Coleman D. Ross
Education Course Requirements
or Topics Covered
Master of Arts
Major in Economics
In the long run, we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in the tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean will be flat.
— John Maynard Keynes
[Economics is] not a 'gay science', I should say, like some we have heard of, no, a dreary, desolate and, indeed, quite abject and distressing one; what we may call, by way of eminence, the dismal science.
— Thomas Carlyle
Trinity College chapel
photo by Andrew Ross
I enrolled in the Trinity College Master of Arts program in economics in 1999, both because of my interest in higher learning in economics and finance and the quality of Trinity as an institution. While my study was interrupted by returning to work one year later, I resumed my studies at Trinity in 2004 and completed the program with a concentration in corporate finance in May 2006. The program required the completion of ten credit courses for 30 semester hours and an additional three-hour noncredit course. My course work follows:
- Basic Economic Principles (noncredit course)
- Microeconomic Theory
- Macroeconomic Theory
- Financial Accounting Valuation and Measurement
- Corporation Finance
- Portfolio Management
- Analysis of Financial Markets
- Econometrics
- Methods of Research
- Derivative Securities
- Pension and Other Postretirement Benefits: Accounting Myth
and Economic Reality (research project)
Trinity College is accredited by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual value of society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
— Adam Smith, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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Master of Science in Financial Services
Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy
One quarter of Americans think that buying lottery tickets is a better retirement plan than saving or investing.
— The New York Times (May 14, 2000)
The American College's Gregg Conference Center
photo from The American College
I enrolled in the Master of Science in Financial Services degree program at the Richard D. Irwin Graduate School of The American College in 2002 while I was still the CFO of The Phoenix, both because of my interest in financial services and the blend of residency courses and independent study courses offered by the college. The program required the completion of twelve credit courses (36 semester hours) and one noncredit course. I completed the program and received my degree in 2008.
While enrolled in The American College’s MSFS program, I also completed the school’s Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy (CAP) designation and its Charitable Planning and Customized Asset Management programs. The CAP designation and related program required me to complete three charitable giving courses (nine semester hours) and meet experience and ethics requirements. The asset management program required me to also complete three courses in asset management (nine semester hours). I started the CAP program in 2003, both as an adjunct to my MSFS studies and to support fundraising efforts on behalf of the Boy Scouts of America. I completed the last examiniation in July 2006 and received the desigation in September 2006.
Courses for these programs follow:
Master of Science in Financial Services
- Communications and Research (noncredit course)
- Financial Statement Analysis
- Managing the Financial Services Enterprise
- Financial Institutions
- Security Analysis and Portfolio Management
- Retirement Savings Plans for Employees
- Advanced Estate Planning I
- Personal Tax Planning
- Mutual Funds: Analysis, Allocation, and Performance Evaluation
- Ethics and Human Values
- Charitable Giving
- Executive Compensation
- Charitable Giving Applications
Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy Designation and
Certificate in Charitable Planning
- Charitable Giving
- Charitable Giving Applications
- Charitable Giving: Managing the Tools,
the Applications, and the Relationships
Certificate in Financial Asset Management
- Financial Institutions
- Security Analysis and Portfolio Management
- Mutual Funds: Analysis, Allocation,
and Performance Evaluation
The American College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools.
"Come in!" [said the Professor]
"Only the tailor, Sir, with your little bill," said a meek voice outside the door.
"Ah, well, I can soon settle this business," the Professor said to the children, "if you'll just wait a minute. How much is it, this year, my man?" The tailor had come in while he was speaking.
"Well, it's been a doubling so many years, you see," the tailor replied a little gruffly, "and I think I’d like the money now. It's two thousand pounds, it is!"
"Oh, that's nothing!" the Professor carelessly remarked, feeling in his pocket, as if he always carried that amount with him. "But wouldn't you like to wait just another year, and make it four thousand? Just think how rich you'd be! Why you might even be a King, if you liked!"
"I don't know as I'd care to be a King," the man said thoughtfully. "But it dew sound a powerful sight o' money! Well, I think I'll wait –"
"Of course you will!" said the Professor. "There's good sense in you, I see. Good-day to you, my man!"
"Will you ever have to pay him that four thousand pounds?" [one of the children] asked as the door closed on the departing creditor.
"Never, my child!" the Professor replied emphatically. "He'll go on doubling it, till he dies. You see it's always worth while waiting another year, to get twice as much money!"
— Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno
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Advanced Management Program
We wander with nostalgia down the old brick paths, across the still green grasses, beneath the poplars and along the stone walls we can never forget, and whisper to one another, "I don't recognize the place".
— Sam J. Ervin (UNC Class of 1917 and U.S. Senator from North Carolina)
The University of North Carolina, South Building
photo by Andrew Ross
I completed the University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School Advanced Management Program in 1994. Price Waterhouse provided executive education opportunities to practice leaders and nominated me for the program because of my leadership role with the firm's insurance practice and my concurrent role as the engagement partner for the recently demutualized The Equitable Companies. I was pleased to have this opportunity to return to Chapel Hill and participate. The program, now called the Senior Executives Institute, involved four one-week sessions over four months and focused on leadership and management, covering the following topics:
- Financial Accounting
- Activity Based Cost Accounting
- International Business
- Shareholder Value Creation
- Strategic Information Systems
- Strategy Implementation
- Management Simulation
- Life-long Goal Setting
- Team Building
- Leadership Philosophy and Challenges
- Leadership Styles
- Global Strategy Development
- Marketing Strategy
- Operations Management
- High Performance Workplace Creation
With Dick Jenrette at his Charleston home
overlooking the harbor and Fort Sumter.
Photo by Carol Ross
[There are] also some useful management lessons to be learned … particularly how to survive under stress…. I [recall] a quotation used by Albert Camus: "the dogs bark, but the caravan moves on." In conversations and communications with Equitable people, I sought to portray these almost daily irritations [media sniping, credit-rating agencies' threatened downgrades, regulators' delays, and competitors' bashing] as being akin to jackals snapping at the heels of the camels in the caravan. The important point is not to let the caravan stop and try to fight it out with the dogs. Rather one must keep the caravan moving. I reminded our people that we knew precisely where our caravan was going – to the promised land of demutualization with an oasis containing [capital] at which we could refuel and quench our thirst. We just had to keep the caravan moving and not slow down.
— Richard H. Jenrette
(UNC Class of 1951
and Retired CEO, The Equitable Companies)
Jenrette: The Contrarian Manager
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Bachelor of Science in Business Administration
Major in Accounting
I had never been east of Winston-Salem when I first got here.
I was so homesick, I could die.
— Andy Griffith (UNC Class of 1949)
Coleman D. Ross
Class of 1965
I received a BSBA degree with a major in accounting from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1965, notwithstanding my initial reluctance to study accounting. My father, who had died during my senior year in high school, and my brother were both accountants and I wanted to establish my own, separate identity. Furthermore, the UNC accounting degree program required an additional semester of course work beyond the normal business degree program and cost was a factor, as I was paying for my own education. Despite my need to establish my own identity and the cost of additional study, it became obvious to me that accounting was the right field for me and I completed the program in four years by attending summer school.
1965 UNC Delta Sigma Pi chapter members
Row 1: Marion Renwick, George Lockhart, Howard Wrench, Charlie Cook, Tony Petree, Coleman Ross, O.B. Hawkins, G.C. Petree, Jim Stone, George Durham, Jim Walton.
Row 2: Bob Bowden, Jim Roberts, Earl Stubbs, Don Lawrence, Mike Masten, Ted Rathbun, Steve Reeves, Jim Brannock.
Row 3: Joe Cresimore, Art Winstead, Ed Adams, Doug Israel, John Myers, Tom McCuiston, Gary Smith, Bill Rose, Laten Creech, Robert Barnard.
Row 4: Gary Almond, Ralph Harris, Bill Rogers, Bob Culp, Tom Keefer, Jack Belsinger, Mike Johnson, Woody Oakley, Jon Wiggs, John Lomax, Tad Dillon, Fred Avett.
Row 5: Ron Barden, Lewis Hayes, Page Winchester, Charlie Bowen, Wayne Hutchins, Fletcher Wright, Jake Helder, Dave Robinson, Grady Shields, Jim Potter, Terry Robinson, Bill Broadway.
Not pictured: Arthur Burgess, Jerry Craig, Bob Mullinax, Charlie Parker
I benefited greatly from the accounting education that I received from UNC. I benefited even more from my financial and leadership responsibilities. I worked at part-time jobs during the school terms and also worked at a full-time job on school breaks. With these jobs and loans from an aunt, I ultimately paid all of the costs of my undergraduate education. I was also active in Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity and was President of the chapter in my senior year. These financial and leadership responsibilities were as important as academics in defining me and laying the foundation for my subsequent careers.
My BSBA degree required the completion of 46 courses and 140 semester hours, including ten accounting courses, seven economics and finance courses, two law courses, and six other business administration courses in areas of management, marketing, and human resource administration. In 1967, I also completed yet another undergraduate accounting course at the University of South Florida, which was a specific requirement for me to obtain a Florida CPA license. My undergraduate Business Administration course work follows:
Accounting courses
- Elementary Accounting Principles
- Intermediate Accounting Principles
- Advanced Accounting Principles
- Advanced Accounting Problems
- Cost Accounting
- Accounting Theory
- Auditing
- Federal and State Income Taxation for Individuals
- Federal and State Income Taxation for Partnerships and Corporations
- Certified Public Accounting Problems
- Governmental Institution Accounting (University of South Florida)
Law and Other Business Administration courses
- Business Law
- Credit Transactions and Sales
- Principles of Management
- Management Controls
- Personnel Relations
- Principles of Marketing
- Operations Research
- Management Simulation
Economics and Finance courses
- Microeconomics
- Macroeconomics
- Statistics
- Money and Banking
- Business Finance
- Cases in Business Finance
- Government and Business
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
What is it that binds us to this place as to no other?
It is not the well or the bell or the stone walls.
Or the crisp October nights or the memory of dogwoods blooming….
No, our love for this place is based on the fact that it is,
as
it was meant to be, the 'university of the people'.
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High School Diploma
A person's character traits are not developed in isolation, but within and by the communities to which he belongs
— Aristotle
Coleman D. Ross
Class of 1961
Pleasant Garden School Auditorium
painting by Sandra Melvin Gray, PGHS Class of 1961
click on thumbnail to open Sandra Melvin Gray's web site
Pleasant Garden High School Class of 1961
Beth Allred, Evonne Allred, Christine Arnold, Dewitt Austin, Phil Boyce, Sam Brogden, Linda Brown, Dale Chandler, Larry Coble, Nancy Cox, Sue Culbreth, Nancy Dominick, Jack Fields, June Fields, Larry Fields, John Glass, Linda Hemphill, Rena Hinshaw, Brenda Hockett, Nelson Ingram, Roger Jordan, Linda Kinley, Garland Kirkman, Joyce Kirkman, Martha Ross Kirkman, Sue Kirkman, Bobbie Latham, Ivey Lasley, Jeanette Marley, Teresa McInnis, Jerry Monnett, Brenda Moran, Kenneth Mowery, Kenton Oliver, Bill Osborne, Ronald Osborne, Howard Pratt, Brenda Reddick, Larry Reynolds, Sue Riley, Coleman Ross, Gladys Rummage, Barbara Saunders, Brenda Smith, Fred Smith, Jane Smith, Anne Still, Robert Taylor, Charlotte Toomes, Hal Toomes, Jenny Varner, Larry Walton, Sandra Willard, Gary Wood.
Not pictured: Buddy Allred, Kathy Taylor Beane, Steve Burton, Bill Garrett, Doris Ingold, Sandra Melvin, Gilbert Peele, Ron Stevens, Sonja Allred Still
Pleasant Garden High School Class of 1961 50th Anniversary Reunion
Buddy Allred, Linda (Brown) Ayers, Alice (Thompson) Beane, Phil Boyce, Steve Burton, Dale Chandler, Mona (Tart) Crawford, June (Fields) Dean, Brenda (Smith) Fields, Larry Fields, Harvey Harrison, Rena Hinshaw, Nelson Ingram, Linda (Hemphill) Land, Jerry Monnett, Billie (Latham) Mounce, Kenneth Mowery, Edwin Myers, Martha Ross (Kirkman) Nichols, Kenton Oliver, Jeanette (Marley) Osborne, Evonne (Allred) Parks, Sue (Kirkman) Pine, Howard Pratt, Anne (Still) Ross, Coleman Ross, Sandra (Willard) Still, Barbara (Saunders) Taylor, Brenda (Reddick) Taylor, Robert Taylor, Gladys (Rummage) Tidwell, Doris (Ingold) Vaughn, Gary Wood.
Not pictured: Kathy Taylor Beane, Sam Brogden, Larry Coble, Nancy (Cox) Coble, Nancy Dominick, Jack Fields, Jane (Smith) Fowler, John Glass, Sandra (Melvin) Gray, Christine (Arnold) Hasty, Charlotte (Toomes) Hatschek, Sue (Riley) Jones, Roger Jordan, Garland Kirkman, Ivey Lasley, Brenda Moran, Bill Osborne, Ronald Osborne, Gilbert Peele, Sue (Culbreth) Persons, Teresa (McInnis) Pruitt, Fred Smith, Sonja Allred Still, Linda (Kinley) Sugg, Beth (Allred) Walton, Larry Walton.
Deceased: Dewitt Austin, Bobbie (Latham) Bristow, Jenny (Varner) Burton, Bill Garrett, Larry Reynolds, Joyce (Kirkman) Russell, Ron Stevens, Brenda (Hockett) Tatum, Hal Toomes
photo by Charles Osborne
I was born and raised in Pleasant Garden, North Carolina, where I attended Pleasant Garden School for 12 years. I took college preparatory courses at Pleasant Garden High School (now Southeast Guilford High School), was a member of the Beta Club, the school’s honor society, and graduated third in my class of 61 students.
I also participated in basketball and track, as well the high school chorus. I played basketball all four years and was a distance runner on the track team my final two years. In 1960, I finished in first place in the 880 yard (half-mile) run in the Guilford County Track and Field Championship Meet. In addition to the high school chorus, I also sang in the statewide North Carolina Choral Festival. Following my high school junior year, I was one of two participants from my school in Tar Heel Boys’ State, a week-long, statewide program held in Chapel Hill at UNC. In my senior year of high school, I received the Civitan Award from the Civitan Club of Greensboro, being voted by my fellow high school students as the best citizen in the senior class.
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photos courtesy of Andrew Ross, Wikipedia, The American College, Charles Osborne