Amid the roar of information in Bryant University’s new Financial Markets Center (FMC), an initiation is about to commence. As the security analysts for the Equity Fund division of the $3.9 million Archway Investment Fund pass by the giant stock ticker at the center’s door, they enter a place familiar to them through classes and workshops, but now imbued with new meaning, and new responsibility.
In one corner of the room, a screen tuned to CNBC lays out the financial issues of the day. In another, a display offers up-to-the-minute performance stats for the Dow Jones and Nasdaq.
At the center, dual-monitor workstations and Bloomberg Terminals blink real-time news, data, and analytics.
But the students’ most valuable sources of information are sitting in front of them. Every semester, the portfolio managers (PMs) for the student-managed fund meet in special session with the analysts who are preparing to take it over. It’s both a guided tour of the systems they’ll use and the bestowing of a serious duty.
The PMs for the fund’s sector teams, each devoted to a different area of the market, begin to teach the next generation. In the back of the room, the Communication Services team huddles in a circle around Joseph Tallman ’25.
As Tallman navigates the systems with a practiced ease, he walks the analysts through the shortcuts, quirks, and vagaries of the tools they’ll be using to monitor global trends and markets, conduct research on stocks, and develop investment strategies that will guide their trades.
“You should always be aware of the conventional wisdom,” he adds, “but, ultimately, it comes down to you to make the final call.”
Since its founding in 2005, the student leaders of the Archway Investment Fund — Bryant juniors and seniors representing a variety of majors and selected from a competitive pool for the two-course capstone sequence — have had a fiduciary duty, says Kevin Maloney, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Finance department and director of the fund: “a responsibility to the students who came before them, and to everyone who comes after.”
Over the last 20 years, the portfolio has grown from a $200,000 initial investment provided by the university to, at its latest valuation, $4.0 million. And the students' real-world experience grew alongside it, says Sarkisian Chair in Financial Services Peter Nigro, Ph.D., who helped build the fund alongside Professor of Finance David Louton, Ph.D., who retired from Bryant in 2024.
“We had a bunch of students that wanted to go to Wall Street, but, at that point, whoever heard of Bryant?” says Nigro. “So, the idea was, let's give these kids some real-world experience while they're in school and give them an edge up on kids coming out of places like Harvard.”
But the early 2000s was a nascent time for student-managed funds, he explains, and the concept had seen mixed success. “We talked with some faculty members from other colleges who were on their second student-managed fund because, in the first one, the students basically lost all the money,” Nigro says.
The differentiating factor for Archway, Louton and Nigro decided, would be that it was closely tied to Bryant’s Finance curriculum.
From the very start, Bryant alumni and industry leaders played a key role in fleshing out the fund, as did students Kristen D. (Stein) Goldberg ’05, Noah S. Ahmed ’05, and Peter S. Corvi ’05. This working group, led by Louton and Nigro with assistance from Professor of Finance Hakkan Saraglou, Ph.D., found support for an Archway course taught by Louton and an equity fund that would buy and trade a diverse portfolio of stocks. Early purchases would include a mix of big names like Honeywell, Apple Inc., and McDonald’s, and lesser-known companies such as Irish airline Ryanair and energy firm Piedmont Lithium Limited.
“To get the most out of this class, each student has to contribute his or her share of work, even if that means exerting more time and effort than for the average class.”
They had the money; now they needed the students to manage it. “There was a lot of excitement from the very start,” remembers Nigro. “It was very competitive to get in.”
Archway hopefuls were judged — and are still judged, 20 years later — on grades and acumen, but also on passion and a willingness to go the extra mile.
“To get the most out of this class, each student has to contribute his or her share of work, even if that means exerting more time and effort than for the average class,” wrote Louton in an early investment report.
Tarang Patel ’07, one of the members of the fund’s first full class, can’t help but laugh when he thinks back to his time with Archway.
“Wow, what a risk they took, giving all that money to bunch of students,” Patel, now vice president of corporate development for the technology company Acquia, chuckles.
There was a lot of buzz around the class, and a bit of prestige, he recalls. But with that stature came responsibility. “I think it brought out the best in all of us,” says Patel.
The Archway students were also eager to test one another. Patel vividly remembers a fellow classmate mercilessly grilling him during a stock pitch.
“Of course, I did the exact same thing to him when he pitched,” he admits with glee.
But that heated atmosphere also helped to forge lifelong bonds; the same rival would later go on to become a groomsman at Patel’s wedding.
In the early days of the program, it felt like everyone was under a lot of scrutiny and still had something to prove, Patel says.
“For the first couple weeks I tried to teach the course by the book — then I threw the book out the window. We created our own textbook every day.”
It wasn’t always smooth sailing those first years — the financial crisis of 2008 hit early in the fund’s run, for instance — but the fund quickly established itself and, buoyed by success, received additional funding from the university.
Patel recalls when his cohort gave their final presentation to the Bryant Board of Trustees.
“I remember showing them two of the slides in our deck,” he says. “In the first one, we showed a picture of a pontoon boat, and I told them that’s where the fund is now. Then I showed them a picture of a speedboat and said, ‘That’s where we’re going to be.’”
After ten successful years under Louton, Professor of Finance Asli Ascioglu, Ph.D., took over the fund in 2015, growing it exponentially.
“For the first couple weeks I tried to teach the course by the book — then I threw the book out the window,” Ascioglu, the director of Bryant’s Financial Markets Center, admits with a laugh.
“We created our own textbook every day.”
Ascioglu also incorporated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the investment process, which are used alongside traditional financial ratios and fundamental analysis when evaluating the potential returns and risk of stocks.
“Our job is to prepare students for the realities of modern portfolio management and to help them understand that finance is not just about numbers, but about how capital allocation affects the world,” she explains.
During this time, Maloney was hired to introduce a new fixed income portfolio into the Archway program, funded by two cash infusions of $250,000, one from the university, the other from the Equity Fund.
The fund most recently incorporated a Digital Innovation Fund, pioneered by Nigro, that immerses students in the emerging technological trends that are fundamentally changing the financial services industry. Its holdings include digital banking, lending, and investing platform SoFi Technologies, PayPal, and fintech and homeownership services firm Rocket Companies.
“We saw it coming early on,” says Nigro. “We knew we had to look forward.”
But the fund has also stayed true to its guiding principles — and to its focus on high performance. Recent Archway alum Rosemary McIlroy ’25, now a risk management associate at Citizens, characterizes the Archway experience as a trial by fire. “We had so many late nights in the Financial Markets Center just doing research and trying to make decisions about where we were going to invest,” she says. “We all were good at different things, and we had to learn to work together and rely on each other.”
“This is one of my favorite days of the year, because I get to see so many of my old students who have gone on to big things.”
That emphasis on teamwork faced no stronger test than the COVID-19 pandemic, which both Ascioglu and Maloney consider to be one of the fund’s finest hours. That semester, the portfolio managers went on spring break and, from their family homes and vacation destinations, watched the markets collapse in a matter of days.
“We all went off script,” says Maloney, who became Archway director in 2024. “I told them, ‘According to the syllabus, we’re supposed to be talking about X, today, right? Well, we’re going to pivot and talk about how to navigate during times of crisis.’”
The students, and their portfolio, persevered. “One thing we have learned is to trust our students, and that they have always risen to that trust,” reflects Ascioglu.
Year by year, class by class, Archway alumni have outpaced their peers in finance, securing positions with storied firms like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Fidelity Investments, and others.
“I think one of the things we’ve learned is how to out-grit the competition,” reflects McIlroy. “In my first Archway class, I remember the professor telling us that if you want to be able to compete, you have to show that you can outwork the Ivy kids — and seeing how well so many Archway grads have done, I think the program’s helped ingrain that in all of us.”
Even with their success, the Archway graduates never forget where they came from. They’ve forged a powerful subset of Bryant’s finance network and they regularly return to campus for opportunities to engage with students, including this fall’s Financial Services Forum, a Bryant tradition as old as the Archway Investment Fund.
“This is one of my favorite days of the year,” Nigro declares in this year’s opening remarks, “because I get to see so many of my old students who have gone on to big things.”
At one of the day’s panels, Patel, alongside other Archway grads, offers advice to current students about finding their way in the financial services industry.
Later on, faculty, students, and alumni pack the Financial Markets Center for a reception to celebrate the program’s anniversary — paired with a mentoring session. More than two dozen Archway program alumni help guide the next generation of Archway students as they prepare to transition from life as a student to their professional career.
Almost immediately, a student comes up to Patel and asks for advice. Patel’s eyes light up as he takes in his resume. “Wow, a sophomore — you’re starting early,” he tells the Archway hopeful.
For Patel, who was there for the fund’s humble beginning, there is a feeling of awe in seeing how far Archway has come. There’s also a sense of pride in knowing he played a part in its success. “I saw the speedboat today,”
he reflects.