• Professors lead campus discussion of Wall Street woes

    Wall Street troublesEarlier this month, amidst the beginnings of the stock market’s most recent roller coaster ride and shortly after the announcement of the bailout plan, Baylor students and faculty flocked to Kaiser Auditorium hear a panel of professors from the Hankamer School of Business address our nation’s growing financial crisis.

    In front of a completely packed house (I was early and still had to sit on the stairs), Baylor’s own experts in the fields of economics, finance, accounting and insurance spoke to different aspects of the crisis in layman’s terms, explaining how we arrived in the current situation, what is being done to address the issues, and what to expect in the short and long-term. The panel touched on a host of topics, including bailouts, investing, retirement, mortgages and healthcare, along with fielding a few tough questions from the audience.

    In an entertaining and accessible presentation, panelists used metaphors ranging from Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov to breakfast sausage maven Jimmy Dean. Economics professor Dr. Kent Gilbreath compared the crisis to “getting hit upside the head with a wet squirrel; it gets your attention,” in describing our culture’s need to stop living beyond our means and return to the value of saving.

    As the stock market continues to yo-yo (already down 400 points this morning as I write this), if you’re interested in learning more about what’s going on (as were the hundreds in attendance here), you can view streaming video of the discussion and downloadable slides from all five presentations here.

    As I soaked in the presentations, it struck me how fortunate Baylor is to have so many savvy professors all across campus guiding our young people. To all those in Baylor’s intellectual community, thank you for working so hard to give our students the best education possible.

    Sic ’em, professors!