Lorie developed Chicago Approach to management education

James Lorie, an innovator in the field of business education who was instrumental in creating what became widely known as “The Chicago Approach to Management Education,” died Saturday, Aug. 6. He was 83.

Lorie, the Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor Emeritus in the Graduate School of Business, taught at the school from 1947 to 1992. While serving as Associate Dean from 1956 to 1961, Lorie and former GSB Dean W. Allen Wallis broke with the tradition of preparing an annual budget for the school and instead developed a 10-year plan that propelled the GSB into the top tier of business schools.

The plan had enormous expanse, covering many new fields and focused on teaching the fundamental disciplines that underlie business and encouraging faculty to conduct research that would solve “existing business problems and those yet unknown.” It was a serious alternative to Harvard University’s case study model, and now Chicago and Harvard define the two principle approaches to management education.

Lorie and Wallis encouraged many leading business scholars to join the University faculty, including George Stigler, who later became the first business school professor to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. Two other faculty recruits at that time, George Shultz and Sidney Davison, each went on to become Dean of the school. Shultz later became U.S. Secretary of Labor and then U.S. Secretary of State.

“Jim Lorie was a giant in the history of the GSB,” said Edward Snyder, Dean and the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics in the GSB. “He was an innovator in curricular development, a recruiter of star faculty and a mentor to hundreds of students. He set high aspirations for our school and worked over four decades to help us achieve them,” Snyder added.

Lorie founded the Center for Research in Security Prices at the Graduate School of Business in 1960, and served as its director until 1975. “He shepherded the center through its difficult early years and was rewarded by seeing it produce an explosion of empirical work that is a large part of the knowledge base of modern finance,” said Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance in the GSB.

“I often sought guidance from Jim,” said Gary Becker, University Professor in Economics, Sociology and the GSB and winner of the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in economics. “He was a very good economist with a lot of common sense.”

Lorie was the author of several books on finance, including The Stock Market: Theories and Evidence (with Mary Hamilton and Peter Dodd); Modern Developments in Investment Management: A Book of Readings (with Robert Breasley); and A Half Century of Returns on Stocks and Bonds (with Lawrence Fisher, University Press, 1977).

M.B.A. students at the University referred to his popular finance course as “Lorie’s Stories,” because he often peppered his lectures with anecdotes and other examples to drive home a point.

“Jim was a mentor and second father to hundreds of students, including me,” said GSB alumnus Victor Niederhoffer (Ph.D.,’69).

Lorie was a founding director of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, a director of Merrill Lynch & Co., Sealy, Vulcan Materials, Acorn Fund, the National Association of Securities Dealers and other organizations.

Survivors include stepchildren Erika Bartelstein of Chicago, Victoria Lautman of Chicago, Karl Lautman of Mountain View, Calif., and Katharine Wexler of Culver City, Calif. Surviving grandchildren are Finnian Macmanus of Chicago, Chloe Bartelstein of Chicago, Kimberly Borchard of Chicago, and Timothy Andalman of New Orleans, La.

Lorie’s wife of 38 years, Vanna Lorie, preceded him in death in 2004. Nancy Ashenhurst Wexler, his second wife, died in 1966. A brief first marriage to Sally Rosen Lorie ended in divorce. Susan Lorie, a daughter from the first marriage, died earlier.

A memorial service for James Lorie will be held Wednesday, Oct. 19 at Ida Noyes Hall, the Cloister Club, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. A reception will follow at the Quadrangle Club.

The family requests that memorial donations be sent to the Graduate School of Business, 5807 S. Woodlawn Ave., Suite 222, Chicago, Ill. 60637.