TEACHING FINANCE

I have been teaching here at SUNY since 1997. I became full time faculty in 2001. Over the years, I have grown to enjoy teaching more and more and adapted my teaching style to the X, Y and Z generations.

I was educated in France in the 1980s, and relationships with professors then and there were quite formal. No office hours, no contesting the grading, no advocating for more points and no answers to sincere inquiries beyond a large amphitheater setting. Professors were on a pedestal. After going to graduate school here in the US in the 1990s, my experience was that most professors did not have time or in fact set-up the course work so that the attrition rate was high.

Coming to Albany as a teacher was an adjustment. I have learned that it is important to set objectives that can be accomplished by students and prepare the terrain so that what emerges is clarity of expectations and work. I am always willing to extend help, but I do expect some effort in return. I like to challenge my students, and I think overall they would say that I am fair.

I very much enjoy interacting with my students. They are the new blood and the new aspirations for the future. They are confident and fearless, wanting to take on the world. I’m really glad to see over the years that most of them are doing well for themselves in positions of influence on Wall Street or elsewhere in the industry.

At U. at Albany I have taught:

o BFIN 300: Financial Management

o BFIN 301: Corporate Finance

o BFIN 333: Investments

o BFIN 470: Options and other Derivatives

o BFIN 515: Economic Analysis

o BFIN 525: Financial Management

o BFIN 603: Securities Markets and Financial Institutions

My teaching notes and other materials are posted on WebCT. Only students registered in my classes can have access to them. Below I am giving you my recent syllabus for my Investment class and linking you to a couple of instruments I developed in the course of my teaching here.

o Syllabus for my Investments course Fall 04.

o Valuation of Technology Stocks using the Faugère-Shawky Formula, developed for my Investments class.

o The Thinking Managerial Economist’s Grid, developed for my Managerial Economics class.

Painting by Eva Ljungdahl