Student Praise for Three Great Teachers

FOLLOWING AN MBA AND SLOAN end-of-year tradition, doctoral students designated a top teacher in June. The first PhD Distinguished Service Award was presented to David Baron, the William R. Kimball Professor of Business, Economics, and the Environment, at a breakfast reception. At separate ceremonies, William Beaver, the Joan E. Horngren Professor of Accounting, was named Excellent Professor of the Year by the Sloan Class of 1999 and Paul Romer, the Stanco 25 Professor of Economics, received the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award.

The three winners are as different as the students who honored them. They work in different disciplines and came to the Business School in different eras — Beaver in 1969, Baron in 1981, and Romer in 1996. But when you reduce to their essence the criteria for which they were chosen, you find that all three faculty members demonstrate two qualities: extraordinary expertise in their fields coupled with more than usual personal attention to their students.

The doctoral students noted that Baron created and developed the cross-disciplinary field of political economics at the Business School. "Professor Baron has quite simply transformed the GSB," said one nominator. This, he added, despite taking time out for students at work, school, and elsewhere. MBA students singled out Romer for his ability to make economics come alive, his "unparalleled" use of technology in the classroom, and his availability and dedication to his students. And the Sloans, who presented accounting professor Beaver with a 19th-century Russian abacus to symbolize "the art of teaching and the science of business," extolled Beaver's "comprehensive knowledge, professionalism, and passion" for his subject, but especially his humanity and modesty. Beaver may have explained the secret of success for all three when he said in acceptance: "Education is my life."

AN ENDOWED PROFESSORSHIP is one of the highest honors a university can bestow on a faculty member. This year five Graduate School of Business professors were named to endowed chairs for the first time. Jonathan Bendor was appointed Walter and Elise Haas Professor of Political Economics and Organization, J. Darrell Duffie became James Irvin Miller Professor of Finance, Peter Reiss was named MBA Class of 1963 Professor of Economics, Paul Romer was appointed Stanco 25 Professor of Economics, and Itamar Simonson became the new Sebastian S. Kresge Professor of Marketing. Michael Hannan and Margaret Neale held named professorships at their previous institutions — Cornell and Northwestern — but received their first GSB chairs in September. Hannan is now the GSB's StrataCom Professor of Management and Neale is the John G. McCoy-Banc One Corporation Professor of Organizations and Dispute Resolution. Two of the chairs were established this year: the MBA Class of 1963 professorship by members of that class in honor of their 35th reunion, and the StrataCom chair by Elizabeth and Richard M. Moley, the founder of StrataCom, which was purchased by Cisco Systems in 1996.

TWO FACULTY MEMBERS WERE GRANTED tenure effective September 1: Daniel Kessler, associate professor of economics, law, and policy, and Jeffrey Zwiebel, associate professor of finance. Kessler, who holds a JD from Stanford as well as a PhD from MIT, came to the Business School in 1994. He conducts empirical research in law and economics and is particularly interested in the economics of health care. Kessler codeveloped the MBA elective in social entrepreneurship, offered for the first time in 1997, and also taught Public Sector Economics. Zwiebel also earned his PhD at MIT; he joined the Business School in 1991. His research interests include corporate decision making in the face of agency conflicts, capital structure and security design choice, intrafirm bargaining, and organizational design. Zwiebel teaches corporate finance at both the MBA and PhD levels and also teaches executives in the Financial Management Program.