Lazaridis School of Business and Economics

Named after Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada's seventh prime minister this university has more than 100 years of history. It has very well established undergraduate programs which are arguably among the best in Canada. This review however, is based on my horrible experience as a PhD student in the finance department of this university between 2009 and 2011.One of the most frustrating aspects of my experience was that the evaluations in the program were largely arbitrary and ego driven. The program included two exams in the courses Corporate Finance and Empirical Asset Pricing by Subhankar Nayak on a one-on-one basis.In 2010, Nayak administered the exams in these courses for a student with obvious gaps in her knowledge. Nayak let the student pass the exams for the apparent reason that he and his colleague wanted to sit in the thesis committee of this student. In 2011, I attended the same exams with him and again on a one-one-one basis. I wasn’t a stellar student but he definitely obtained evidence that I meet, if not exceed the usual standards of his courses. To my surprise a few days later I found that Nayak didn’t let me pass by manipulating the exams and fabricating some nonsensical arguments. Nayak was rarely in a reasonable frame of mind and it was difficult to have a meaningful discussion with him. But after lengthy conversations, by connecting the dots, I realized that since he had let that student with obvious gaps in her knowledge pass in the year prior; the discriminatory power of his exams were questioned by his colleagues and now he wanted to prove to them that he maintains a high level of standards. In other words, he was falsely disparaging my performance to pretend that the quality of his courses were higher than what they truly were. While this makes me conclude that Nayak doesn’t have academic honor, I won’t be able to reject the hypothesis that perhaps his exams were producing spurious results simply because he wasn’t qualified for the job. An alternative explanation that was offered by a faculty member there was attributing the observed erratic behavior to Nayak’s troubled past. To be clear, at no point I was supposed to do research with this individual and he never provided me with any funding.Another issue in that program was a case of conflict of interest which was interfering with the academic evaluations in my opinion. Laurier had teaching contracts that were sometimes given to PhD students to give them the opportunity to gain teaching experience and a little bit of money. The conflict of interest case was that the spouse of a finance faculty member, F Marco Perez was competing with the graduate students in the department to win such contracts. Perez’s spouse did not have any academic degrees in Finance, nor did she have any relevant professional designations or work experience but she was trying to establish herself as a lecturer in the discipline. Even more peculiar for me was the observation that Perez was aggressively sabotaging the works of those poor graduate students who were at the point of applying for the aforementioned teaching contracts and were posing competition to his spouse. While some may argue that these observations were pure coincidence, I don’t see any reason to accept it.The fact that someone with no relevant qualifications could win teaching contracts points to the poor quality. But it wouldn’t be fair to write about poor quality there without mentioning Madhu Kalimipali. I had two seminars with this individual, one in Derivatives Studies and one in Fixed Income Studies; both on a one-on-one basis in two consecutive semesters. In reality these seminars only happened on paper, as he kept skipping classes with different excuses for the first semester and told me that he is busy and cannot come to classes for the second one. To be clear, I was officially registered for these seminars and he was supposed to spend 3 hours per week for them in those semesters. I have never seen anyone doing his job like this in any of the numerous institutions that I worked at in the past 20 years.

Great grad ceremony today. Well organized, good length, great venue

A very grand, spacious building that makes special events even better. Great job!

Great atmosphere.... Here for my son's convocation ceremony....

5/5 for the education3/5 for the buildingThe professors are either seasoned professionals or researchers. This makes it quite easy for them to make entertaining lectures that will keep you alert and interest. While not listed, many of them are around for open office hours. Cannot thank them enough for the great economics program I recieved.The building as it's positives and negatives. In the good column, the design and space of the grand hall and the auditorium are perfect for meet ups and lectures. Great space, great lighting, and great resource rooms provided by prism resources. However, study spaces fills up quickly due to the large enrollment in business and economics programs. Also, regular classrooms feel cramped, as the swivel chairs will press you onto the desk. May also encounter wifi issues around the grand hallOverall; great programs that have been established in a decent building

I went to Doors open. Inside was beautiful. I was surprised, 1000 people can enter for huge classroom. Looks is theater!

Amazing venue for the ETH event.Great auditorium and nice location!

Great space, needs more tables in the general area on the first floor like they have in the science building for more students to study. Also would be nice to be able to access the study rooms 24/7 because sometimes it's nice to have a room later into the night and know theirs a place to study in the business building

Beautiful building. Great place to work and learn business.