With 40 years of Wall Street experience, one Kennesaw State professor utilizes practical methods to teach complex concepts in Economics 1000.
“I try in everything to give practical applications — to show how it works in practice, not just in theory,” KSU Instructor of Economics and Finance Thomas Garr said.
Garr utilizes several of the aforementioned “practical applications” to more effectively teach the topic. In one section of the course, opportunity cost and comparative advantage are demonstrated through an example where the students pretend to be grocery store managers. Students are told to decide how much shelf space to assign a product to maximize profit.
In another section, Garr serves as a faculty advisor to each student’s own real dollar stock equity portfolio.
In addition to these activities, students are shown how to utilize inflation indexes to determine if salary raises in their current jobs keep up with their cost of living. Tax tables are studied as well, with the students focusing on how to figure out their raise value after taxes.
“I try to keep everyone fascinated and interested so they will get the maximum benefit from what the course provides,” Garr said.
Garr credited KSU faculty for inspiring him to want to dedicate more of his time to the school, but the fun that he has teaching students about money management was also a factor.
“There are a lot of great teachers at KSU, and I’m happy to be a part of it,” Garr said. “This is the most fun I’ve had professionally in 15 years.”
Garr spent 40 years working on Wall Street in Dallas, Chicago and Atlanta. The first portion was in the institutional training room where he spent 15 years transacting million-share blocks of stock. In the final stint, he spent another 15 years working in his own institutional money management firm as the founder and senior partner. Garr describes his experience in the field as one of his biggest strengths.
Garr has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and an MBA in Finance from the University of Dallas. He was also presented with the 2018 KSU Foundation Outstanding Part-Time Teaching Award for the Coles College of Business. Garr also serves as a faculty advisor to the KSU Student Managed Investment Fund.
When asked what his future plans were, Garr said, “To keep teaching here. I have a fire in the belly. I’ll be here as long as they’ll have me.”
