Photo of New College Assistant Professor Sherry Yu

New College has worked hard to better prepare our students for post-graduation success by augmenting our liberal arts and science program with practical, career-focused programs that also teach real-world skills.

These efforts are clearly paying off. 

This past year, for example, we added two new certificate programs in finance. On April 8, a team of students from the programs participated in the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) Society Tampa Bay 2021 Ethics Invitational—a prestigious virtual competition designed to increase students’ awareness of the ethical dilemmas they may face as investment management professionals.

New College’s four-student team won “Best Analysis” (akin to second place), demonstrating their aptitude for evaluating complex ethics cases in the business, finance and investment arenas.   

“We are very excited and super proud to have participated in this event,” says New College Associate Professor of Economics Sherry Yu, Ph.D., who served as the team’s faculty adviser and was instrumental in their success. “I was able to recruit a group of enthusiastic students, with a variety of backgrounds and expertise, to compete.”

In March 2020, Yu set up an official university affiliation for New College with the CFA Institute—a professional association for investment management professionals with the highest level of international legal and regulatory recognition of finance-related qualifications. The affiliation allows New College students to more easily pursue careers in the financial industry.

It also provides New College students with free access to all three levels of the CFA Program curriculum eBook, the sample exams for each level, and invitations to CFA Tampa Bay seminars and events like the recent Invitational.

New College thesis student Agnes Bartha was the team leader at the April 8 event, 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, the University of Florida, the University of Miami and the University of South Florida.

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 FGCU, UF, USF and UM were all business school students, with a mixed combination of both undergraduate and graduate students. As a first-time contestant, New College was disadvantaged to begin with—with no business program, no designated CFA ethics courses and no graduate students,” says 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 received a trophy to honor their hard work.

“The award also reflects our liberal arts students’ superior knowledge on business ethics, which usually isn’t emphasized in formal business school programs,” Yu says. “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,” says 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.”

In addition to the CFA affiliation, New College offers a certificate program in Bloomberg Market Concepts, which gives students a visual introduction to financial markets and the core functionality of the Bloomberg terminal.

These two offerings help New College students stand out from their peers, signaling how well they will do in the ever more competitive workforce.

Dr. Donal O’Shea is president of New College of Florida.

Photo of New College Assistant Professor Sherry Yu