College of William and Mary Turns to Rise Display for Trading Room’s Wall Street Simulation
Posted on Wed, February 17, 2010
John Merrick, Richard S. Reynolds associate professor of business at the College of William and Mary’s Mason School of Business, has had a diverse career in both academics and Wall Street. That was why, when he first came to the university in 2005, he was asked to provide a vision for how the school’s proposed Acuff Financial Markets Center could be developed.
“I had had some experience teaching in a trading room,” says Professor Merrick, “and wanted a room that would serve as a financial market lab and, at the same time, and really foremost, as a superior, technology-enhanced lecture space. I think that’s the difference in our room versus other layouts that I’ve seen: It is first and foremost a superior lecture space.”
The Acuff Financial Markets Center now holds both undergraduate and MBA finance classes. In addition, the Center houses the school’s student-run Batten Investment Fund. To simulate a live markets environment, the room incorporates nine Bloomberg terminals—the leading professional system to monitor and analyze financial market data—among its thirty-six student workstations, as well as eleven state-of-the-art LCDs, provided by Rise Display.
“I knew that Rise Display was the premium provider of these displays because I saw how things had worked out at Baruch College, where I formerly taught,” Professor Merrick explains. “I had also caught up with Rise at an academic conference . . . so I introduced them to our building team . . . to see if they concurred.”
They did, and the results of the installation, says Professor Merrick, have been phenomenal.
“In terms of teaching in that room, what you end up with is a very exciting environment,” he says. “You’re getting [students] to work in an environment of routine visual distraction . . . where they have to learn how to absorb what’s coming in and only be attracted by the important stuff, rather than distracted by the changing displays. The second part of the benefits,” Professor Merrick adds, “is being able to put data into our playlist that’s relevant for the topics we’re teaching that day.”
Among the information presented on the nine LCDs lining one side wall, and the two LCDs flanking the front of the room, are CNBC feeds, a news ticker, stock prices, money market rates, bond yields, foreign exchange rates, commodity prices and historical stock and bond market graphs.
“Everybody loves the digital displays,” says Professor Merrick. “Not only our students, but our alumni who come back, especially those who are connected to Wall Street, are duly impressed. Some of our more recent alumni are a little bit jealous,” he adds with a laugh. “They wish they had had these facilities when they were here.”
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