Dear Friends,
On February 4, Daniel O. Beltran, deputy associate director for international finance at the Federal Reserve, launched our 2026 CoBIT lecture series with a compelling presentation that “demystified” the Fed. The Science Auditorium was packed, with over a hundred students, faculty members, and guests, who stayed for an hour after the program ended. Beltran lifted the curtain and gave the LTU audience a story behind the headlines, underlining the importance of this supremely influential yet mysterious institution in our daily financial affairs. Beltran’s presentation and the response to it convey the momentum we have been building at CoBIT since the start of 2026. You will read more about his special lecture in this edition of CoBIT’s spring eNewsletter.
Our fulltime faculty continue to lead in their fields, as do our alumni—and sometimes together. For her latest book, Professor Jackie Stavros co-authored a fifth edition and involved two CoBIT alumni, Don James and Patricia Malone. You will also meet two recent graduates, Scott Efrusy and Max Sabo, who are making a mark in their professions.
Our adjunct faculty continue to give their students windows into leading edge, headline-making developments of the time, including entrepreneurial tactics for today, advising industry leadership on tariff impact, the latest in machine learning, and even in the process of putting over 1,600 communications satellites into orbit by the end of July. We will share more on these activities in future publications.
At CoBIT, progress is constant. We are adding Entrepreneurship and Sports Management certificates to our AI for Business portfolio. Together with our new STEM MBA, these programs will provide students with relevant skills for the current market.
Sincerely,
Matthew Cole, PhD
