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Showing posts from 2011

Fly Away, Little One. Be Free!

It's been a good couple of days: Yesterday, we just got a very good sized check from the IRS (we'd let some things slide when the Unknown Son was sick, and finally got things straightened out a few months ago. about a half-hour ago, I submitted a paper to a journal (not a top-tier one, but a decent one). It's been about 4 years since we started it. So now, it's off my desk. I just got an email that my new 43-inch flat-panel TV is available for pickup from Best Buy. All in all, a nice way to close out the year. Now I just have to get the TV set up in time to watch the Lesnar/Overeem MMA fight on Friday.

The Semester Goes Out Not With a Bang, But With a Whimper

I was just commenting to the Unknown Wife how this semester was ending going so well compared to previous ones - my student managed investment fund presentation was done a day earlier than usual, my principles class was ahead of schedule, and my exams were at the beginning of exam period rather than near the end. I should have known - never say things like that. Even in jest. It angers Academia - the patron goddess of all professors (also known as "she who makes professors' work go pear-shaped at the worst possible time") So, what happens? I was cutting and pasting items from the grades spreadsheet for my principles class (it has four components, all on separate tabs of the worksheet). Somehow, I not only deleted the grades for all three exams, I copied the sheet to a file name that overwrote the backup (I always save the spreadsheet to a new file name after each update). After searching for over an hour, I finally found an email backup copy I'd made that had ev

Congresscritters Aren't Like The Rest Of Us

This last few weeks, we've heard a lot about research conducted by Ziobrowski et. al. (see here and here ) on the possibility of informed trading by Senators and Congressmen. Based on abnormal returns earned on their portfolios, it appears that they do use their "inside information" in ways that would be illegal for those not in government service. In case you haven't seen it, here's the 60 Minutes story that brought Ziobrowski's research into the public eye: Now here's another fun fact - Congresscritters not only get to profit from material nonpublic information, they also get to reveal it to select parties too. It seems like a number of hedge funds regularly meet with members of congress to get fast track access to this information. Here's a video from the Wall Street Journal for your viewing pleasure. And here I though our elected officials were pure of heart and above approach (sorry - I think I shouldn't have changed my meds without d

My Favorite Quotes About Teaching – Number Three

As my friends will tell you (or my wife, for that matter), I’m not a terribly modest person. It is a fault of which I am aware. So, I am a bit embarrassed by my third favorite quotation about teaching because it comes from, well, me. Yes, I am quoting myself. But, in truth, it is a quote that I like. And, it is a quote that I genuinely believe can help make any person a better classroom teacher. I was reminded of this yesterday in two emails that I received from former students. This past semester, I worked with 65 students and 11 of them earned the grade of A. As I mentioned in a recent blog entry, I wrote each of those 11 to pass along my congratulations and to ask them to write a short essay on how they earned that A, an essay that I will pass along as guidance to my class in the spring. Yesterday, two of those students separately mentioned my tendency in class to throw out random questions and then direct them to “figure it out.” (They both said something like “when

Stuck In Grading

Ah, all classes are done, and my finals have been taken. Unfortunately, I had a rather large group in my principles class, and they had a long final - 73 students and a final with 25 multiple choice questions(concepts and definitions) and 21 problems. I'm currently on problem 11, so I still have about 730 "student-problems) to grade (about 5-6 hours of work). Then the grumbling by the students starts. I've already had one email me to complain that "my tests didn't assess the students' learning properly" - within a day of the exam. But even with all that, this still beats any other job I can imagine.

My Favorite Quotes About Teaching – Number Two

In 1980, I started writing my Advanced Accounting textbook. I was so young and innocent that I really didn’t understand that writing a textbook by myself of that size and complexity was almost impossible. However, after 3-4 years of intense writing (I remember one Christmas day when I sat typing on my little blue portable typewriter trying desperately to finish the project before it was out of date), I managed to complete the book. Several editions later, I added two wonderful co-authors and the book is now going into its 11th edition as the market leader. When I finished the first edition of this textbook, I wanted to add a quote at the beginning to put forth my feeling about textbooks and education in general. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find a quote that I liked. I was about ready to give up on the quest. One day I went to get my hair cut and was talking to the young woman who was cutting my hair. I told her about my search for the perfect quote and she casually r

A Real Loss

The world of education lost a truly wonderful teacher this past week. I had only known Tom Hindelang for a year or so but I cannot remember meeting another person who so loved teaching. He truly understood the power and importance of education and my life is better for having had the opportunity just to be around his enormous enthusiasm. You could not talk with Tom for long without getting excited yourself and wanting to be a better teacher. This article gives you a sense of this man and his love for students. He was truly a wonderful human being. https://www.lebow.drexel.edu/hindelang

Winding Down The Semester at Unknown University

It's Saturday afternoon, and I'm in my office writing final exams while the rest of the Unknown Family is one state away at a nephew's birthday part. So that means it must be the end of the semester. I have one day of classes left and two exams to give - one in my principles class and one for my student-managed investment fund class. and both exams are well on the way to being written. So, I'm in better shape than I have been at the end of the semester than in a while (I'm usually doing the mad scramble for the finish line). I figure another day's work on the exams and a couple of days grading, and I'm done until the next crop comes in. It's been a good semester. My principles class went better than it's gone in a long time. I always try to give my students their money's worth, and push them significantly harder than in the other sections of the class. In prior semesters, they'd griped about this to the Powers That Be. This semester

Occupy Wall Street: Campus Version

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Up until recently, Occupy Wall Street was a movement actually contained to the firms against which it protested. They occupied the literal Wall Street as well as other financial buildings scattered across New York City. However, as the movement as grown, it has taken on an interesting form. It has spread to college campuses across the nation, first beginning as a protest against tuition hikes and student debt, and finally spilling into the conference rooms where firms were holding their information sessions. Those of who study finance and economics at the Stern School of Business, along with our fellow peers in CAS who have similar aspirations, are most likely already entrenched in the recruitment process. Most firms who recruit at NYU have held their fall information sessions and applications will be soon be due. However, as we ready ourselves for the upcoming interviews and networking sessions, many other campuses are fighting this very process. Most recentl

The Right of First Refusal

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The Right of First Refusal The number of Yahoo bidders continues to grow every day, but the number of options Yahoo can realistically choose from has become limited. The most important case has come with Alibaba, the Chinese internet-based series of businesses. Yahoo faces the challenge of maintaining its 43% stake in the Internet giant while still being acquired- if it accepts any bid, it may lose the stake entirely. The multi-billion dollar stake is considered highly valuable, especially for Yahoo, as it provides a gateway into China’s growing Internet market. When Yahoo bought its stake in Alibaba, there was an agreed contract with the “right of first refusal” attached. Alibaba, protecting itself, had injected the clause in order to guarantee it controlled its own shares if Yahoo decided to sell them or the company was bought over entirely. Specifically, the right of first refusal has permitted Alibaba to repurchase the shares should Yahoo “transfer” them to an