Henderson State University’s School of Business began the Student Managed Investment Fund, also known as the SMIF, in 2001. The class is designed to give students a real life experience in dealing with the stock market and the process investors must go through when buying, selling, and trading stocks. A donation of $250,000 was given to the SMIF to start the program by Ross Whipple, former CEO of Summit Bank. It began as a one hour class until 2007 when Dr. Frank Smith, the current professor of Finance, reorganized the course and turned it into a three hour class with active undergraduate and MBA level students. Currently, the fund is valued at $314,000 with 94% cash, three active stocks and 33 other stocks that are constantly monitored by the students. The fund is up this year by 24%, which illustrates the success of this program.
Dr. Smith and the students in the Student Managed Investment Fund are working hard to continuously improve the number of participating students in the surrounding high schools and community colleges. We believe that the new program that has been created, the Student Legacy Advancement Program, will bring higher levels of interest to what we are trying to achieve both inside and outside of the classroom. We are opening more opportunities for future students to be a part of Henderson State’s School of Business by presenting our expectations for the class to local businesses who would like to become involved with the SMIF organization. With the help of these sponsors, our goal is to provide interested students with scholarships to join Henderson State and become a part of the School of Business. Through this process, we hope to gain promising students and increasing interest in what our program has to offer.
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