Chapman University in Orange is launching a financial trading center for its undergraduate and graduate programs and developing a curriculum to take advantage of the new resources.
The trading center, slated to open early October, will take up the second floor of Beckman Hall. The estimated total cost for the construction is $400,000, according to the school.
The center will house a main instructional classroom and a conference room, “with real-time financial information and state-of-the-art financial analysis technology,” said Jack Broughton, associate professor at Chapman’s George L. Argyros School of Business and Economics and the director at the school’s C. Larry Hoag Center for Real Estate and Finance.
The center will have a dozen Bloomberg terminals such as those used in private industries by financial analysts, portfolio man- agers and corporate financial managers.
Graduates with Bloomberg-terminal experience “will enjoy a significant advantage in the job market,” Broughton said.
Some 76 feet of full-color LED stock tickers will wrap around the outside of the center. The facility will be used as a classroom for investments and portfolio management courses, as well as a lab for students running a $1 million student-managed investment fund.
Interest income from the fund will help pay for construction of the financial center.
The trading facility will be named Janes Financial Center after David Janes, who has made contributions to the project.
Janes is chairman of Irvine-based Janes Capital Partners, a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm he founded in 1997. The firm primarily serves the aerospace and defense industry.
Janes served as chief executive of California Manufacturing Enterprises prior to launching the advisory firm.
He is vice chairman of the board of trustees at Chapman. He also sits on the board of regents as vice chairman at Brandman University, an Irvine campus that sprouted from Chapman and remains in its overall system while operating as an independent school.
Augments Classrooms
Reginald Gilyard, the recently arrived dean at the Argyros School, said the new trading facility will augment the classroom work of students.
“Students will get valuable hands-on experience with the tools used by investment professionals,” Gilyard said.
The dean added that he plans to boost students’ ability to “immediately contribute value and impact” in the business community after coming out of school.
“It’s one of my goals, to hear that Chapman grads hit the ground running,” he said.
Gilyard succeeds Arthur Kraft, who retired as dean after six years in the job.
Gilyard comes from the Los Angeles office of Boston-based Boston Consulting Group, where he has served as a partner and managing director.
He spent the earlier part of his career at Boston Consulting with media and retail businesses and made a shift to education-based work. Gilyard led the firm’s education practice in the U.S., with a focus on nonprofits, and continues as a senior advisor to Boston Consulting.
Gilyard is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.
