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The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model that can be used to help students learn the investment analysis process and accurately identify good and bad investment opportunities.

The model tested in this research was developed by a former member of the student managed investment fund Coyote Capital Management at the University of South Dakota. The goal of this project was to refine that original model and test it using historical data from a sample of companies during both bull and bear market periods.

During the bull market period (2004‐2006), 81 per cent of the model's recommendations were correct, and during the 2007‐2009 bear market period, approximately 66 per cent of the model's recommends were correct.

While following the model's recommendations could potentially produce returns well above those of the market in the best case scenario and returns in line with the market in the worst case scenario, there are many factors that should go into making an investment decision. This model can be useful as an item in the investor's tool kit, and it has the potential to help students better understand the process of evaluating an investment opportunity.

This paper aims to provide students with a career edge, business students require more than concepts and calculations to be successful in their future career. They require professional skill sets, mentors, relationship guides and as much real industry experience as they can gather before graduation. This study sheds some light on how a small business school (SBS) in a nonprofit private academic institution (NPAI) located in an isolated rural area of the USA has been able to tap its strong alumni relationships to provide mentoring and experiential learning opportunities to students using its student-managed investment funds (SMIFs) as the vehicle. Although this study uses a small, geographically isolated institution, the authors believe that the approach taken by this particular school can be replicated by any academic institution that strives to enhance student learning experience by promoting mentorship and experiential learning.

This study starts with a brief introduction (Section 1) and a short review of literature (Section 2) to highlight the numerous benefits of alumni engagement and student mentorship. Section 2 shows institutional background on the NPAI, the SBS and the SMIF. The major part of the study starts with a discussion on the set of rules to guide in the construction of a student-alumni relationship framework that could be easily modified to the unique characteristics of the institution. Next, the role and responsibility of the investment advisory board (IAB) and its members’ engagement with students are discussed. In the last part of the study, SBS is used as a case study to show how alumni contribute to SBS and enhance students’ experiential learning by contributing as mentor, IAB member, advisors to the FMIF and career mentorship. This study concludes with a discussion on potential areas of conflict and friction for alumni involvement.

This study shows that SBS in a NPAI has been able to tap its strong alumni relationship to provide mentoring and experiential learning opportunities to students using its SMIF as the vehicle. The authors believe that the approach taken by this particular school can be replicated by any academic institution that strives to promote mentorship and experiential learning.

This case study is focused on a SBS in a NPAI that has a strong alumni relationship and enough resources to successfully tap on its alumni. It would be interesting to learn how this approach can be used in resource-limited public institutions.

As the case study shows, any business school that values experiential learning can rely on its alumni to enhance student learning experience by properly using its alumni resources.

The results of this study show that business schools’ outreach opportunities and student experiential learning experience can be enhanced and business schools’ academic qualification and ranking, which leads to improvement in student enrollment, can be improved. Overall, the major beneficiary would be the business schools’ immediate and larger community.

The authors are positive that multiple universities are properly taking advantage of using their alumni relationship.

The creation and formation of a student managed investment fund (SMIF) is a risky proposition for all stakeholders involved in the process. These risks include reputational risks for the individuals involved, fiduciary risks for the school’s Board of Trustees and monetary risks for the university itself. The purpose of this paper is to explain and detail how these risks can be mitigated through specific oversight committee (OC) construction, distributional/benchmarking requirements for the fund and detailed trading rules (exit points, short sale constraints, loss provisions, etc.) for fund managers, which can all be codified in the bylaws of the SMIF.

This investigation is done through a specific case study – the 2017/2018 formation of the George Mason University SMIF. As head of the OC for the fund and lead architect in the creation of the fund for the GMU faculty, the statements below come from firsthand accounts of dealing with all parties of interest and firsthand knowledge of the year-long process of managing all risks, which culminated in being granted endowment capital from the Board of Trustees to officially begin the SMIF on May 1, 2018.

First, this paper details how a complete investment policy statement can be used to mitigate the fears and concerns of all parties that have a fiduciary duty to the university’s endowment (which the students will now be partially managing). These bylaws include statements on the risk characteristics of the fund, distributions back to the endowment, oversight features and benchmarking. Next, written into the bylaws of the fund can be several benchmarking and distributional requirements to mitigate the risk exposure of the SMIF’s holdings. Finally, aside from benchmarking constraints, another successful risk management technique can be rules written directly into the investment policy statement that define exit points, tracking error, short sale constraints and other rules for trading.

This paper offers a roadmap by which these risks can be mitigated through the content of an investment policy statement/bylaws. The author details several techniques that eventually led to all stakeholders at GMU in signing off on the formation of an SMIF, and endowment capital being given to the fund as a seed investment. This is a firsthand account of this process and the author has not seen it documented in the literature anywhere else.

Student Managed Funds (SMFs) are extremely popular investment programs at many colleges and universities that provide their students with experiential learning opportunities to manage real money. However, the size, scope and specific features of these SMFs differ substantially. The purpose of this paper is to deliberate about a panel discussion on several important SMF issues that took place at the Southern Finance Association conference in November, 2016.

The panel includes one moderator and four panelists, all of whom serve as SMF faculty directors at their respective schools.

The panelists’ answers show that almost no two SMFs are created the same, supervised the same way by different faculty directors or managed the same way by their respective students.

The panelists provide insight about their respective SMFs and offer advice on how to create SMFs and how to supervise students managing SMFs in a more effective manner.

The purpose of this study is to develop an investment strategy designed both to enable student‐managed investment fund (SMIF) students to more quickly build out their portfolio at the beginning of the academic year and to give them some exposure to quantitative approaches to investment management.

This study uses data and software that would be readily available to typical SMIF students to develop both an asset‐allocation model and a security‐selection model that can be described as a long‐flat (or synthetic protective put) equity strategy with a momentum‐based style‐rotation overlay.

Over the time period since the requisite style‐based ETFs began trading, the composite strategy would have outperformed the S&P 500 index during both market downturns and market upturns, providing better than market returns at lower than market levels of risk.

The key innovation of this paper is the development of a quantitative investment strategy tailored specifically to meet both the educational and the portfolio management needs of SMIF students; a secondary innovation is the demonstration of the efficacy of a style‐rotation strategy, in contrast to the more typical sector/industry‐rotation type of strategy.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest best practices for managing a successful student-managed investment program (SMIP) based on the experience of the Marquette University’s Applied Investment Management (AIM) program.

The authors provide a detailed description of the program curriculum, instructional design, fund structure, program history, fund performance and student outcomes.

Through its experiential learning innovations, focus on ethics and close relationships with a dedicated alumni group, the AIM program prepares students for a successful career in investment analysis. Students who graduate from the AIM program experience a significantly higher successful placement rate and higher compensation at their first post-graduation job than finance major students who graduate outside the program.

This paper provides a detailed description of the distinguishing characteristics of the AIM program and, in doing so, it offers ideas that could be implemented by other SMIPs to improve student satisfaction, proficiency in investment analysis and employment prospects.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the differences present in student-managed investment funds (SMIF).

The paper uses primary data collected by survey and interviews.

The findings of this paper suggest that research efforts need to be focused on the topical area and transparency in the field needs to be improved.

Past research is validated and future research is needed.

The need to develop and disseminate best practices in the management of SMIF’s.

Student-managed funds are widespread and growing but operate as independent entities.

The paper is original and based on primary research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a detailed framework of goals, processes and solutions that can serve as a starting point for instructors in designing their own student-managed investment fund (SMIF) course experience that is relevant for all undergraduate business majors.

The design is suitable for a wide audience without prior equity investment expertise, lead to equity portfolio management competency and concentrate heavily on the understanding of the elements of a competitive business model. One noteworthy aspect of the proposed pedagogy is that it does not require a text, uses only real-world resources and is flexible in its execution.

The proposed pedagogy has achieved long-term success by consistently exceeding performance expectations.

According to the extant literature, many SMIFs are restricted to only a few students, develop skills unevenly across class participants, or are not formally organized or executed. There is a lack of in-depth and specific resources available in the extant literature to assist course designers in an SMIF design and execution. This manuscript fills this void by providing a detailed framework of goals, processes and solutions that can serve as a starting point for instructors in designing their own SMIF course experience.

The James Fund at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management is a small, recently established, course-driven student-managed investment fund (SMIF). The purpose of this paper is to provide insight to new and existing funds in improving individual fund operation and structure.

The James Fund seeks to outperform an 80/20 equity/fixed income benchmark by investing exclusively in exchange traded funds and to move primary emphasis away from idiosyncratic risk and individual equity valuation back toward asset allocation, the most significant driver of portfolio performance. Buy and sell decisions must receive a three-fifths majority in voting among students and adhere with the investment policy statement.

Groupthink, a common problem in student-managed funds, is observed in trade proposal and manager voting patterns.

Groupthink is partially addressed through the use of instructor feedback on individual student trade diaries. Student managers transition each semester; therefore, the portfolio must meet dormant period criteria limited to a specific list of broadly diversified ETFs, mitigating potential problems from knowledge transfer between management teams that are largely unexamined in the context of SMIFs.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how a student-managed investment fund (SMIF) moved from an idea to an operational program over the period of a year at Memorial University in Newfoundland, Canada. The aim is to provide insight to other institutions on how to build capacity when developing their own SMIF.

I summarize the choices made with respect to funding source, governance structure, faculty involvement, recruitment, investment activities and integration into curriculum.

Underlying these choices were challenges pertaining to capacity, student competencies, the existing finance program and ties to industry. Through the development of the SMIF, efforts ensured that capacity was suitably developed in each of these areas.

This paper provides insight to other institutions on how to build capacity while developing their own SMIF.

This account provides the field with a unique perspective. It is written following a year spent developing a SMIF that is about to launch.

This account provides the field with a unique perspective. It is written by a new faculty member following a year spent developing a SMIF that is about to launch.