What causes bank failures and what can universities do to help prevent them in the future? Focusing on the recent collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, those are among the questions that will be addressed during “The Silicon Valley Bank Collapse – Integrated Learning and Economic Resiliency,” a forum at 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 18, in the Missouri Room of the Havener Center on the S&T campus in Rolla. Light refreshments will be served during the forum, which is free and open to the public. The forum is sponsored by the Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development.

The March 10 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank was the largest bank failure since 2008. The bank was a state-chartered commercial institution headquartered in Santa Clara, California. At the time of its failure, it was the 16th-largest bank in the United States and the largest bank by deposits in Silicon Valley. Its holdings are now managed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

During the forum, Dr. Melody Lo, the John and Ruth Steinmeyer Memorial Endowed Chair of Economics, and Dr. Tim Faley, interim vice provost and dean of the Kummer College and associate vice chancellor for innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization, will guide a discussion on how catastrophic events such as bank failures might be avoided by leaders whose formal education transcends disciplines. They will be joined by Ed Koharik, a solutions engineer at C2FO, a financial technology company in Kansas City, Missouri, who earned a bachelor’s degree at S&T in economics with a minor in 2019; Ben Tipton, president and chief lending officer at Phelps County Bank; and Jon Rapp, senior vice president with Phelps County Bank, who earned a bachelor’s degree at S&T in business and management systems with a minor in economics in 2010.

“Cross-disciplinary learning is the foundation for preparing the leaders of the future,” says Lo, who believes offering students an opportunity to more deeply understand how the decisions they make affect not only the organizations they may lead but also can help the entire economy move society away from a cycle of financial crises and toward economic resilience. “It’s important to prepare our students to be not only leaders, but responsible leaders,” she says.

Faley will discuss the impact of the bank collapse on the ability of startups to develop their ideas and how that may affect students about to enter the job market. Faley is the author of three books on innovation and entrepreneurship; prior to joining S&T he was chief architect of the entrepreneurship program at the University of Michigan, which was named the top-ranked graduate program in entrepreneurship in the country in 2013 under his guidance.

“This forum will serve as the starting point of a conversation about how the Kummer College can collaborate across Missouri S&T and the community to provide our students with the experience and insight they’ll need to lead us to economic resiliency,” Faley says.

About Missouri University of Science and Technology

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System and located in Rolla, Missouri, Missouri S&T offers 101 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top 10 universities for return on investment, according to Business Insider. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.