The Rollins MBA: Providing A Hands-On Approach to MBA Education

And, in order to ensure that it creates those highly successful managers and leaders, the Crummer School believes that in addition to the textbook and classroom experiences, students need hands-on opportunities to put the theories to work. Two key areas the Crummer School enhances their curriculum is with the Global Research and Study Projects or GRASP trips and the Crummer/SunTrust Investment Portfolio.

Students GRASP the global marketplace

In today’s fast-paced, highly-connected, global business environment, many more opportunities exist than ever before. Studying the effects of cultural influences on business is one thing, but seeing them in action is another. Students from all four of the school’s programs have the opportunity to gain multidimensional understanding of cultural issues from the international study trip which is integrated into the curriculum and included in tuition for the Crummer School’s Early Advantage, Corporate and Saturday MBA programs and available as an elective in the Professional MBA program.
The GRASP trip provides opportunities to meet one-on-one with executives of multinational corporations in countries such as England, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, China and Japan. These international learning assignments require students to apply course concepts, teamwork and critical-thinking skills.

“The international study projects are often the most popular part of the MBA program,” said Craig McAllaster, dean of the Crummer School. “Beyond the obvious impact on the student’s experience, there is the added value of helping Central Florida companies grow and become international businesses.”

“Our class trip to Eastern Europe widened my perspective of the global marketplace. My team had an unique opportunity to conduct a market analysis for PriceWaterhouseCoopers Slovakia. You can read about globalization in a textbook, but there’s nothing like traveling overseas to bring it to life,” said Lauren Herder, ‘06MBA.

After graduating, alumni, such as Carl Williams, put their international experiences from the program to work in many different ways. Williams’ career with one of the area’s most prominent companies, Walt Disney World, has given him the opportunity to participate in the global community in an eye-opening experience on a grand scale, half way around the world.

Williams began his career at Walt Disney shortly after finishing his MBA at Rollins in 1989. In October 2003, he was appointed senior vice president and CFO for Disney’s first theme park in China—Hong Kong Disneyland. “I thought it would be a fascinating learning experience and life adventure,” he shared.

The park is a joint venture with the Hong Kong government. Williams, 43, has no small role in the project, with complete financial responsibility. This very high-profile assignment may prove to be Williams’ greatest career success as it involves working with many people from the Hong Kong community. He also spends time teaching his employees about the Disney business (only one of his 85 employees is American).

Williams says the Crummer School was really beneficial to him. “Interacting with people from different backgrounds and experiences was very worthwhile,” he said. He also credits his Rollins MBA with giving him credibility as a finance person. “A relatively good proportion of CFOs have business backgrounds. The Crummer School helped to open that door.” Williams also points to his desire to continuously learn and make use of that knowledge as a major contributor to his success.

Crummer students’ real-world investment portfolio outperforms S&P 500

Another example of the Crummer School’s hands-on approach to education is the Crummer/SunTrust Investment Portfolio which allows students the opportunity to apply investment strategies they learn in the Rollins MBA program to manage a real-dollar portfolio. In 1999, the SunTrust Banks of Central Florida Foundation made five annual $100,000 contributions to the Crummer/SunTrust Investment Portfolio. Students manage the fund in the Portfolio Management/Theory and Applications course taught by Professor of Finance Edward Moses.

“We try to bring together the theories of portfolio management and the real-world management of a portfolio,” said Moses. “The Crummer School’s approach is somewhat unique in that our fund is managed from a portfolio perspective rather than adding or deleting one security at a time without considering the impact of individual security changes on the risk and return characteristics of the total portfolio.”

The class is structured like an investment company. Two co-managing directors and teams of students analyze and select securities to be included in the portfolio.

Another unique aspect of the portfolio’s management is the use of a hedge fund managed by students in Professor of Finance J. Clay Singleton’s Risk Management and Derivative Markets course. Students in Singleton’s class present their theories to students in the Portfolio Management/Theory and Applications class, who may allocate up to 10 percent of the portfolio’s value to the hedge fund managers.

The Portfolio Management class transitions students from a purely “textbook” approach to one reflecting real-world security analysis and portfolio construction and management. Professors Moses and Singleton agree that it is more challenging to invest real money than imaginary money. Prior to receiving funding from SunTrust, students were asked to construct and manage imaginary portfolios. While students took these imaginary portfolios seriously, the fiduciary responsibility students feel for the custody of this portfolio is quite real.

A portion of this dose of reality is due to the fact that the Crummer/SunTrust Portfolio’s annual funding of scholarships for SunTrust Scholars at the Crummer School is derived from the success of the portfolio. Each year, four and a half percent (4.5%) of the portfolio’s three-year moving average value is used to fund the scholarships. Therefore, a better portfolio performance equates to more dollars available for the scholarships. Over the past two years, $45,000 has been contributed to funding the scholarships.

While the students in the class are evaluated on the quality of their analysis and the application of investment theory to the portfolio’s management, the performance of the portfolio managed by earlier classes is also assessed. Numerous comparisons of performance are available; however, the S&P 500 Index of large capitalization stocks has been selected as an appropriate benchmark to measure the portfolio’s performance.

The Crummer/SunTrust portfolio has outperformed the S&P 500 in each year of its existence, a performance many professional portfolio managers would be proud to boast as a record. Of equal importance, the risk level of the portfolio has been considerably below that of the S&P 500. “The success of the Crummer/SunTrust Investment Portfolio confirms to me that what we are teaching in our classes appears to work in real life,” Dr. Moses said.

Recently, SunTrust executives invited the students in Moses’ Portfolio Management class to make a presentation on the performance of the SunTrust Investment Fund. Joseph Culhane, Crummer School Professional MBA student, delivered the presentation to SunTrust executives and Rollins College alumni employed by SunTrust. Culhane explained the research methods used to select the individual stocks that comprised the portfolio. He reported that the fund had outperformed the S&P 500 Index and despite volatile market conditions, the fund had earned an 18 percent return.

It is these types of experiences that are the cornerstones of the Rollins MBA experience. Cornerstones that the school believes are its key to ensuring its vision for having a reputation for producing highly successful managers and leaders and why many of its graduates go on to lead some of the worlds’ most prominent and flourishing companies.

Professor of Finance, Dr. Edward Moses