Securities Analysis Center Names Director
Students will benefit from director's industry and international experience.
The Securities Analysis Center at the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon welcomes Ben J. Salm as its first managing director. Salm assumed his new role on January 22.
The center offers students a unique perspective on the securities industry with a curriculum that emphasizes both finance and accounting, exposes students to valuable experiential learning, and capitalizes on faculty excellence in research.
According to Lundquist College of Business Dean James C. Bean, Salm is well-suited to be the first managing director of the Securities Analysis Center, a new specialization program that will launch this fall.
"Ben brings vast real-world experience and insight to this exciting new program," said Bean. "He has first-hand knowledge of and an abiding passion for the international investment industry, and he understands what it takes to succeed in the field."
Salm has more than fifteen years of experience in investment research and portfolio management. Most recently, he founded Blue River Capital, an investment advising and consultancy firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The firm serves established money managers, small business owners, and individuals, specializing in investment management and research for clients throughout the United States.
Salm says he's looking forward to launching the new Securities Analysis Center as the next chapter of his successful career. He adds that his industry background, overseas experience and his own graduate studies allow him to understand the needs of the center's constituents, including students, faculty, employers and industry partners.
"This is an important opportunity to contribute my experience towards what will be an outstanding education for our finance and accounting students, encouraging them to add to the growing investment industry in Oregon," said Salm. "There is tremendous potential and support here at the university and it will be gratifying to guide one of only a handful of such programs in the country."
Salm earned his bachelor's degree in business and computer science at the University of Oregon in 1984 and a master's degree in applied economics and finance from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. Before founding Blue River Capital, he was vice president with State Street Global Advisors in Boston and London. While there, he was responsible for managing a $4 billion investment portfolio on behalf of European and Middle Eastern investors, as well as overseeing the associated client service, research and new product development.
Salm says the Securities Analysis Center is receiving tremendous support from industry partners in the Northwest--especially Portland--as well as the East Coast and California. He notes that he and Securities Analysis Center faculty are putting the finishing touches on a refined curriculum that reflects a sharp focus on the securities market in the U.S. and abroad. Two new faculty appointments are expected in the Lundquist College of Business's Department of Finance to help support the center.
For more information about the Securities Analysis Center see, http://lcb.uoregon.edu/sac.
Marketing Department Ranked Among Best
A national study of scholarly productivity puts Lundquist College of Business marketing faculty in elite company.
The Department of Marketing at the University of Oregon's Charles H. Lundquist College of Business is ranked eighth for scholarly productivity among U.S. universities, according to a recent study. In addition, the Lundquist College's marketing department is the only West Coast program listed among the top-ranked schools.
Academic Analytics, Inc., a company owned in part by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, compares the productivity of faculty in Ph.D. programs of research universities using as many as five factors: books published, journal articles published, the number of citations by other scholars in journal articles, federally awarded grants, and honors and awards. The resulting Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, published at the end of 2007, compiles institutional rankings of 375 public and private universities after assigning a weight to each factor and plugging those factors into an algorithm.
The Lundquist College's marketing department was compared with departments that had as many as three times the number of faculty members, yet it rated highest for number of books published per faculty member and in the top five for faculty citations by other scholars.
Professor Dennis Howard, Philip H. Knight Professor of Business and the department head, said the index demonstrates the collective impact Lundquist College marketing faculty have had on the marketing discipline overall--but especially in the area of consumer behavior.
"We've amassed this reputation of being a place where cutting-edge research of consumer behavior is occurring, and we have had that tradition for the better part of fifteen to twenty years," said Howard. "Our faculty has been accorded great stature in the marketing field because of a wellspring of significant research that others in our discipline are using in support of their research programs."
In figuring the index, Academic Analytics rated more than 164,000 faculty members for, among other things, their contributions to journal articles between 2004 and 2006 and for citation counts in the period 2003 to 2006. The company uses Scopus, an abstract-and-citation database that covers more than 15,000 peer-reviewed journals.
The Lundquist College's marketing department was in distinguished company in the rankings. Ranked among the top seven were prestigious business schools, including University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), Northwestern University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Texas-Austin, and New York University.
The Business Side of Intercollegiate Athletics
Gift creates a unique executive education program to train current or aspiring university athletic directors.
University of Oregon Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny and his wife Stephanie have made a significant investment in the Lundquist College of Business's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center that will have ripples throughout NCAA athletics.
The Kilkennys made an outright gift of $500,000 to establish a new education and research initiative on intercollegiate athletics that will be operated by the Warsaw Center in partnership with the School of Journalism and Communication and the UO athletic department. The key feature of the initiative will be a unique executive education program to train current or aspiring university athletic directors in business and communication skills needed to lead a college athletics program.
"Stephanie and I talked a lot about the great things the University of Oregon is doing. We found some opportunities to make a real difference. And we wanted to send a message that 'student' comes first in 'student athlete,'" said Kilkenny.
"This gift shows the Kilkennys' commitment to the academic as well as the athletic side of the university," said Charles H. Lundquist College of Business Dean James Bean. "It will enhance our reputation as a leader in sports business and it will strengthen our relationship with both the School of Journalism and Communication and athletics.
"It will be a symbiotic relationship between athletics and academics," added Bean. "We offer our research, and they provide the data, internships, and programs that allow us to use different sports programs as living laboratories."
Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center, said the new athletic director education program will feature short courses and workshops covering all aspects of leading a major college athletic department--from sponsorship deals to community relations.Ultimately, the program will generate tuition revenue to support a variety of programs at the internationally recognized center. It will also benefit students and teachers, said Swangard. Faculty members will conduct sports-related research projects, and students will learn through internships and hands-on projects.
"This is Oregon," noted Swangard. "Sports is in our DNA. This will help turn the athletic department into the ultimate learning lab. Students and faculty will see immediate benefit, and we hope in the long-term that the UO will become the training ground for the future leaders of collegiate athletics."
The gift is part of an overall $1 million donation to the University of Oregon. Of the remaining half million of the gift, $460,000 will establish a new interdisciplinary program housed in the law school that will promote sports as a healthy alternative to conflict and as a vehicle to teach dispute resolution skills. Another $27,500 constitutes the first private donation for PathwayOregon, a new scholarship initiative guaranteeing that qualified Oregonians from lower income families can attend the UO tuition-free. The final $12,500 goes to a fund established by the university's athletics coaches to support UO libraries.