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Gift will enhance learning experience for Fisher finance students
Gift will enhance learning experience for Fisher finance students
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A $350,000 gift from Walter and Barbara Parkes will ensure finance students in the School of Business at St. John Fisher College will continue to gain real world investment experience in the classroom.
Of the gift, $300,000 has been designated for the Walter and Barbara Parkes Trading Room Endowment and will support technology and equipment needs. The other $50,000 will be added to the college’s Student Investment Club portfolio.
“We are so grateful that Walt and Barbara have continued to provide avenues for Fisher students to immerse themselves in the financial industry, Dr. Gerard J. Rooney, president of St. John Fisher, said in a news release. “Through the Parkes’ generosity, our students are seeing firsthand the benefits of experiential learning opportunities — which have long been a hallmark of a Fisher education — in a state-of-the-art, cutting-edge space.”
The interactive trading lab opened in 2019 in the Victor E. Salerno Center for American Enterprise and was created through an earlier $500,000 gift on behalf of the Parkes. The lab includes access to Bloomberg Terminals, a software platform providing real-time and historical data as well as market news and analytics.
The latest gift will enable three additional connections to Bloomberg, two elsewhere in the Salerno Center and another in the Lavery Library.
Bloomberg Terminal subscriptions allow students to become familiar with tools used in financial services while professors can further their own research.
The electronic trading software, the same used by leading banks corporations and government agencies, allows the investment club to place trades.
“One of our greatest desires is to see students succeed in their major of choice,” Walter Parkes said. “St. John Fisher College is all about advancing their students to achieve their best educational experiences and opportunities. Promoting student success is one of the main reasons we donated the initial 12 Bloomberg machines to the School of Business.”
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