I welcome the opportunity to bring you an update on what the Department of Economics and Finance is accomplishing. I hope that it will motivate you to contact one of us to have further conversation.
Despite the obvious fiscal challenges, the department delivers high-quality education and continues to expand into new areas. Our latest innovation falls in the area of real estate. While the department always meant to establish a curricular presence in this important asset class, it was not possible for a variety of reasons. Recently, we identified an alumna from SIUE’s MBA program, Ms. Susan Carroll Bailey, to offer a course in real estate finance and investments. The class was immediately filled to capacity with eager students, and we look forward to expanding this and other professional practice areas. Ms. Bailey has spent decades in leadership positions in commercial lending and real estate, and students greatly benefit from her practice-oriented instruction, and she greatly enjoys sharing her financial and real estate acumen with eager young minds.
Our alumni and their collective experience are a great resource to us, and we would be remiss to squander that. Therefore, I urge you to keep in touch and reach out through email or a call to one of your professors. Of course, the opportunity to engage is open in many forms – visiting as a guest speaker, teaching a practice-oriented course in the field of your specialization, attending one of the events where we put alumni and students together (etiquette dinner, held once each semester). For example, Nikola Bundalo and Ryan Price, graduates of our MS program in ECON/FIN, are presently teaching finance and management science courses and bringing their industry expertise to the classroom. We also enjoyed hosting another MS graduate in ECON/FIN, Mark Webster at the etiquette dinner where he shared his industry experience and advice with business students.
So, just let us know that you are interested and we shall try to match your interests with an experience. You can always reach me at rbharat@siue.edu.
Rakesh Bharati, Professor of FinanceChair, Economics & Finance Department
