Instructor Information:

Dr. Del Hawley (dhawley@bus.olemiss.edu)
Senior Associate Dean (CFO, COO, CIO)
Associate Professor of Finance

Ph.D. Finance - Michigan State University 1987
MBA Finance - Michigan State University 1983
B.S. Psychology - Michigan State University 1976

Required Materials:

Financial Analysis with Microsoft Excel 2007
Mayes and Shank
ISBN-13: 978-1439040379

Microsoft Excel 2007
Available at AcademicSuperstore.com

Tegrity (See announcement page)

Access to a computer with Microsoft Excel 2007

Usage of Class Time

Class time will be devoted primarily to working through examples in Excel. This hands-on approach will help you build important and useful spreadsheet skills while improving your understanding of many fundamental types of financial analysis that are used in businesses every day.

You may bring a laptop computer to class if you would like. Computers are provided at every seat with the required software.

This class is scheduled to meet from 2:30 - 3:45 Tuesdays and Thursdays in Conner 13. Please be ready to work at 2:30 sharp. Arriving late to class is disruptive and disrespectful of your classmates and your instructor.

Food and drink is not allowed in this classroom.

Attendance

Attendance does not directly affect your grade. If you have an occasional absence that won't be a problem as long as you keep up with the work using Tegrity.

Disability Accommodations

Dr. Hawley is prepared to provide accommodations to anyone who presents an Instructor Notificaiton Form from the Office of Student Disability Services. This form must be presented to Dr. Hawley at least one week prior to any test or other activity for which accommodations may be required.

Exams

Exams are designed to test your understanding of facts, concepts, and problem-solving methods. They are NOT designed to test your ability to memorize. Your score will depend very little your ability to memorize and very heavily on your ability to relate a few fundamental concepts and procedures to practical business situations. Your ability to perform well on exams will require a large amount of preparation involving EXTENSIVE individual or practice on problems and examples.

Exams times are on the schedule page.

The final exam is cumulative. You have three options concerning the final exam:

1. If you took all three regular exams, you can opt not take the final and instead substitute the average of your three regular exam grades for the final exam grade.

2. If you missed one of the regular exams, you must take the final exam and the score you earn on it will count for the test you missed and for the final exam score.

3. If you took all three regular tests and you opt to take the final, the score you earn on the final will substitute for the lowest of the three regular exam scores in addition to counting for the final exam score.

Acadenic Integrity

The School of Business Administration upholds honor and academic integrity in all of its teaching, research, and service activities.  All business faculty, staff, and students are charged with the responsibility to behave with personal and professional integrity and to refrain from dishonorable conduct.

Any student who commits any act of academic dishonesty will automatically receive a grade of "F" in this course and a full description of the offense will be filed with the University and with the Dean of the School of Business Administration. There are no lesser penalties and no exceptions to this policy.

Academic dishonesty includes representing someone else's work as your own (plagiarism), knowingly allowing someone else to represent your work as his or her own, and gaining or attempting to gain an unfair advantage.

All work that is submitted for a grade in this course is to be your work and only your work. There is no group work in this course.

Grading

Your grade in this course will be based on exams, submitted assignments, and class participation points as follows:>

Grades will be assigned based on your total points:

What I Expect (and DON'T expect) from You:

I know that most of the students in this class are seniors, and many or most of you intend to graduate at the end of this semester. As Senior Associate Dean I am proud that you might soon become a successful graduate from one of our Finance programs. As the instructor in this class, the fact that you are about to graduate is IRRELEVANT to how I grade your work. Do not come to me if you are failing the course and tell me that you are graduating and CANNOT FAIL THIS COURSE (you can indeed fail it), or that you have a job and so you just HAVE TO PASS TO GRADUATE (you don't have to pass and you don't have to graduate), or make similar entreaties that are meant to mitigate poor performance in some way. They will not work. Do the work, put in the time, and earn your grade.

This is not a course in using Excel. It is a course in corporate finance that happens to use Excel as a tool with which to model financial decision environments. You cannot pass the course without mastering the finance topics that we will discuss. You have completed FIN 331 with at least a C grade, so you should have mastered most of these concepts already. I expect you to remember a good deal of what you covered in that course, but we will review all topics.

What will get you into trouble in this course and will likely result in your receiving a bad or failing grade:

• Assuming I won't give you a bad or failing grade
• Assuming I won't fail a graduating senior
• Not keeping up with the work
• Not doing the work that I tell you do on your own to master the material
• Not learning the underlying finance
• Trying to learn enough to pass the tests with a few hours of work before the test

THIS IS NOT AN EASY COURSE. This may not be a course you should be in if:

• You took FIN 331 more than once to get a C to progress
• You only got a C in FIN 331
• You don't get grades higher than C in Finance and Accounting courses very often
• You expect to put in 3 hours a week (for class) and that's all and be able to pass
• You expect to be able to skip most of the work and cram for an exam the night before the exam
• You are math-challenged
• You don't have a computer of your own

I have no preconceived target grade distribution or average for the class. Everyone can get an A or everyone can get an F. I hope that A's prevail, but that will be up to you.