Special Topics Course Descriptions
SPECIAL TOPICS SPRING QUARTERS
ACC 798: Detecting and Investigating Financial Fraud
This course focuses on the use of analytical techniques to detect fraudulent reporting and employee fraud. It also covers investigating frauds, including developing evidence and interrogation techniques.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Dyer in the Loop
ECO 798: Negotiations
This course is geared towards developing negotiation skills that are important in both the business world as well as day to day life. We will consider both practical and theoretical aspects of negotiations. In the theoretical part, we will learn what factors affect negotiations success. For example, what is the alternative if an agreement is not reached. In the practical part, we will practice negotiations in class using relevant case studies.
Class Meets: Thursday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Stoler in the Loop
ECO 798/MGT 798/MKT 798: Develop Sustainable Strategies
A practicum for the Sustainable Management Concentration in the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business
This course is designed to integrate the concept of strategy development into the larger ecological economic context of serving market/society needs in a finite world. The goal of strategy in organizations has traditionally been defined as one of value maximization, from the shareholder perspective exclusively. But the role of strategy is to guide organizations in competitively defining and meeting market/society's needs.
Sustainable strategies take into account multiple perspectives by engaging in practices - principally systems thinking - to pursue opportunities in meeting market/society's needs that are economically viable, socially just, and operate responsibility within the constraints of a finite ecology. Students will demonstrate the literacies required to develop sustainable strategies that take into account all facets of the business venture (marketing, finance, management, design, production and distribution/life cycle analysis.)
One key question will shape the trajectory of the course: "How does one develop a competitive sustainable strategy to serve some market/society need?" Therefore, the focus of this course is for the student to select a need, determine the sustainable economic system to develop and deliver the product/service, and write and present the "business case." The student will also articulate the values and vision -personally and organizationally - driving the strategy.
The Sustainable Strategy project will also be a step toward answering some fundamental career questions:
What need do I want to address that will lead to sustainable economic value for the organization I choose to join?
How will this differentiate my organization from the competition?
How should I understand this need in relationship to the natural world, and in relationship to my own place in the economy?
To address today's challenges, students must engage in new ways of thinking and new patterns of inquiry. This goal requires a new pedagogy - one that asks students to be conscious of their own assumptions, their own patterns of knowing.
The new pedagogy must also ask students to make connections between data and disciplines that were previously viewed as unrelated or disconnected. Rather than predetermining a clear development of thought in a particular set of readings that define a discipline, this course demands that students find emerging connections in a broad survey of literature and ideas.
The new pedagogy will demand that students make these connections, so they are not constrained by the mindsets that have created many of today's problems. As such, the course follows an arc of inquiry rather than a clearly defined curriculum. While the content of the course is broad-ranging and eclectic, the learning goals are shaped by Pragmatic Inquiry©:
- Students will demonstrate the capacity to engage in systems thinking by finding connections in a broad survey of literature that includes strategy, economics, social philosophy, sustainability, and business management.
- Students will demonstrate the capacity to engage in critical inquiry by identifying a core challenge and investigating various perspectives relevant to it.
- Students will demonstrate the capacity to engage in critical self-reflection by noting development in their own thinking relevant to a core challenge
The class will be conducted as a seminar, requiring extensive participation by the participants. A combination of case analyses, presentations, lectures and discussions will be utilized. Guest lectures by business and industry leaders will be a regular feature of the course.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professors Kelley and Nahser in the Loop
FIN 798: Applied International Portfolio Management
All candidates enrolled in the Kellstadt GSB, regardless of concentration, who have completed FIN-555, are encouraged to apply.
This class manages a $100,000, real-dollar investment portfolio that focuses on three regions: Europe, Latin America/Middle East/Africa, and Asia/Australia. The goal is to manage a diversified portfolio that generates superior risk-adjusted returns and funds endowed scholarships for the College of Commerce and the School of Music. The course will culminate in a presentation to an endowment oversight board that includes the Treasurer of the University, the Chair of the Finance Department, and the Deans of the Schools of Music and Commerce. Students will gain direct exposure to the management of a long-term, institutional portfolio with a stated hurdle rate and cash flow objective.
The course is a real world, collaborative, interactive environment that reflects the decision making process of an institutional portfolio team. In their first quarter, students start as Junior Analysts and are provided with an analytical framework and professional level tools to conduct equity research. Junior Analysts value, recommend and defend their investment analysis and make equity recommendations to their peers. In their second quarter, students are promoted to Portfolio Managers and take an active role in the allocation and risk analysis of the fund. They also serve as mentors to the new Junior Analysts, guiding and facilitating the overall research. The course applies many of the analytical frameworks and valuation methodologies found in the CFA Institute's exam curriculum.
This course relies heavily on Bloomberg Information Services terminals for professional level portfolio analysis and equity research tools. Students will be provided with guidance in learning the Bloomberg system. No previous terminal experience is necessary.
Students wishing to apply for admission to the course should send their inquiries to Professor Randy Fisher at rfisher3@depaul.edu.
Class Meets: Friday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Fisher in the Loop
FIN 798: IPO's and Capital Venture
In IPOs and Venture Capital, we will explore equity financing alternatives for private companies, including their final funding step as a private company - their initial public offering or IPO, when they go public. Unlike many finance classes, this is not primarily a quantitative course. While there are some quantitative elements, the focus will typically be on the analytics - on contract design, optimal regulation, balancing various risks and objectives, and structuring a deal to minimize conflicts of interest and optimize incentives. Our focus will be largely on the U.S., but we will also cover fund-raising methods and options in other countries. We will work in part from Harvard Business School Case Studies which you will have to purchase (but you will not have to buy a textbook).<> This course should be useful for those interested in investment banking, venture capital, private equity, or securities law, or those that hope to have a start-up of their own someday.
Class Meets: Tuesday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Sherman in the Loop
FIN 798: Structured Finance
Many of you may have recently heard about complex financial instruments such as ABCP, CDO, CSO, ABS, CMBS, RMBS, SIV, CDS, CSA, CLO, etc. Welcome to the world of Structured Finance - Asset Securitization, one of the most cutting-edge financing and investment technologies and the fastest-growing sector in the capital markets today. As a result, there are trillions of dollars of various types of structured finance securities outstanding in the marketplace. Add structured credit derivatives into the mix and the total outstandings grow exponentially to more than $50 trillion. Learn how structured finance market works and find out what factors drive this important market and why it's here to stay. Students should expect lively discussion-oriented classes as the course will cover many current issues in structured finance.
This is a comprehensive and non-quantitatively intensive course where the participants will (i) be introduced to the basic concept structured finance and asset securitization, (ii) gain a broad understanding of legal, credit, and structural framework for the transactions taking place in the structured finance markets, (iii) understand roles of the players in the structured finance market and the motivations behind transactions, (iv) be able to understand derivative technologies that are applied to these financings, and (v) gain understanding of the issues behind the recent credit crunch.
This course is a must for students seeking to participate in commercial, investment, and mortgage banking, money management, trading, and capital markets in general and to further their practical understanding of structured finance market drivers, the latest fixed income technologies, and their applications.
Class Meets: Tuesday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Chung in the Loop
FIN 798: Institutional Investment Management
This course is intended to provide practical knowledge and understanding of the institutional investment management process. The goal of the course is to provide an understanding of the process of structuring and maintaining an institutional (tax-exempt) portfolio such as employee retirement funds.
Specific elements to be covered include:
- Development of a Statement of Investment Policy
- Structuring Investment Manager Assignments
- Investment Manager Selection
- Performance Evaluation of a Pension Fund and its Investment Managers
Class Meets: Thursday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Gernstetter in the Loop
FIN 798: Hedge Fund Management
This is an experiential course focusing on investment analysis in the context of the hedge fund industry. The goal of this class is to give students working knowledge of the hedge fund industry by drawing upon the experience of simulated investment presentations to portfolio managers (in the classroom setting). It is designed to give students rigorous exposure to long/short equity strategies as a gateway to explore other fund strategies. Topics will include securities analysis, research strategies, short selling and portfolio management. The course will help students generate superior investment ideas by conducting creative, value-added research. Students will act as hedge fund analysts by working through the investment process: idea generation, analysis, and presentation, and should walk away with a working knowledge of the hedge fund industry.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Goodfriend in the Loop
FIN 798: Managed Futures
This course is designed from a practitioner's perspective to give students exposure to the managed futures industry within alternative investments by discussing various aspects and terminology of this asset class. Managed Futures includes the trading of commodities, financial futures and foreign exchange (also falls into the global macro category) and is one of the fastest growing asset classes and yet the investment management community is just beginning to understand it. There is a growing demand by the investment industry for practitioners who understand this product as the need for non-correlation and reduction of tail risk grows.
Portions of the course will introduce various metrics used for evaluating trading models and evaluating investment managers known as Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA). The course will also discuss some trading strategies utilized and current topics/ macro economics as they relate to the lessons of the course. The students will learn to express their positive or negative views of fund managers and trading models to senior management, an investment committee or investors, thus utilizing the concepts of asset allocation and due diligence.
The grading is derived from heavy emphasis on class participation/ discussion, short papers, team presentations students deliver to the class and a paper due at the end of the course. Students should have a basic understanding of statistics and be familiar with futures.
The structure of the course is to relate to the student's career. The tools and concepts of this course will find relevance to other asset classes and offer a stronger foundation in asset allocation. If your career interests focus on market analysis, portfolio management, investment consulting, institutional investment, wealth management, family offices, risk management, fund of funds or asset allocation the information and tools learned in this class will be very helpful.
Class Meets: Wednesday evenings 5:45-9:00 with Professor Shore in the Loop
MGT 798/BLW 798: Entrepreneurship Law
This is a class on Entrepreneurship Law. We will be discussing the legal aspects of entrepreneurship. For example, should a person set up her start-up venture as a sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation or limited liability company? We will be discussing the relevant laws and rules relating to HR considerations of the entrepreneurship. We will be discussing the legal aspects of venture capital financing decisions. We will be discussing the ability of an entrepreneur to use contracts to allocate risk and reward.
Class Meets: Wednesday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Gillespie in the Loop
MGT 798: Sports Law
How do the NFL and NBA lockouts compare and contrast with each other? What is the liability of NFL teams and/or their doctors and helmet manufacturers when players suffer permanent damage to their brains? Should only performance enhancing drugs be banned or should any drug, e.g., a pain drug, be banned? Does Pete Rose belong in the Hall of Fame? If not, should OJ Simpson be thrown out? Explore these and other ethical and legal issues in sports management in this course.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Perkovich in the Loop
MGT 798: Health Informatics
This course is designed to provide an overview of Medical Informatics. There will be an emphasis on the real world interaction between medicine and technology. The course will provide practical and up-to-date examples of issues and interesting emerging technologies for the student. Throughout the course, students will discuss such topics as patient informatics, evidence based medicine, clinical practice guidelines, disease management, quality management, pay for performance, patient safety, applicable regulatory guidelines and the implications of both the public and private sector involvement in health insurance and healthcare informatics.
Class Meets: Wednesday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Carpenter in the Loop
MGT 798: Doing Business in China
China's ascent to prominent position on the world scene today is highly visible in many fields. China is becoming the world manufacturing powerhouse and a major player in many industries around the world. Gaining competitive advantage in today's business markets necessitates better understanding of China's economic, social and cultural realities. "Doing Business in China" will provide participants with the knowledge and perspectives needed for better understanding of the interactions of Chinese historical, economic, cultural and managerial spheres. Through lectures, cases and up-to-date research work, participants will learn how to face the challenges, and master the protocol, of doing business with the Chinese.
Class Meets: Saturdays, May 5, 12, 19, 26, and June 2, 9:00-4:00 with Professor Succari in the Loop
MIS 798: Business Systems Management
Becoming a world-class IT organization depends on excellent execution of a number of main IT management disciplines. Improving IT organization's performance requires systematic development of capabilities across these disciplines. They need to be prioritized according to the needs of business and the existing and desired capability of the IT organization and its employees. Improved capabilities to execute these core IT management disciplines contribute to increased credibility of IT organization and also increase the value of its contribution to the business. The course will identify and explain the core disciplines of IT management and related best practices.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Larson in the Loop
MIS 798: Business Architecting
Business Architecture is a rapidly growing branch of the well-paid management consulting field, and DePaul University is #1 in Business Architecture education worldwide.
Business Architecture is a sought-after strategic skillset that will differentiate your resume from the many others graduating with your concentration. Business architecting is a necessary skill for any student interested in becoming a senior manager or pursuing a career as a business analyst, business architect or consultant.
This course presents an overview of the Business Architecture profession, the activities a professional Business Architect is involved in and the skills they are expected to possess.
Students will learn how to understand a business from an architect's point-of-view, seeing it holistically as a dynamic set of interdependent structures, each being a microcosm of the business itself. They will learn how a business is put together, how it works, how to transform it, how to lead it and how to make it sustainable. Students will learn a simple approach methodology for spotting profitable opportunities and tackling complex, dynamic business challenges.
This course presents these advanced topics in business design in an approachable, non-jargoned way. Students will learn useful insights, which they will be able to apply immediately in their daily work.
This course is comprised of in-class lectures, readings, individual and group assignments. We often work hands-on with a live client, gaining real-world experience while helping them to make meaningful transformations to their organizations.
This course is taught by Paul Arthur Bodine, considered by many to be the founder of the Business Architecture profession. Its program is modeled after the formal design education received by building architects.
Students should take this course in the second half of their graduate education. It counts as an elective toward several MGT, MIS and BIT concentrations.
Class Meets: Tuesday evenings 6:00-9:00 with Professor Bodine in the Loop
MKT 798: Category Management
Successful companies expect their suppliers to act as partners that will help them grow their businesses, not simply to trade share amongst competitors. Relationships are established between buyer and seller when vendor partners demonstrate and leverage business understanding to build customer volume.
In consumer packaged goods, this practice has become known as category management. In this system, one category manager is typically appointed from a group of competitors. The category manager is usually, but not always, the market share leader in a category. The category manger is always a category expert with the resources necessary to translate information into business insight and implement volume building activity.
In this course we will use the case method to:
- Learn the category management process
- Use the information systems and data resources available
- Develop sales presentations that effectively communicate solutions for business problems in three different industries.
These cases will be drawn from the consumer packaged goods, mass merchant retailing and industrial manufacturing businesses. Students will work individually and on teams to complete each assignment.
Class Meets: Monday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Strunk in the Loop
MKT 798: Multichannel Marketing
Most organizations have multiple channels of communication and transaction to interact with customers, suppliers, and other publics. Most are challenged to make this total system of communication integrated and measurable with appropriate marketing metrics. With e-mail, direct mail, catalogs, traditional media, social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) mass texting and others, how should the marketer spend the media budget? Students will work on real-life campaign projects to apply what they have learned. The critical part of our learning will be from outstanding professional experts (Jacobs and Clevenger, Google, Alterian, Arc Worldwide, Glam Media and others) who show us what have been their challenges with multichannel marketers. This is a "special topics" class which means we are exploring new topics not in the regular curriculum. Instructors: Dr. Steven Kelly, Ron Jacobs and many other talented practitioners.
Class Meets: Wednesday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Kelly in the Loop
MKT 798: Sports Sponsorship Marketing
In the 21st century, sponsorship lies at the heart of successful sports marketing. It's the fastest-growing discipline in all of marketing, with North American sponsorship spending at an all-time high of $17.2 billion in 2010 (IEG Sponsorship Report).
In this course, students will learn how effective sponsorship marketing creates an enduring emotional connection between brands, properties and consumers.
We will examine every aspect of the sponsorship cycle including sales, negotiation, fulfillment, execution, promotion, hospitality, retention, research and evaluation. The interaction between properties, sponsors and agencies will be covered. Further, the impact of sponsorship from local grass roots efforts to major events, including professional leagues, college sports, stadium naming rights, and the Olympics will be explored. Students will also learn how sponsorship interacts with other elements of the marketing mix including advertising, public relations, sales promotion, social media, athlete endorsements, and cause marketing.
Students in courses that I have taught have gone on to sports-specific positions with the NFL, Chicago Bears, Chicago Blackhawks, McDonald's, Ogilvy Action, RPMC, The Marketing Arm, Gatorade, Alli Action Sports - The Dew Tour, Comcast SportsNet, and TMP Worldwide.
Class Meets: Tuesday evenings 6:00-9:15 with Professor Clark in the Loop
RE 798: Real Estate Development & Repositioning
Coming Soon
RE 798: Project Management, Design & Construction
Coming Soon