Dr. Anne McCarthy, the Dean of Hamline’s School of Business, has become the recipient of a $200,000 grant from Wells Fargo to bring a Finance and Analytics Lab to East Hall.

“A lot of business schools have, or are beginning to have, finance labs, or what are called trading floors,” McCarthy said. “We put forward to Wells Fargo a proposal for a finance and analytics lab… The reason we did that was because we have a strong program in finance, and a strong program in analytics, and they both really need… interactive lab space and collaborative space for teams to work and for faculty to be able to access stock ticker tapes and stock information, and for students to learn about trading on the finance side, and then for the faculty on the analytics side to be able to access big databases and for students to be able to work on them, and also to learn how to do the various programming and software packages that come with analytics.”

After the contribution from Wells Fargo, McCarthy will seek donations from Hamline alumni in the finance and analytics industries.

The University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management has a trading floor, and several of Hamline’s comparator schools such as Butler University boast similar labs as well. McCarthy believes that the lab will attract undecided prospective students to Hamline.

“Absolutely, I think it’ll put us on par with [other] programs, and I hope it’ll be part of the campus tour for incoming potential students and their parents. For students that have these kinds of trading floors or labs, they say that attracting students is one of the top reasons,” McCarthy said.

Sophomore Mo Jensen displayed ambivalence about the prospect of a lab.

“I’m somewhat confused as to how they’d use a lab for finance,” Jensen said.

McCarthy clarified that the lab’s use will not be akin to the lab component required for natural science courses.

“They’ll actually have class in the lab all the time… It’s almost more like a smart classroom,” McCarthy said.

The lab will include video displays, ticker tapes and other interactive technologies, but much is still to be decided in terms of design. Construction will take place during June and July of 2019, with a tentative opening during the third week of August.

“It’ll help the economy if we have to build something,” sophomore Ingri Mastel said of the construction. “It’ll create jobs for people.”

The lab will be located in 106 East Hall, which is currently used as a classroom.

“Once it’s built, we’ll get lots of feedback about it… Because then they’ll see it, and then they’ll experience it,” McCarthy said.