wfn.org | UMNS #217 -- Title: Launch of investment club gives students acce ss

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Launch of investment club gives students access to stock exchange

April 9, 1998  Contact: Linda Green   (615)742-5470    Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-63-71B{217}  

by United Methodist News Service

Students at United Methodist-related High Point University will have the
opportunity to get a taste of Wall Street when the North Carolina school
takes its first step toward opening a stock-trading room this fall.

The students will be the first in the Triad -- the three North Carolina
cities of High Point, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem -- to invest actual
dollars through a university-sponsored club as the result of a recent
$100,000 gift to the school. Nationwide, only 33 campuses have such a
university-sponsored investment club.

High Point University has more than 2,500 students from 41 states and 35
countries. It is consistently ranked among the top tier of liberal arts
colleges in the South.

Last month, retired businessman and alumnus James E. Foscue donated
money to the university in honor of Floyd Craven, a 1959 High Point
graduate, trustee and certified public accountant. 

"I wanted to make this gift to the college because, under outstanding
management, it is moving in a positive direction," Foscue said. "And I
wanted to honor Floyd Craven because he is not only a man of immense
integrity, but he is also the most honest man I've ever met. . . . He
has been a true family friend since I met him in 1960."

The Floyd Craven Investment Club at the Earl N. Phillips School of
Business is the first step toward opening a full-blown stock trading
room on campus. The trading room will give students instant access to
the major stock exchanges. When developed -- at an estimated cost of $1
million -- the trading room will put the university in the company of
such schools as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Carnegie
Mellon Institute, the University of Texas, Bentley College and the
Illinois Institute of Technology in having one of the nation's few
college-based investment facilities.

Craven said that when Foscue told him about the $100,000 gift, "I just
about fell out of my chair." He said he had recently been in contact
with another trustee about finding funds to begin an investment class at
the university.

"Talk about coincidence," he said. "The Lord certainly works in
mysterious ways. . . . I'm so proud of Mr. Foscue for doing this. He is
the most thoughtful person I've ever met."

The Floyd Craven Investment Club will accept five to 20 select juniors
and seniors majoring in business administration with grade point
averages of at least 3.2, according to Marlon Winters, chairman of the
Phillips School of Business. Members will invest under the tutelage of
finance professors. Students will invest only investment club funds and
will cease to be members upon graduation. All of the club's earnings
will be returned to a fund for future members to invest.

Club members will be selected by a steering committee, which will
oversee without directing investments. The committee will comprise a
finance professor, a business professor, an investment banker, the
chairman of the business school and a university official appointed by
the president.

"It is difficult to determine who is the most enthusiastic about this
special gift," said Jacob C. Martinson, university president. "Floyd
Craven is deeply honored, the Phillips School of Business has great
anticipation for what this gift can  mean to strengthen our academic
reputation, and the university is most optimistic about the benefits of
recognition and additional support, which will most certainly occur as
word about the gift spreads."

# # #

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
Releases and photos also available at
http://www.umc.org/umns/