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Kirsten Khire: Hello everyone. Welcome to The Live Wire today. My guest today is Dr.
Dolly King. She is the chair of the Finance Department at UNC Charlotte and she’s also
the Dickson Professor of Finance. We’re going to be talking today about the Department
of Finance and also some of the activities that she has going on. Dr. King, welcome today.
Dr. King: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Kirsten Khire: You’re very welcome. So it’s great to have you here and let’s talk a
little bit about the Department first. If you could tell me a little bit about what
makes your Department unique and some of the accomplishments that you’d like to share
with us.
Dr. King: Definitely. I am very excited to be a part of the Finance Group of our Finance
Department. Several characteristics that I would like to mention. First I would like
to start off that we are located in the number two financial center right next to Center
City. We have large presence of banks such as Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Fifth Third
Bank, BB&T just to name a few give us really tremendous opportunity and for us to interact
with this industry. Faculty I am most amazed and very, very proud of our top-notch faculty
members. They are excellent researchers in a variety of different fields. For example
risk management, financial econometrics, and business insurance as well as real estate
and asset pricing. So students, I believe we have the second largest major in the undergraduates.
We currently have about 400 undergraduates of finance majors. We have an excellent Master
of Mathematical Finance and a Finance PhD Program.
Kirsten Khire: Tell us a little bit more about the Master’s Program because I believe it
was just ranked in the Top 25 in the country.
Dr. King: Right. We are very excited. The ranking actually just came in the fall and
Dr. Weidong Tian who is the current program director has worked tirelessly on promoting
the program and believe it’s such a wonderful program that just received the recognition
that he really deserves. And this is our 11th year of the program. We are very proud of
this accomplishment. The current number of students that we have enrolled in the program
is about 90 students and I think that’s right about the size we wanted it to be. There
is a plan to grow down the road. The program has excellent quality in terms of excellent
professors who teach in the program. And one thing I do want to really emphasize is that
this is an inter-disciplined program. In other words, it’s really owned by the Math Department,
the Econ Department, and the Finance Department. Without these Departments really putting together
such a wonderful program, the professors, and of course quality students we would not
have the success today.
Kirsten Khire: That’s really helpful. Tell us about some of the activities that are going
on day to day and in terms of the students and the faculty in the Department too.
Dr. King: Sure. We have been really extremely busy. We have several events that occur, really
it’s a year-round type of activities that go around for our faculty and students. But
just this month we have three very exciting events. Next week, Monday and Tuesday, we’re
going to have a Finance Career and Interview Day. The 16th is going to be a big Career
Fair that will be held in the Student Union that we have more than 20 companies that come
over to be in the Career Fair. And on the second day, which is the 17th, the companies
will come over and do interviews for permanent positions and internships related to finance.
Notable companies include AAA Insurance, Travelers, New York Life, financial services such as
TIAA-CREF and BB&T. So it’s really exciting. Next one we have is on the 24th. As I mentioned
about our Math Finance program, we’re going to have our first the very first Math Finance
Celebration. And that would involve students, faculty, alumni, and industry professionals
to come over and celebrate with us about the success and look forward to the future. One
more on the 31st, so we’re real busy, we’ll have a Finance Career and Graduate Study Panel
and Reception for undergraduate majors. So really really busy.
Kirsten Khire: Wow. That’s just this month.
Dr. King: Just this month. Just in March.
Kirsten Khire: And then next month, I understand you have another major activity coming.
Dr. King: Definitely. I am super excited about that. This is the very first time that we’re
going to collaborate with the University of South Carolina on a Fixed Income Conference.
To give you a little bit of background on that, South Carolina has been holding the
conference in the past three to four years. And last year, we were approached by Dr. Jen
Helwig who wanted to collaborate with us on this particular conference. Wanted to hold
the conference in Charlotte. Of course due to our location, we have a wealth of experts
in the banking industry who can participate and present at the conference. That particular
conference will be held on the 17th and 18th of April. It will be a huge conference that
will be participated by academics, industry professionals, and Federal Reserve for example
will be several experts coming from the Federal Reserve Board and Banks.
Kirsten Khire: Maybe we can take a look at that website too because people can register,
if I understand.
Dr. King: Of course.
Kirsten Khire: So we’ll pull up that website and let people take a look at that. So it’s
in collaboration with South Carolina.
Dr. King: Exactly.
Kirsten Khire: But it’s easily found, obviously. And it will be held at the Center City Building.
Is that correct?
Dr. King: Exactly. Yes.
Kirsten Khire: Excellent. Tell us about some of the, you know, what’s one of the things
that you’re looking forward to for this particular conference. Maybe a particular
speaker or a topic that you think would be interesting for the audience to know.
Dr. King: Right. So I think first I wanted to highlight really the significance of having
the opportunity to collaborate with South Carolina. I think first is that we can strengthen
further strengthen the collaboration and partnership with South Carolina, they’re just down the
road. And they’re a huge presence and with both of us we are really big universities
around the area. And the second thing is that it would really would increase the visibility
and further the visibility of both schools and also highlight our wonderful Center City
campus. We will have, like I said, experts from all over the country. Some of them are
actually foreigners coming over to attend the conference. Some notable speakers and
panelists include John Carpenter from Bank of America, Stephen Young from Wells Fargo,
we actually have Commissioner Michael Piwowar from SEC, we have Richard Cantor from Moody’s
just to name a few. These are experts in the area in banking especially who will come over
to attend and present at the conference.
Kirsten Khire: And obviously a lot of our own students will be there, our own faculty
will be there.
Dr. King: Definitely. Yes.
Kirsten Khire: And our alumni, I’m sure from the Charlotte area and beyond.
Dr. King: Right so we have just started to promote this conference to our local professionals
and partners in the area. All of our graduate students and also undergraduate students are
welcome to attend. Faculty, of course, strongly encouraged and most welcome to attend. Dean
Steve Ott and Senior Associate Dean Richard Buttimer will both be at the conference serving
on the panel or doing introduction for the conference.
Kirsten Khire: Excellent. And so again if people want to find it, I think the best way
might be to go to mooreschool.sc.edu. And the link is also accessible, I believe, from
our website. We have a link to the event as well, so from belkcollege.uncc.edu.
Dr. King: Right. Exactly. We will have a flyer out pretty soon which we will share with really
everybody in the college and also our partners and to spread the word further for this particular
conference.
Kirsten Khire: Excellent. And why do you think this topic is important to have and you know
obviously being the center where we are the geographical location and what in particular
about this topic is important right now for the conference?
Dr. King: I believe that a lot of the discussions really started out after the crisis. And I
think this is such a timely topic. As you know, the banking industry are heavily involved
as either the issuer or the buyers of fixed-income securities. And so having a really active
and healthy fixed income markets is extremely vital for the banking industry or financial
services as a whole. And especially insurance companies, for example. They’re the big
investors of fixed-income securities. So the pricing and the risks associated with these
securities are extremely valuable to the industry as well as for academics. And so it’s a
huge topic and very timely as well.
Kirsten Khire: And I understand there’s a research portion or a portion for students
to share their work around this as well?
Dr. King: Right. Really so the first part of this, which is on the first day, we’re
going to have a panel discussion really for example on credit risks for real estate mortgage
markets that is really more for industries to come in and listen to the expert from Federal
Reserve or the expert from Moody’s to talk about what are the important topics right
now that the industries are worried about or concerned about. In the afternoon of the
first day, also the morning of the second day, we’re going to have academic sessions.
So these will be top research on the particular, excuse me, relevant topics in the fixed-income
world.
Kirsten Khire: And we’re looking at the website as you talk so that people can have
a look at the agenda for the various days. That’s very helpful. And again at the very
end of the page, I believe there’s a place for people to register and buy tickets.
Dr. King: Right.
Kirsten Khire: And there’s more information as well. So this is really helpful. We’ve
talked a little bit about the Department as well. Is there anything else you’d like
to share with us today or that we haven’t asked?
Dr. King: Yeah, I think I wanted to share that the Finance Department is growing and
we have made tremendous amount of strides and changes in our program across different
levels. We are, we had just finished a successful hire recruiting process so we’re going to
have two great faculty joining us. So this is really an exciting time for the Finance
Department and I’m happy to be a part of it.
Kirsten Khire: Fantastic. Well thank you so much for your time today Dr. King.
Dr. King: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
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