With the support of the University’s New York Study Fund, Kent, a professor and the department chair of finance and general business, escorted 15 University business students through the New York City financial world in May.

As a part of the summer intercession course, “Financial Markets Study Tour,” the students rubbed elbows with company representatives, including several Missouri State alumni at MTV/Viacom, Deloitte, AIG and J.P. Morgan/Chase. “The most important thing students got from the trip was the idea that they could compete with students from other universities vying for those jobs in New York,” he said.

Kent, BS & MBA, ’86 & ’93, studied under Dr. Vencil Bixler, who organized the first student study trip in 1978. Bixler raised money for travel scholarships by collecting reference books and textbooks from other faculty members and holding campus book sales twice each year.

Although the trips stopped in 2000 when Bixler retired as an emeritus professor of finance and general business at Missouri State, his fundraising didn’t. “The book sales continued semester after semester, but no one was going on the study tour,” Kent said. Kent revived the course after a nine-year hiatus this past summer.

Gay, BS & MS, ’89 & ’93, an associate professor of mathematics, has sought to make a difference with students as well. During the past academic year, she introduced the topic of fiscal responsibility to her general education math classes. The students learned about credit cards, mortgages, saving, buying a car and investing in the stock market. “As we were studying the stock market, it was crashing,” she said.