Winners take chances, finance professor Dianne Roden tells her business students at IU Kokomo. In fact, students from her classes have ranked in the top 5 percent nationally for the past five years in a major investment competition. Last year's team, for example, saw their fictional investment of $100,000 grow to $280,000 in just two months.

"The investment challenge competition allows students to make trades in real time," says Roden. "It makes what we discuss in class far more meaningful. Students learn about the trade off between risk and return. To excel, you have to put your neck out. It's a lesson that applies to life as well as to finance."

A popular professor of both undergraduate and graduate courses, Roden teaches subjects ranging from financial management and statistics to corporate finance and investments. She has also been instrumental in creating the Teaching Excellence Center at IU Kokomo. She has been honored frequently for her teaching, receiving the Claude Rich Excellence in Teaching Award, the Faculty Colloquium on Excellence in Teaching Award, the Trustees Teaching Excellence Award, and IU's Teaching Excellence Recognition Award, as well as the Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Service.

Roden's research deals with issues of corporate control and ownership, including leveraged buyouts, dual-class stock, and mutual-to-stock conversions. She has published her work in numerous finance journals, including a recent article on the conflict of interest between those who manage a company and those who own the company's stock.

Roden takes her own advice about taking chances. She recently entered the U.S. Tae Kwon Do Union tournament in Detroit and won gold, silver, and bronze medals. She's especially proud of the first-place medal in board breaking, an open competition in which she was the oldest participant.