New faculty: Brad Goldie

Get lost in numbers with Brad Goldie, a new assistant professor in the finance area at the University of Kansas School of Business , from Pennsylvania State University.

“I embrace my true inner math nerd,” Goldie said, “but that’s why my wife says she married me.”

Goldie previously worked as a teaching assistant at Bringham Young University while working on his bachelor’s degree. He received his doctorate degree from Pennsylvania State University where he also taught classes.

When he did the math, Goldie knew KU was the best fit for him. 

“I really considered options at other universities, but the more I thought about my experiences visiting the various campuses, I realized the faculty here were people I wanted to work with,” Goldie said. 

He is currently working on a study for hedge fund investments in merger deals. He studies how the relationships between financial institutions affect their investment behavior. 

For his first semester as a professor, Goldie teaches Investments (FIN 410) to undergraduate students. 

What he’s most excited about as a Jayhawk: “Allen Fieldhouse. I’ve heard so much about the atmosphere that I want to see it for myself.”

New faculty: Jessica Li

Jessica Li, a new assistant professor from Arizona State University, joins the school’s marketing area with enthusiasm.

“This is an exciting time for the KU marketing area, as it continues to expand and make a name for itself as a place of innovative and cutting edge research,” Li said.

Li is currently working on research that studies how social ecology affects consumer behavior, judgment and decision-making. Situations under investigation include how motivations, such as the desire to impress others, affect willingness to pay for different products.

Next semester Li will teach Integrated Marketing Communications.

One of the hopes Li has is that her students will learn the ability to think critically and to look at things from multiple perspectives.

“I like talking about ideas and my door is always open for anyone who wants to stop in and chat,” Li said.

Li received her undergraduate degree at Cornell University and her master's and doctorate degrees at Arizona State University.

Final days in India

by Joyce Claterbos


We've made the local papers three times so far about various events we've attended. ASB, the school here, is using our visit to generate a lot of PR for their MBA program because it's so new. Having a relationship with a US school is a real coup for Indian schools. 

The group at the Hill Palace, one of the residencies of the royal family of Kerala.
Front to back: Mahesh, Erica, Joe, Alisha; Joyce KB Aaron, Natalie, Liz, Gordon, Case, Helen, Apryl; Wes, Jordan, Anobio, Wes, Gordon, Boone, Nick.

Friday we were in Cochin and saw the Hill Palace, one of the residencies of the Kerala royal family. It was donated to the state and is now a museum. Regrettably, we could only take pictures outside so there are no shots of the beautiful gold crown and the formal reception rooms. In the evening we saw a presentation of traditional dances and costumes. It was pretty spectacular. We met a person who graduated from KU in 2008! 

We got to ride on a houseboat on Lake Vambanad Monday. It was a lot of fun. We had lunch cooked on the boat and most of us went swimming. We were tied up to the bank next to some rice fields and the student found a coconut tree that hung out over the lake. Several climbed the tree, picked a coconut, and then jumped into the lake. Lots of fun until the owner of the tree came up in his boat and asked us to quit! We left his coconuts in a small pile on the bank for him.

Tuesday we visited a cashew factory and had a boat ride and dinner at Sundara Theeram, a local lake. We walked down a dirt track to the lake to a covered set of tables. It started raining after the dinner so KB hired a jeep to carry up back up the track to the bus which was parked on the paved road. I think the students had the most fun on the ride back up the track. It was muddy and bumpy and was a lot like the safari ride at Animal Kingdom at DisneyWorld! Some students were invited into a local woman's home to meet her mother and children. 

Erik, Case, and Jordan meet school children at Hill Palace. We saw three different groups of children visiting the Palace that day.

We will have our final dinner at a restaurant called Island Shack tonight. It's on the beach in Kovalum and it is pretty primitive, but the seafood comes directly to the beach and goes straight to the kitchen. We'll have Tandoori fish, lobster, and shrimp with lime sodas. We will sit on plastic chairs on the sand at the beach with candles on the table. You eat with your right hand in India and use the local bread to scoop up the juices so it can get a little messy. You get a bowl of warm water with a lemon slice at the end to clean your hands. The bathroom was also primitive, but it flushed! Still a step above camping. Dinner is usually at 9 pm so that's been a challenge to get used to.

I think we're all ready to come home. It has been intense, but we all agree, worth the effort. See you next week in class. Make sure you ask us about our trip and to see our pictures. 


Joyce Claterbos is a marketing lecturer at the University of Kansas School of Business.