Michael D. Ice is a finance professor at the University of Rhode Island.
Ice this year will take over teaching an investment portfolio management class that uses actual money through the Ram Fund, which has tripled in size since it started 15 years ago.
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Ice talks with Providence Business News about the fund, its legacy and how it helps students prepare themselves for the real world of investing.
PBN: What exactly is the Ram Fund?
ICE: The Ram Fund was founded in 2000 with $100,000 from the URI Alumni Association given for educational purposes. Today, it’s grown to about $400,000. It’s real money that students manage. They make all the decisions and to-date it’s been under the excellent support of Dennis McCleavey, professor emeritus of finance, who helped start the fund and teach the class before this year.
PBN: How does managing a fund translate into a classroom setting?
ICE: It’s fun because it’s a three-credit course taught twice a week for an hour and 15 minutes. It’s also a challenge because you get a new set of students each semester that inherit the portfolio. We’ll spend some amount of time this semester going over the new portfolio, so they can understand what they own and how to make the decisions to buy, hold or sell. This year, I received 28 applications and chose 15 students. This will hopefully teach them how to go to work and manage a small hedge fund.
PBN: How is the fund doing?
ICE: Last year, the fund returned over 21 percent, as the markets lined up pretty nicely. I’m also getting my hands around the portfolio, as I didn’t buy any of these stocks and I inherited it just like the students. The students will spend a fair amount of time getting to know what they own, how to analyze it and then learn how to come in and work. I’m looking forward to it because there are no books and no exams. It’s about work.
PBN: Why is this type of experience helpful to students?
ICE: It puts a little more real-world pressure on them. It’s one thing to do this on simulators, which are also very educational. But when you know you’re investing real money, and you know something happens in the market that impacts that real money, it has this different feeling to it.
PBN: How will it better prepare them for work after graduation?
ICE: Wall Street is a grind. It looks exciting at times, but it’s a grind. You have to come in and figure out how to make money. You have to become somewhat comfortable each day with what you’re doing and then come back the next day and start it all over again. The everyday market is going to challenge you, and with a 24/7 news cycle, things happen all the time. I hope this class gives students the discipline to look less at Facebook and more at the news.
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Sherman@PBN.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.
