10 University News Fall 2008
James Riley instructs Adelphi
University students in Garden
City. The former managing
director and partner at
Goldman Sachs & Co. has given
$
100,000 for a student-run
investment fund.
James Riley readies students to run
Adelphi und
“If you’ve got passion about what you’re doing,
you can succeed,” Riley told the class after
pulling the helmet from his tote bag. “You’ve
got to have passion...Passion will win out.”
The students may not have an Ivy League name
on their resumes, but Riley has just given them a
challenge he said he believes can put them in
front of the pack. A Garden City resident and re-
tired Goldman Sachs & Co. partner and manag-
ing director, Riley has donated $100,000 to create
a student investment fund that will function as an
endowment for the university. During the semes-
ter, selected students will have to manage a real
portfolio.
“I think when you manage real money, it gives
them a different sense of responsibility,” said Riley,
a senior adviser to Brigade Capital Management
hedge fund. “When they wake up in the morning
and turn on the news, when it’s real money, you
actually pay attention because you think, ‘How
is it going to impact my portfolio?’”
Riley was the guest lecturer yesterday at professor
Robert Goldberg’s finance seminar, offering tips
on success in the classroom and in the real world.
The class has been preparing for the challenge,
studying strategies and analyzing various invest-
ment tools. During the semester, students will
study the different sectors and determine specific
The fifth annual Adelphi Research Conference, initiated by the Office of the Provost, in conjunction with the Gordon F. Derner Institute
of Advanced Psychological Studies, offers students the rare opportunity to showcase their scholarly and creative pursuits. Initiated as
an undergraduate conference, it has since expanded to the graduate level, and this year included 64 posters and 20 oral presentations.
Newsday Photo /A Lan Raia
f
To fully convey students’ innovative and often arduous research processes undertaken with faculty advisers, we interviewed three
students about their experiences conducting projects in the areas of science, social science, and art.
A d e lp h i R e s e a r c h Co n f e r e n c e
stocks and bonds to recommend as investments.
Delving Deeper
The school’s finance committee will review their
ANUP SHRESTHA ’08 JENNIFER LUPO ’09 MARY ELLEN HACKETT ’10
Physics Anthropology and Sociology Art and Art History
selections before transactions are executed.
Spectral Power Distribution Twenty–First Century Identity Series
Part of the seminar also involves the students’
of Solar Radiation during Togetherness: Social Isolation
networking with the university’s leadership and
Inspired by a class assignment that re-
alumni. And although the course is just one Sunrise and Sunset of the Affluent as Manifested quired her to present colors using paint-
semester, Riley envisions a connection between
the students and the endowment that will stretch
in Starbucks Cafes ings, Mary Ellen Hackett ’10 started her
The eternal question of why the colors of Identity Series project, which is centered on
at least 10 years. the sky change at sunrise and sunset trou- Sociology student Jennifer Lupo ’09 the idea that persona and color go hand
Pierre Streat, 21, one of the students, said this sort bled Anup Shrestha ’08 enough to prompt embarked on a quest to discover why in hand. She chose a diverse group of 15
of reinforcement of the alumni and student link him to explore the scientific explanation Starbucks attracts members of the pro- peers from the Art Department, com-
will be beneficial for graduating students starting behind it and undertake a research proj- fessional middle class who tend to isolate prised of men and women with different
a career. ect entitled the Spectral Power Distribution of themselves from society in this coffee- skin tones, and photographed their faces.
Solar Radiation During Sunrise and Sunset, in steeped environment. While doing theo- Ms. Hackett tried to create the same light-
“The connection between the alumni and the stu-
spring 2008. Mr. Shrestha and his advis- retical research for her Twenty-First Century ing for all her subjects and make uniform
dents will be a lot stronger, which will be hugely
er, Professor Gottipaty Rao, chair of the Togetherness: Social Isolation of the Affluent as croppings to the photos, in order to have
beneficial,” he said, “because the transition is not
Department of Physics, conducted two Manifested in Starbucks Cafes project, Ms. a uniform view of their skin colors. Her
as smooth as if you went to Harvard or Columbia.”
research sessions to collect data, seek- Lupo learned that Starbucks cafes are next step was to select eight of the pho-
Riley’s lecture took students through his life story ing “signature dips” in the color spectrum, purposefully built to attract affluent peo- tographs and use them as models to paint
and a few trading adventures in the gold commod- which signal a growth in the ozone con-
ple with their high-end designs. Ms. Lupo the people’s faces. Instead of using the
ities market. And as he did so, he emphasized the centration in the atmosphere. “Each peak
also conducted 11 hours worth of field subjects’ original skin tones, however, she
importance of trust and reliability as well as intel- and each dip in the data has something
studies over a period of five weeks, dur- transposed the skin tones in the painted
lectual curiosity. to say,” Mr. Shrestha says. Their studies
ing which she made careful observations portraits for dramatic effect. The artist
After meeting Riley, the students said they felt in- revealed that the color spectrum of the and notes of the features and habits of the reached the conclusion that everyone has
spired and appreciated his honesty. And they felt sky changes from blue to green to red in people spending half an hour drinking a natural color harmony that corresponds
the pressure to perform. a matter of minutes because of the effects Starbucks coffee. She observed that peo- to their physical features.
of the changes in radiation levels on the ple take over the space around them using
“He looks into your eyes and says, ‘I’m giving you amount of ozone in the atmosphere. Mr. various objects that promote physical dis- For more information about the confer-
$
100,000.’ It doesn’t get more real than that,” said Shrestha will continue his scientific pur- connect and discourage verbal communi- ence and the list of award winners, visit
21-year-old Akhil Ketkar. suits in Adelphi’s Engineering Combined cation. One of the most striking examples http://academics.adelphi.edu/aurc/.
By Keiko Morris, staff writer Plan Program with Columbia University, of her findings was a woman in her 20s
which he started this fall. who spread her black leather bag and lap- By Ana Barbu ’10
top across the table, thereby eliminating
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Copyright 2008 / Newsday. Reprinted with permission. any possibility of interacting with others.