Interested in Financial Feasibility Studies? Try University of Iowa Tippie College of Business Offers Experiential Finance Career Academy

(University of Iowa Our philosophy is simple: the technologies that will save the planet are being developed, but they’ll only be deployed in sufficient scale to make a difference if they are financially viable. The capstone of the Finance Career Academy is a 16 week project-based course “Putting Finance into Practice” that hones the students’ skills and provides businesses the opportunity to benefit from student consultants trained in the latest finance research and techniques

In the first year, Finance Academy students develop well rounded fundamental business skills by taking courses in all business areas.
Finance Academy students develop specific finance skills by taking:
•Corporate Financial Reporting
•Managerial Finance
•Financial Modeling & Firm Valuation
•Financial Accounting Standards
•Corporate Investment & Financing Decisions

Strategic Business Consulting is a 16-week consulting project facilitated by the Business Solutions Center (BSC). A cross-functional team, works with company execs, faculty, and BSC directors to deliver the final product. This is a student’s first experience as an actual expert consultant, applying technical skills to real business problems.

Solving Real Business Issues for Real Clients
In Putting Finance into Practice, Finance Academy teams execute a hands-on consulting project managed by the Finance Career Academy. Distinctly different from the first-year project, the Finance Academy project focuses on financial expertise. The project delivers value for the client while providing a deliberate experiential learning environment for team members.

Project Expectations
From Clients, we expect:
•Clear objectives with information needed for producing the output
•Periodic contact regarding project questions and progress
•Opportunity to present final work to stakeholders

Clients can expect from us:
•A team of 4-6 students dedicating 8-10 hours each per week for 16 weeks
•Project guidance and oversight by the Finance Academy Directors
•Periodic progress reports and a formal mid-project report
•A final report and presentation of the project output and conclusions
•Confidentiality

If you are interested in providing students with "real world" experience while benefitting from the insights and perspective of the coming generation of leaders; or if you are interested in becoming a student of this program, contact Thomas A. Rietz, Faculty Director, Finance Career Academy, Thomas-Rietz@uiowa.edu

After Spring Break, we moved all 75 sections of finance classes to a virtual format. I am extremely thankful for our fantastic faculty and staff who accomplished this monumental feat. Some classes made the transition in less than 24 hours! In addition, all our summer classes will be virtual. We hope to be back teaching in person this fall, but we are also making contingency plans as no one knows how this situation will evolve.

We are all learning new technologies, new ways of teaching and new ways of staying connected. In addition to virtual teaching, we transitioned to online seminars and research meetings so we can continue advancing the frontiers of knowledge in finance. The faculty published a dozen papers in 2019 and nine so far in 2020. While I miss seeing everyone on the finance team in person, we are managing to stay connected.

As I think of the uncertainty ahead, I am thankful for the encouragement and generous support provided by our alumni and supporters. It is more important now than ever.

Masters Programs: Our Online MBA was off to a great start before COVID-19 and is growing vastly more popular! In addition to an MBA, you can earn a Finance Certificate online. Our Professional and Executive MBA programs have gone virtual, but we hope to be back in live classes by fall. Responding to nationwide testing-service shutdowns, we're suspending the GMAT/GRE requirement for the Iowa Professional MBA and Iowa Online MBA programs for summer and fall 2020 enrollment. We're waiving application fees for nearly all Tippie graduate programs. Click here to see a full list of changes.

Our first regular Master of Finance class graduated in December and left with starting salaries 33% higher than our average undergraduate finance major. This certainly makes it a positive NPV investment! However, the COVID situation means that many summer internships have been pulled. While this is unfortunate, we are seeking projects from our alumni and corporate partners that can provide these students with hands-on real-world experiences that they can share in future interviews. If you would like to explore further, please reach out to Mackenzie DeRoo. She can help you recruit our students for full-time positions in December as well. Finally, if you or someone you know is a good fit for this program, please reach out to Tippie Graduate Recruiting. Yes, there is still time for fall admission for domestic students!

Undergraduate Programs: We continue to have strong undergraduate enrollments, although we don't know what the impact of COVID will be on future enrollments. Currently, we have 685 primary finance majors and 112 secondary finance majors. This totals more than 27% of the total Tippie enrollment in spring 2020 and over 45% of declared majors. Again, many internships have been pulled because of COVID. We are looking for creative ways for our students to gain real-world business experience this summer. If you have ideas, please contact Cathy Zaharis.

Experiential Learning: Hands-on, experiential projects are key to helping our finance students be job-ready at graduation. The Henry, Krause, and Hart Funds continue to provide students with top-notch portfolio management opportunities. As of April 21, the Henry Fund alpha was 6.32% for the year! In January, we added another new student-managed fund: the Charles E. Marberry Asset Allocation Fund. Named after former Finance Department Head Charles Marberry, undergraduate students learn about asset allocation and investment horizons in this fund. Last fall, Masters student teams worked on experiential projects with US Bank and RenewCO2. To discuss sponsoring a project, contact me.

Institutes: The Hawkinson Institute continued with 100% placement. This year, they will have 17 top notch students graduating and 19 next year. Brian Richman can connect you to these outstanding students. The Vaughan Institute, a Global Center of Insurance Excellence, continues to grow with nearly 150 students in the certificate program. If you want to know more about the Vaughan Institute and its students, contact vaughan-resource-center@uiowa.edu.

Involvement: You can make our programs better. We have many opportunities for you to help transform our finance students into the leaders of tomorrow. Consider participating in any of the following ways: