The Bendheim Center for Finance is Princeton's finance building, located in the former Dial Lodge at 26 Prospect Avenue.

History

In 1998, Princeton University established the Bendheim Center for Finance. For decades, Princeton has prided itself as a purely academic institution that does not focus on professional careers. To this day, Princeton has no medical school, law school, or business school. The Bendheim Center for Finance was an attempt by Princeton to approach professional training from Princeton's historic academic slant. 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Princeton University is a coeducational private university located in Princeton, New Jersey. ...

Princeton established the Bendheim Center for Finance for the following reasons:

In the late 1990s, other rigorous quantitative finance masters programs emerged in the United States. Carnegie Mellon launched the first in 1998, followed soon after by Columbia University and NYU. Princeton did not want to be left behind.

The former Dial Lodge building became available when the eating club failed, offering prime real estate adjacent to the economics department's building and close to the Operations Research department.

Facilities

The Bendheim Center for Finance is located in former Dial Lodge on Prospect Avenue (known to Princeton students as "The Street" because of the nearby eating clubs). The Bendheim Center for Finance is a 3 floor building.

The first floor contains the BCF's only classroom, a lounge/library, and 2 faculty offices. The second floor contains faculty offices. The third floor contains the office carrels for PhD students of the professors with BCF offices. The basement has a small computer cluster and overflow PhD student office carrels.

Currently, only faculty and PhD students have after hour access to Dial Lodge; masters students do not have key access.

Undergraduate Certificate

History of the Undergraduate Certificate

In the fall of 1999, BCF began offering a certificate in finance, awarding the first certificates in June 2000.

Number of certificates awarded per year:

Masters Degree

The Bendheim Center for Finance offers a Masters in Finance (MFin) degree that can be completed in 1 year (10 courses) or 2 years (16 courses). Only students with prior finance training or work experience are admitted to the 1 year option.

For Fall 2006, BCF received over 400 applications for 25 spots.

History of the MFin Degree

The Bendheim Center for Finance began offering a Masters in Finance degree in 2001, awarding the first degrees in June 2002.

Number of MFin degrees awarded per year:

Head Faculty

Yacine Ait-Sahalia Rene Carmona Swati Bhatt Robert Kimmel

Controversies

In 2006, the Bendheim Center declined to offer economics professor Robert Kimmel tenure, despite stellar student course reviews. Kimmel is now based at The Ohio State University. This article is about Ohio State; there is also an Ohio University. ...

In January 2006, 2 BCF masters students were accused of cheating on their final examinations for the Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives course. Despite strong evidence of cheating, they were only reprimanded verbally.