Hands-on learning and internships have always been an important part of the Stockton University student experience, especially for Business students looking for a career in financial trading.   

But what if some of that real-world experience could be brought to campus?  

That’s the goal of the new Applied Investment Management (AIM) Group, which started as a student-run club in the fall of 2024. The club simulates an investment brokerage firm and is being financed by $50,000 in seed money from the University Foundation.   

“This is a 100% learning-by-doing activity,” said Nancy Stempin, assistant professor of Accounting and one of the club’s advisors along with Michael Busler, professor of Finance. “The intent is to really simulate the activity the students would do in their real job after graduation.”  

The club is the brainchild of senior students Chris D’Amore and Erik Ackerman who approached Stempin two years ago when they noticed that Stockton offered an accounting club but nothing specifically focusing on financial trading and the stock market.  

Stempin, who previously was the comptroller for the drug company Pfizer and a former partner at Ernst and Young, challenged the students to think specifically about how they wanted to use their degree and what career they wanted to enter.   

“Chris said he wanted to provide financial investment advice,” Stempin said. “But it became very apparent to me that he had never traded. You need that experience.”  

Stempin suggested starting an AIM club since she had experience working with them at other college campuses. The portfolio for Notre Dame’s AIM club began in 1995 and is currently valued at approximately $31 million.  

D’Amore and Ackerman created a business plan and pitched the Foundation last summer for the seed money that would eventually be used in actual trading. The club held its first meetings during the fall 2024 semester and quickly picked up roughly 40 students, with about half of them upperclassmen and half underclassmen. The Foundation approved the $50,000 investment in October.    

The club is structured so that first-years and sophomores serve as analysts — gathering statistics and financial data on potential companies for AIM to invest in. They then make presentations to the juniors and seniors who serve as portfolio managers. The group as a whole would then discuss what companies to invest in with the seed money. Right now, club members are preparing presentations to make to the group this spring.  

“I’d say the biggest goal is build a really strong sense of community,” said D’Amore, who’s from Long Valley, New Jersey. “I want people to walk by each other in the hallways and say, ‘Hey, that’s someone from my analyst group who I was doing a presentation with.’”  

But D’Amore and Stempin also want to extend that sense of community to Stockton alumni and encourage them to come to AIM meetings to discuss what a career in finance looks like.   

“We would love to get more engagement from alumni who have landed in finance,” Stempin said. “Come in and be a presenter to help these students understand their career paths. We’re not asking them for money. We’re asking them to help the students understand what path you picked because that’s what the students don’t understand.”  

Stempin said she’s already seen the knowledge level ramping up with her accounting students in the club.  

“It’s changed the conversation about what they need to be prepared for the future,” she said. “This club helps make the book stuff real. It provides an ‘a-ha,’ and the more ‘a-has,’ the more excitement, the more knowledge and depth of the understanding to better prepare them for the future.”  

Helping to prepare students for careers is one of the main tenets of the financial support that the Stockton Foundation provides, said Brigid Callahan Harrison, the chair of the Foundation’s Board of Directors.  

“After hearing the presentations from Chris and Erik, the Foundation is excited to see what the AIM club can do with our investment,” Harrison said. “It’s great that this club is providing students with real-world financial trading experience on campus.”  

The club has already provided some networking opportunities for D’Amore and Ackerman. They, along with fellow club member Hank Gallacher, attended an alumni meeting over the summer at the New York Yacht Club at the invitation of Stockton President Joe Bertolino.  

“We were able to talk to a lot of professionals in business and also in other fields, such as politics and law,” D’Amore said. “That night built a sense of community between us and the alumni, and some of those alumni I actually still keep in touch with.”  

Stempin said that’s just one example of the positive impact the club can have on students.   

“You can’t quantify how much they learned from that experience,” she said. “They learned so much about what people do and how they do it. I really think the club has the potential to continue to develop a better Stockton student in the future. I think it’s wonderful that the Foundation was willing to support them.”