The gift was presented by CBOT® Chairman Nicholas Neubauer, Patrick Catania, President of the Chicago Board of Trade Educational Research Foundation, and Larry Dorf, Chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade Educational Research Foundation, to Kent State University President Carol A. Cartwright, Dr. Joseph H. Danks, Dean of Kent State's College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. George E. Stevens, Dean of the College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management.
CBOT Chairman Neubauer said, "This gift will provide for the continued excellence of the 25-year tradition of the Chicago Board of Trade Educational Research Foundation's Research Symposium. The annual symposium series will be coordinated with faculty from Kent State's master of science in financial engineering program."
Funded largely by members of the CBOT through individual and corporate donations, the Chicago Board of Trade Educational Research Foundation's Research Symposium was established to advance the development, knowledge, and use of futures and options markets. Previous symposia have attracted academics and practitioners from around the globe. The most recent symposia have been held in Glasgow, Hong Kong, Bangkok and other major international trading cities. The next symposium is in Shanghai on Feb. 26, 2003. The proceedings are published annually and represent new research advancing the state of knowledge of derivative markets and instruments.
"Members of the current board of directors of the Chicago Board of Trade Educational Research Foundation will provide counsel to Kent State University and the symposium as members of an emeritus board," said Catania.
"Kent State is, indeed, honored to be selected to continue the symposium's tradition of excellence," said Dr. Cartwright. "We pride ourselves on creating an academic environment that offers an optimal blend of research and the application of ideas.
Coordinating the foremost international research symposium for the futures and options industry will allow us to capitalize on our strengths."
"This is a wonderful opportunity for our financial engineering program," said Dr. George E. Stevens, Dean of the College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Management. "Coordinating the research symposium will allow us to maintain on-going relationships with all of the key players and the latest research in the futures and options industry."
Kent State University is one of only 39 institutions worldwide to offer the Master of Science in Financial Engineering. "Kent State's program is unique because it includes coursework from the Departments of Mathematics, Economics and Finance, it is applied in its orientation and it places special emphasis on futures and options markets. The curriculum was developed with considerable input from industry, including many practitioners from the Chicago Board of Trade," said Dr. Mark E. Holder, Director of the Financial Engineering program. "Our new on-campus Financial Markets Trading Floor electronic classroom will be the only derivatives-oriented trading floor in an academic institution," added Holder.
The Chicago Board of Trade provides a diverse mix of over 60 futures and options on futures contracts fro commodity, financial and equity products via both open auction and electronic trading platforms. For more information about the CBOT's products and markets, log on to the exchange Web site at www.cbot.com.
