By Rick Vacek
GCU News Bureau
Students in the Colangelo College of Business at Grand Canyon University took care of business in recent off-campus competitions.
Three teams from GCU participated in Junior Achievement of Arizona’s 10th annual Stock Market Challenge. The competition is a high speed stock market simulation in which there are two 30-day trading sessions (60 days overall) and each trading day is only 80 seconds. Each team starts with a $500,000 portfolio and is challenged to increase it as it receives new information (news, stock quotes, charts, and “insider tips”).
- The GCU Colangelopes (Sierra Evans, Jordyn Beechman and Brian Garcia) led for most of the competition and finished second among college teams by turning their $500,000 portfolio into $1,170,900 for a 144 percent gain.
- GCU Risky Business (Justine Chariva, Jacob Duenkel, Britni Wilcox and Ashley Dawson) finished fifth with a final portfolio value of $871,817 (74 percent gain).
- GCU Executive Business (Nayeli Garcia, Alex Holzer and TJ Sutton) took seventh with a final portfolio value of $645,838 (29 percent gain).
Dr. Ernie Scarbrough, associate professor of finance in CCOB, said all of the GCU students who competed are in their first finance class and haven’t taken a course in stocks, portfolios, or the investment markets. Virtually all of the other student teams are close to getting their finance degrees or are in an MBA program, he said.
In another event, CCOB was host to the Collegiate DECA Fall Leaders Conference, in which almost 100 students from eight colleges and universities competed in 12 categories ranging from accounting to sports and entertainment marketing. The largest contingent (16) came from GCU, and seven finished in the top three in their categories:
- Fashion and merchandise marketing: Sarah Johnson, first place, and Sabrina Cross, third.
- Sports and entertainment marketing: Lee Rank and Eddie Flores, third.
- Hotel and lodging: Whitney Rossi, second, and Judith St Hilaire, third.
- Restaurant and food services: Erika Navarrete, third.
“Our students continue to find success in a variety of areas by leveraging classroom content into their co-curricular opportunities, and our faculty is doing an outstanding job in facilitating these
resumé-building experiences,” said Dr. Randy Gibb, the CCOB dean who was at the Stock Market Challenge to cheer on the GCU students. “Plus it is just a lot of fun for everyone involved.”
Contact Rick Vacek at (602) 639-8203 or [email protected].
