge are worthless without the ability to clearly share them with others.”  A colleague taught him the "importance of sharing the company's good fortune with the communities we serve" and another colleague taught him the "importance of sharing wealth and ownership with those creating revenue."

In your business classes you learn about each of these topics.  His summary of success is a lesson to each of us in setting priorities and acknowledging the importance of the influence of others in our lives.

Many of these things are also part of what I share with students at induction and orientation for Kelley students.  As you begin a new year, think about the many things you can do to move down the road of success in your careers.  Look at the lives of people that you admire.  Think about what you admire and consider how to implement these same positive qualities in your life.

As another favorite author and self-motivator, Steve Covey, has taught me, consider life in the following way.  If you were giving your eulogy, what would you want others to say about you?  This is your definition of success.  Strive to accomplish these goals and priorities.

For a copy of the article, use the following link.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007708190352 

http://www.herff-jones.com/

I now have three children in high school.  My daughter is a junior and my twin boys are freshmen at Lutheran High School on the south side of town. 

It seems school starts earlier each year.  The first day of class was August 9.  When I went to high school, we generally started after Labor Day.  So things have changed.  For many of you, high school may have been less of a distant moment.  20 years ago, when I was in High School, I learned to type on a typewriter, wrote program code in Assembler language, and in my senior year we were one of the first high schools to have Apple computers and I programmed in Basic.  Computer technology has changed quite a bit, but the basics of math, writing, and communications have not changed too much.

Already, my daughter had her first cross country meet and my boys are looking forward to their first soccer game this week.  It’s great being a part of the high school and the excitement of the first week of school. 

Classes at college start this coming week.  I’m busy making sure that my syllabus is set and ready to go.  I’m also a bit of an organizational person.  By the end of this coming week, I should have all the major changes to my notes done for each of the three courses that I teach.  This fall, I am teaching F301 Financial Management in the undergraduate program, C540 Financial Management in our online Kelley Direct Masters of Business Administration program (KD-MBA), and F520 Asset Valuation and Strategy in our evening MBA program.  If everything works perfect, I’ll have the notes completed for each of the classes for the entire semester before setting foot in the classroom (or in the case of the online MBA course, before the first student logs in).  For me, this organization allows more time over the semester to work on the assignments and consider current events that may tie in with the classes.

Hope you are looking forward to your first day of classes.

Riding the Rapids!

One minute your stuck on a large bolder, then next your on top of the world, the next your under your raft grasping something to pull you out of the water, and finally your stuck on a bolder.  This was the story of our trip down the Pestigo River in Wisconsin.

My brother’s family and my family enjoy white water rafting.  Last year we went on a river in Montana that is fed by the melting glaciers in Glacier National Park.  They estimate fewer than 30 years for these glaciers.  According to the ranger, they were at least twice the size when my family visited these when I was a child, about 30 years ago.  Comparing pictures from then to pictures we took last year, I would have to agree.

The Pestigo River can be quite the ride also, but water levels were low.  Only one-man rafts were allowed.  The owner said that he’d have to issue hiking boots for part of the river if it go any lower.  It was definitely a good workout, as we got stuck on many of the boulders in the river, many totally unavoidable, like a dam with hundreds of holes letting the water through.  Despite the many low areas where my raft got stuck, the journey was great fun.  The best parts were riding over the 5 foot falls, going over a smaller 4-foot falls, and then a longer rapids that moved down about 15 feet over a 50 foot stretch of the river.  The final portion was smooth sailing.

Below is a link to the company we road with.  I also attached a group shot in my picture space online.
http://www.kosirs.com/rapidsreport.html

There’s a lot of parallels between business and riding the rapids.  You can’t let the issues that you get stuck on prevent you from finding the way to your goal.  You can’t change direction (mission) just because of a few bumps in the road.  A business that jumps from one product to the next never develops competency in anything and will suffer in the long run.  Finally, hitting the right market is like a successful ride through the rapids, it's well worth the effort.  However, as our guide warned, don’t take you eyes off the path ahead to admire the past journey too long, conditions change and half the people thrown out of their raft (bankrupt) will not see the next change in the river and capsize, even in the calmer part of the journey.

Wedding are always a great time! The excitement of starting a new life together, moving into a new place,…This excitement was evident on both Ben and Bryanne’s faces as they said their vows and talked about their wedding.  I know they are on the right track starting together.

No they were not part of the record wedding crowd on 7/7/7.  July 7, 2007 broke a record in the US for the number of weddings performed.  I guess 7’s are Lucky.  I asked my niece, Bryanne, why they choose the 14th and not the 7th.  She planned her wedding well over a year ago, but the hall was already booked for the 7th.  Now the 14th will always be their lucky number.  For my wife and I, it’s the 13th.  We were married on the 13th of August and we both graduated from college on the 13th.

The service was wonderful.  The church is a traditional steeple church with an alter designed in the 1930’s or 40’s.  I like the old style gothic church buildings with the tall steeples, high roofs, and alter settings.

View my blog pictures for a picture of the happy couple.

Weddings are also a great family reunion.  It was great getting together with family and friends that I had not seen in ages.  It’s also fun trying to get the kids out on the dance floor, or in my case, just remembering how to dance.  I’d post some pictures, but my kids would probably not talk to me for a week if I posted pictures of them dancing on my blog.

So spring classes have been out since May and I’m not teaching the summer term. What does a professor do with all the time? These are two of the most asked questions that I get over the summer; "So what do you do over the summer?" and "Isn’t it great having a 3-month vacation?"

Like many of you, I like taking a bit of time off with my family to have a vacation, like going to an amusement park or a water park, but most days you can find me in the office working on writing a paper, collecting data, or analyzing data in a program called SAS (Statistical Analysis Software).

This summer, I am working on several papers. Usually I have anywhere from 4 to 8 papers in progress at any time. Right now I am working on revising two papers to resubmit to a journal. The first paper is on mutual holding company life cycle and the second is on the impact of the Financial Services Modernization Act on corporate borrowers. I am also working on the final stages of data collection on four other papers. The first is on whether thrifts and banks that go public manager their earnings around the time that they go public. The second is on how stock market investors reacted to the events surrounding the options backdating scandal. The third is on the how the corporate balance sheet of companies changed as a result of the Financial Services Modernization Act. The fourth is on the impact on firm characteristics on the probability that a bank or thrift becomes an acquisition target.

Some of these papers will result in publication, some will be scooped by other authors in the field and I’ll need to toss my paper aside and begin a new project, and with other papers I will find that the data neither supports or rejects the hypothesis that I am testing and I will need to toss the paper aside and also begin a new project. Publishing is never a certainty when you begin a project. It sometimes reminds me of Kenney Roger’s song The Gambler, when he says “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run…” Sometime you spend too much time working on a dead-end project. Sometimes you miss out on a great opportunity by not starting a project when the idea first came to you and someone else beats you to the punch.

When you get that great hit in the journal though, it’s like hitting a grand slam and you’re ready to celebrate.

Grade School Graduation

My two boys, Aaron and Joshua, graduated from 8th grade at Calvary Lutheran School this week.  It’s hard to believe that all three of my children will be at Lutheran High School this fall.  It was great having family and friends over to celebrate their graduation.

I was especially proud to find out at the ceremonies that Aaron received the Citizenship Award.  This is an award that has input from teachers and fellow classmates.  Both boys are always available to help out with any items around the school from setting up for an event or cleaning up after an event. 

They had their classmates over for a graduation party this weekend.  It was great fun seeing the excitement of these young high school freshmen.  The excitement of beginning the next phase of their life is great. I remember the good old days of high school and the anticipation we had as we exited 8th grade.

Graduation 2007

What a great event!  I always enjoy graduation ceremonies.  It’s awesome to share the moment that so many people have worked so hard to accomplish.  Some of our graduates may have worked four years full-time to accomplish this goal; others may have worked part-time, putting in as many as ten years of classes to meet their goal.  Celebrating the accomplishment of graduation is an event I always look forward to. 

As I roamed through the Convention Center prior to the event, I was able to meet the family and friends of many of our graduates.  While it is always the graduate who can take the greatest pride in their accomplishment, it is the support of family and friends that helps to encourage the completion of their degree.  The pride shown in the eyes of the mothers and fathers of the graduates testifies to their encouragement. 

This year we recognized the top undergraduate students on stage with the faculty.  The Scholarship and Awards Committee that selects these individuals always has a tough time determining among the many qualified students who should receive the award of Outstanding Student.  Clearly grade point average (GPA) is one criterion, but another important criterion in the final determination is student leadership.  Leadership shows itself through activities in Kelley, on campus, and in our community. 

This year, the following graduating seniors were recognized:

Outstanding Finance Student - Nodira Issamidanova
Outstanding Accounting Student - Cynthia Huber
Outstanding CIS Student - Charity Batten
Outstanding Management Student - Andrew Wolfe
Outstanding Marketing Student - Elizabeth Helm
J. Dwight Peterson Award - Andrew Wolfe

Of the students selected in each major, one, Andrew Wolfe, was specially recognized with the J. Dwight Peterson Award, the top award for our undergraduate ceremonies.  He gave an inspiring speech about leadership and community involvement.

My job in the undergraduate ceremonies is reading the names as the students cross the stage.  Each student hands me a card with their name.  I then read the card as they cross the stage to shake the Associate Dean hand and the Dean’s hand.  This always creates a bit of nervousness for me, in making sure that I pronounce the name correctly.  My apologies to anyone where I may have mis-pronounced a name.

I look forward to next year’s graduation ceremonies. 

Chicago!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the fun of joining my sons’ eighth grade class trip.  We went to Chicago to see the sights.  We left at 6:30 am on Wednesday and returned Friday at close to midnight.   I coach soccer for my sons’ middle school class at Calvary, so I know most of the kids in the class.

Wednesday night we got to see a fantastic White socks game.  As the kids described it, it was the perfect game.  A player ejected in the second inning, a grand slam by the White Socks, two additional home runs, and a no-hitter thrown by Buehrle.  It was cold evening, almost freezing, but what a game. http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070423&content_id=1925959&vkey=news_cws&fext=.jsp&c_id=cws

The next morning we got up and went to the Contemporary Art Museum.  I enjoyed the picture of mass chaos in the middle of one wall.  It had several pictures super-imposed on each other adding to the setting of chaos.  The picture included people in brightly colored suits with computers all over the room.  What else could it be than the Chicago Board of Trade?  A good description of an auction market is organized chaos and the photographer captured it well.  Ever wonder why the traders are in such brightly colored clothes (http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/img_detail.php?id=42), they need to be noticed.  When trading with another individual across the pit, you need to know who you are trading with, the brightly colored clothes assist traders in identifying each other quickly to process trades.  Only a finance professor would focus in on a picture of a stock exchange at the Contemporary Art Museum.  The eighth graders were not as impressed.

It’s always great walking around Chicago and seeing the tremendous amount of building going on in the town.  http://www.earthcam.com/usa/illinois/chicago/  We had fun seeing the city from the Sears tower.  Several new high rises are being built in Chicago are trying to retain the city’s status as the city with the tallest building in the U.S, towering 150 stories. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/20/tallest.building.ap/index.html.

We also visited the Chicago Field Museum, Navy Pier, Planetarium, Shedd’s Aquarium, Bubba Gump’s restaurant, Ed Debivic’s restaurant, and Hard Rock Café.  Ed Debivic’s was an interesting place.  A restaurant with an attitude.  The restaurant is a 50’s style diner where the waiters and waitresses talk back to the visitors.  Not the normal theme for a restaurant, but the kids loved being treated rudely as they placed their orders.

It was a great trip.

Midwest Finance Association Conference

Two weeks ago I went to academic conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The conference was hosted in the downtown convention area.  The weather was pretty good for Minneapolis, but then the buildings are all connected, so you can get just about anywhere in the downtown without leaving the building and its maize of skyways and tunnels.  While at the conference, I also enjoyed a visit to the Mall of America.  But the main part of a conference is not the food or city, it is the paper presentations.

Paper Summary

I presented a paper that measures how companies in the bank and savings and loan industry manage earnings around the time that mutual savings and loans sell stock and convert to a publicly traded stock company.  Our primary hypothesis in the paper is that converting savings and loans have different incentives than most companies that sell stock.  For most companies, the goal of selling stock is to obtain the highest price.  This is because the original owners are selling part of the company at the time of the stock offering.  As the old adage in finance goes, “Buy low, sell high”.  So as a company goes public, most studies show that these companies have a tendency to do what they can to make their stock look as good as possible, one of these techniques is managing earnings, so that the earnings of the company, are as high as possible, allowing the company to hopefully sell at a higher stock price. 

However, converting savings and loans are unique.  We hypothesized that they would have incentives to manage their earnings down, the opposite direction of other traditional companies that go public.  The reason is that management and other owners do not sell stock in the offering, they purchase stock in the offering.  As purchasers of stock they want to buy low.  A mutual savings and loan differs from traditional initial public offerings because the owners of the company are the depositors.  However, the depositors only own a right to purchase the stock at the offering price, they do not actually own shares of the mutual company.  Management also has a right to purchase the company, so their goal may be to sell the company at a lower price.  How low they can set the stock price, is constrained by regulations that state that management is not to obtain excessive returns from taking the company public.  Regulators inspect the financial statements of the company and review the offer price to prevent the company from setting the price too low and potentially reaping too large of gains.  Our findings show that mutual companies that sell stock to become a public corporation do manage their earnings down, and that the returns on the offering date for mutual companies is greater than the returns for other traditional banks that issue stock.  Each of these findings are consistent with mutual firms managing their earnings down more than nonmutuals. 

Midwest Presentation

At the Midwest Finance Association meetings we presented our paper and other people in the audience gave constructive criticisms of the paper.  We are now in the process of taking these suggestions into account and rewriting the paper to reflect participant comments.

From conference to Journal submission

After these items are incorporated into the paper, we will submit the paper to a journal for publication.  Publication in a journal is no simple task.  The very best journal in the finance area have less than a 5% acceptance rate, so publishing in the journal is no small feat.  Even the second tier of journals (that we frequently refer to as A- journals) have acceptance rates around 10%.  One must also make sure that the topic that you are researching is unique.  If another writer has published a similar paper, your paper is not able to be published.  Being scooped in the finance area frequently results in filing the paper in the circular file in your office (trash can).  However, when a paper is published, one can take great pride in the fact that they have met very rigorous standards of publication that few researchers in the industry are able to obtain.

New Major!

It’s been a long process, but I’m proud to announce that we have a new Supply Chain Management (SCM) Major that will be available to our Kelley students starting this Fall, 2007.

Ever wonder what it takes to create a new major?  There are a series of steps that must be covered.  In submitting a proposal for a new major we have to show that students are interested in the new major, that there are job opportunities for students taking the new major, that we have the faculty and staff to cover the additional courses for the new major, that the new major will attract students to IUPUI and enhance the reputation of the Kelley School of Business.  It is no small feat pulling together all of this information.

Here are just a few highlights of the process that I think you will find interesting.

Student Input:
First, student demand was estimated by evaluating our senior exit surveys.  The number one requested new major from our graduating students was supply chain management and operations (both of which this new major should satisfy).  Second was discussion with our advisors to confirm that students frequently ask about supply chain management or operations.  Next was consultation with Tim Bennett, from our placement center, to determine whether employers were interested in this new major.  The answer, currently some of our best paid students are taking positions in the supply chain management area and employers are interested in more students in this area.

Process:
When you consider the process of passing a new major, you get a much better understanding of the interaction between the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses.  The process started with a curriculum proposal from our operations and supply chain management faculty.  At the undergraduate policy committee meeting, several amendments were made to the proposal before passing the SCM major (first level).  Then the SCM proposal was taken to the Indianapolis faculty department.  After a few more amendments to improve the process, the SCM major passed its second level.  From here, it travels to Academic Council which is a group of faculty from the Kelley School on both the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses.  The proposal passed this group without any additional changes (third level).  The proposal then goes before the entire Kelley faculty (on both the Bloomington and Indianapolis campus), for the fifth level.  We’re not quite finished, once it passed the Kelley faculty, the proposal went the campus level.  The Academic Policy and Procedures Committee on the IUPUI campus approved our proposal (sixth level) and the Dean of Faculties stamp of approval (seventh level) was also needed. 

Now the real challenge:
Get the word out!  We have a great new major for Kelley students to consider.  If you are interested in the Supply Chain Management or Operations area, contact an advisor and see what opportunities exist for you.

Below is just a small except from our proposal.  I presume you do not really want to read the full 24-page document

Why the Major is Needed

Today, the global business environment is characterized by unprecedented competitive pressures and sophisticated customers that demand innovative and speedy solutions. Understanding and optimizing business processes is a cornerstone of success in these fast-changing environments.  The ever-increasing expectations of consumers to have lower costs, quicker service, and better products while operating globally has brought the area of Supply Chain Management (SCM) to the forefront of business prominence and practice.  Prior to this revolution, companies concentrated on internal improvements to improve productivity, with less emphasis on the connections between companies. Part of this internal focus was due to the lack of information exchange between companies, but with the advent of Enterprise Resource Planning systems and web-based information tools, companies around the world are taking advantage of the information age to radically alter how they conduct business. For example, IT has been used to automate existing business processes like the release and tracking of orders through the supply chain, all the way from suppliers to manufacturers to customers and back in the other direction.  Wal-Mart is an excellent example of this development.

Globalization has further changed the nature of where companies sell their products – and where they source their components for various products.  Even labor resources are being sourced all over the world for many service-oriented businesses, and at levels other than entry. This latter point is well illustrated in the opening chapter of The World is Flat, by Tom Friedman.  Certainly the development of both China and India has played a big part in this change. All of this has focused management on the need to have supply lines coming from the best sources of all inputs (people, materials, information) all the way through to the customer, no matter where they are in the world. Thus, it is no surprise that there is a need to focus on efficient and effective Supply Chains in order to obtain a competitive advantage.

As a result of these developments, we are witnessing a major revolution in supply chain management.  Corporations around the world are using supply chains to effectively compete in the global marketplace.  This proliferation in SCM not only challenges those in business who practice and provide solutions but also scholars who seek to understand and educate the next generation of practitioners, business leaders and policy makers.  One challenge for educational institutions is to anticipate the increasing demand for supply chain professionals. Companies around the world will increasingly look to institutions of higher education to fill this demand.
The comments from our interviews with local companies are very consistent with Tom Friedman’s observations in The World Is Flat (The World Is Flat, by Thomas L. Friedman, first updated and expanded edition c. 2006, pp. 276-282).

 “…What do we tell our kids?
 My simple answer is this: There will be plenty of good jobs out there in the flat world for people with the right knowledge, skills, ideas, and self-motivation to seize them. … I went to successful flat-world companies around America and asked a simple question: “Obviously you have a lot of good middle-class jobs here.  Who works here and what sorts of things do they do?” … To put it another way, here is what the “Help Wanted” ads look like in the flat world. … Clearly, a lot of new middle jobs will involve collaborating with others or orchestrating collaboration within and between companies, especially those employing diverse workforces from around the world.  So as more and more companies start out, from day one, as global companies with global supply chains, a key new middle job will be that of the manager who can work in and orchestrate 24/7/7 supply chains—which are supply chains that run twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, across seven continents."

Kelley Blog
March 8, 2007

In this blog, I thought I’d tell you a bit about myself. 

Who am I?  Have you ever asked yourself this question? 

Most of us answer with the normal discussion of who we are around or what we do, but down deeper, it is really how do you view the world?

I’ll start our with the basics,

What do I do at Kelley?
I am an Associate Professor of Finance.  I teach F301 Financial Management in the Undergraduate Program, F520 Asset Valuation and Strategy in the evening MBA program, and C540 Financial Management in our Kelley Direct MBA program.  I am also Chair of the Undergraduate Program, which means that I head a committee that looks at the curriculum for our Undergraduate Programs.  This covers the Bachelor of Science in Business, the Minor in Business, and the Certificate in Business.  I also conduct research in finance, with a special interest in financial institutions, like banks and insurance companies.  Fro a copy of my resume, also referred to as a vita in the academic community, visit http://kelley.iupui.edu/default.cfm?ID=335&netid=kcarow

Who’s around me:
I’m married with three children. My wife will tell you that her claim to fame is being from Iowa. She loves helping out in the community as a volunteer. This summer my wife and daughter were part of a mission trip in Guatemala where they helped with a Vacation Bible Class. Next summer they will be heading to El Salvador for a dental and medical mission.  My daughter, Amelia, will celebrate her 16th birthday this month. My sons are Aaron and Joshua. When you view their picture, you’ll think you’re seeing double. They are both 14 years old.

Where am I from?
I consider myself a Midwesterner, having lived in Wisconsin, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Indiana.  I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin; for my senior year of high school, I moved to St. Louis, Missouri.  I got my undergraduate degree at Truman State University in northeast Missouri, received a Ph.D. in Finance at Purdue University, worked at the University of Tulsa for four years and joined the Kelley School of Business in 1997.

What do I like to do?
Our favorite family sport is soccer. I’ll be organizing a spring soccer league in a couple of weeks. Our family also loves camping and hiking.  This past summer we camped traveled out West, visiting Denver, Colorado Springs and the Garden of the Gods, The Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, and Roosevelt National Park.  What glorious sites!  We had a great time white water rafting, canoeing, mountain biking, hiking, and swimming. I love traveling and seeing the sites.

Work is a great part of my life.  My wife will say I bring it home too often, but for me my work is also part of my hobby.  Over the years, I’ve taught courses in corporate finance, capital markets, financial institutions, working capital, and real estate.  My primary research interest is in the deregulation of financial service companies. I am currently writing papers on the impact of financial deregulation on bank customers, the initial public offering of mutual companies seeking to demutualize, and a relatively new corporate form called a mutual holding company. 

What’s my philosophy?
Hard work is rewarded.  My father emphasized this from a very young age.  Put in the effort and great things will happen.  They don’t always happen as quickly as we think they should, but be assured persistence and hard work pay off. 

Try something new.  I relearned this as I lead my boys in Cub Scouts.  Don’t expect to be the best at everything, but give it a try.  Try new things.  The universe is large and ever expanding, giving people the ability to grow beyond anything that we have yet imagined.  These are the innovations of the future.  Ask your grandparents.  Did they ever imagine as a child all the amazing innovations that we have today?  My children can hardly contemplate a world without computers.

Help others.  Life is not about the toys you accumulate or where you go, but who you meet and how you impact the lives of others.  Volunteerism is an important part of life.  Giving to your community and church will return much more than you can ever imagine. 

I hope that we all “Live Long and Prosper”!

Another soccer season ended.  Soccer’s a great game to play.  For the past eight years, I’ve been coaching soccer for my children’s teams.  I have three children.  My daughter is currently a sophomore in High School and I have two boys, both in eighth grade.  Yes, they are twins.  When they are both in their soccer uniforms, even I occasionally have a difficult time telling them apart.  I started coaching soccer when my daughter was in second grade.  It’s been a great deal of fun. 

This last year, I coached a team for my boys’ grade school in the Fall and an indoor team this Winter.  It’s great seeing the kids start to mesh as a team and really trust that the other players will be in their position.  When everything comes together it’s like composing an orchestra. 

At Kelley, my primary undergraduate course is F301 Financial Management, part of the group of classes we call integrated core.  Integrated core combines together three courses, Finance, Marketing and Operations.  The really unique aspect of how we present these classes is that the Core project provides students an opportunity to work with a local company to develop a new product, set up a marketing plan, produce an operating plan, and evaluate the expected financial performance to determine if the company should proceed with the new product offering or not.  It’s one of the unique experiences in Kelley where students not only learn in the classroom and from a textbook, but then apply the concepts to real-world situations.  As teams evaluate the projects they learn many things that can not be learned in a classroom setting. 

As I coached my sons’ soccer game, the struggles the team had to connect reminded me of the Integrated Core project experience that many teams go through.  We had several new players join our soccer team this winter.  

Working in a team to develop a new project is just like working on a soccer team.  As a team member, you wonder whether your teammates will put in the effort needed to succeed.  Will they be in position when you are ready to pass the ball to them?  Or won’t they complete their task and miss the well placed pass to make the goal.  After time, you learn who your fellow team mates are and who you can trust to complete their task on time and be in position to score the goal.  

The hardest part for some team members is delegating, just like convincing the soccer players that passing the ball is more important than the inevitable failed attempt to dribble the ball in toward the goal, ignoring your open teammate.  One person cannot successful win a soccer game, run a business, or complete the Integrated Core project.  When all the team members work together, the team is unstoppable.  Many of the teams that worked together this fall had a semester, the members worked together and were ready for the passes.  Pass, strike, score! 

Every semester, there is usually at least one team with the student hoping to ride on the tails of their teammates.  Every semester, this student finds out the inevitable truth that while the other team members pull together to pick up the slack, they’re not part of the celebration at the end.  It’s a great learning experience, one that happens frequently a work.  Will your co-workers complete their tasks or will you end up picking up the slack.  Ultimately, just as the co-worker is that fails to complete a task is written up for nonperformance and eventually fired or let go, the nonparticipating student is also docked for non-performance.  Ultimately the most successful people are the ones that you can count on to make the pass and position themselves for the next pass.  Pass, strike, goal! 

So how did the boys’ winter soccer season go?  We’ll it wasn’t quite as good as the fall, where we were undefeated in our League and took third place in our regional tournament, but we had a great deal of fun.  It was the first time for this group to play indoor and they learned a great deal.  Eventually, we clawed our way up to third place in the league.  It was great seeing the kids pull together, trust each other, position themselves for the pass, and score.