Showcasing their aptitude for evaluating complex ethics cases—all related to the business, finance and investment arenas—four New College students scored high in a prestigious Florida competition last week.
Their team won “Best Analysis” (akin to second place) at the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Society Tampa Bay 2021 Ethics Invitational on April 8—a virtual event designed to increase students’ awareness of the ethical dilemmas they may face as investment management professionals.
“We are very excited and super proud to have participated in this event,” said New College Associate Professor of Economics Sherry Yu, Ph.D., who served as the team’s faculty adviser. “I was able to recruit a group of enthusiastic students, with a variety of backgrounds and expertise, to compete.”
New College thesis student Agnes Bartha was the team leader, joined by thesis student Connor Rupp, third-year Jacob Adkins and first-year Justin Barbour. They went up against students at four other Florida schools: Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU), the University of Florida (UF), the University of Miami (UM) and the University of South Florida (USF).
Student teams from each institution were given an ethics case to analyze and then asked to make recommendations in 8-to-10-minute video presentations. The judges based their decisions on the quality of the team’s understanding of the ethical issues involved, as well as the quality of their analyses, their recommendations and their presentations.
“The participants from UF, USF, FGCU and UM are all business school students, with a mixed combination of both undergraduate and graduate students. As a first-time contestant, New College was placed at a disadvantage to begin with—with no business program, no designated CFA ethics courses and no graduate students,” said Yu, adding that New College was also invited to the 2020 competition but the event was canceled due to the pandemic. “The four team members from New College were able to meet quickly and analyze the competition case in great detail, and they prepared the required video presentation within 10 days.”
Each of the students won a $100 gift card for their “Best Analysis” award, and New College will receive a trophy to display their hard work.
“As students from a liberal arts program, this award also represents our students’ superior knowledge on business ethics, which usually isn’t emphasized in formal business school programs,” Yu said. “Despite the disadvantages, our students did not shy away from the time constraint and peer pressure. I’m super proud of their accomplishment and aim to compete every year.”
On behalf of her team, Bartha is thrilled to have won.
“It is a real honor to win ‘Best Analysis’ at this competition, seeing as all schools we competed against had dedicated finance departments and majors, which would have surely given them a leg up in their performance,” said Bartha, expressing gratitude for Yu and industry mentor Gail Neujahr. “As a team, we also agree with the competition’s outcome as to who deserved the ‘Most Creative,’ ‘Best Recommendation’ and ‘Best Analysis.’ It was a pleasure to work with my team at New College.”
And New College’s CFA connection has been rapidly growing since March 2020, when Yu secured an official university affiliation with the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Institute. The CFA is a professional association for investment management professionals, and it has the highest level of international legal and regulatory recognition of finance-related qualifications. The CFA affiliation is significant for New College because it allows students to more easily pursue careers in the financial industry.
More CFA-related events and competitions are undoubtedly in New College’s future.
Abby Weingarten is the senior editor in the Office of Communications & Marketing.