AIM Trading Room:

Completed in Fall 2002, the AIM Trading Room provides facilities expressly for the managers of the MBA Investment Fund. A generous endowment from AIM Management Group made this renovation possible. The purpose was to replicate a Wall Street trading room and provide all the tools and research capabilities that are typically available to Wall Street investment analysts to the Student Managers. Having these dedicated facilities not only enhances the learning opportunities for the

 

EDS Financial Trading and Technology Center:

The EDS Financial Trading and Technology Center is a state-of-the-art trading, research, and teaching facility in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. The goal of the Center is to help students, faculty, and executives better understand the growing flow of financial data that affects markets as well as to enable them to participate in the development of new applications of information technology to finance. The Center also serves as a laboratory for the creation of innovative teaching techniques applied to all levels of education using the cutting-edge audio-visual and distance learning systems that are integrated into the three-room, 3,000 square-foot complex. EDS, numerous corporate partners, and Center Trustees from the financial industry joined together to support a unique educational facility not found on other university campuses.

Under the leadership of Dr. George W. Gau, founding director (inception to January 2000) and Dean of the McCombs School of Business, faculty and students have access to real-time data feeds from leading providers of financial information: Bloomberg, Bridge/Telerate, and Reuters. These data flows can be used by undergraduate and graduate students in a wide variety of classes ranging from finance classes on portfolio management to information impact management courses on the financial applications of information technology. The Center is similar to a flight simulator, enabling instructors to create simulated trading exercises that help students prepare for "flying", the actual analysis and trading of securities in financial and commodity markets. Further, it surpasses simulation in having a group of students actually manage a real $13 million investment fund, The MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C., in the Center's Trading Room. The Center also supports teaching and research in areas such as advanced financial modeling and financial risk management.

Through its technologically sophisticated classroom, faculty can adapt their pedagogy to the latest educational tools including an interactive touch screen blackboard (SMART Board) and a high-resolution video projector. There is truly a revolution underway in the application of technology to the classroom and the Center serves as a test-bed for the implementation of new technology at all levels of education. The Center can originate and receive long distance learning and, with its video teleconferencing capability and its access to satellite up and downlinks, the Center dramatically reduces the distance between Austin and New York, as well as locations as diverse as Sao Paulo, London, and Tokyo in the sending and receiving of educational services.