Southern Utah University is the home of the coveted Steven D. Harrop Investment & Service Learning Lab. The Business Finance majors--such as myself--refer to it in short as the "trading lab." We use this lab on a daily basis as six groups of approximately five students manage a portfolio beginning with more than $23,000. Each group sold all of its assets and closed out their accounts last week. I am proud to say that my group made the most money of all the groups and our class made the most money out of any class in the history of this investments program. While the goal of the class is not to make money, it still feels nice to know that we did. The objective of the class is to beat your benchmark (ours was the S&P 500). I am also proud to say that all but one of the groups in our class beat our benchmarks. The task of beating a benchmark is difficult even for well-seasoned portfolio managers. So how were a bunch of junior and senior finance students at such a small university able to do so well? I will tell you why: Dr. Steve Harrop.
Never have I met an individual who cares more about the education of the upcoming generation than Dr. Harrop. SUU is one of the only university I am aware of in which undergraduate students are given the opportunity to invest real money and manage a portfolio of assets. Dr. Harrop personally donates the money students use for the investments course. He only has two rules restricting what assets students are allowed to purchase: no options contracts and no futures contracts. Other than that, students are on their own to apply the investments principles learned in the Investments I portion of the class to invest the money and pass the class by beating their benchmark. I know I speak for the entire class when I say that Dr. Harrop deserves the credit for preparing us to be investors.
Dr. Harrop is dedicated to giving students the opportunity to gain a "hands-on" experience no matter what the monetary costs and time costs are to him. Let's be honest, we all know Dr. Harrop is not teaching at Southern Utah University for the money. He does it because he cares about the students. As a finance major, I am certainly glad he cares so much about the success of our generation because I am now better prepared for my future career. And if he isn't selfless enough by donating $250,000 for the students to use, he then invited us all to his house for a party at the end of the semester and he had an awards ceremony to celebrate the success of our class. So the lesson to be learned here is similar to the movie "Pay It Forward." Dr. Harrop had a very successful career and now he passes his intelligence on to us for our success. Not because he has to, but because he is selfless and truly cares about the education of us finance majors at SUU. As Dr. Harrop would put it, "I'll take off my shirt and show you my scars!" And that he did. He shared his successes and his mistakes with us. After I become successful in my career, I wish to share my experiences with others for their learning benefit as Dr. Harrop has with us. Thank you Dr. Harrop for a great year and your willingness and dedication to teaching us!
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This is a really cool post. I think that people who work in the world of investments are pretty down to earth, at least the ones I have come into contact with. We have a professor here who is similar to the one you have mentioned. He is responsible for getting a Bloomburg machine that is now in our library for use of students who take time time to do the testing to use it. I think that a group of his students are investing 1 mil of real cash in different things. All student run under his leadership. It is crazy. I wish I would have had more time to take advantage of those opportunities. I was more involve in the Entrepreneurship offerings we have. I am really thankful for people who continually share the love.Dr Harrop sounds amazing!
ReplyDeleteDo you remember the course material for that class? I'm interested in learning his ideals but I can't attend his class.
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