Endowed chairs to 18 on faculty

Eighteen University faculty members have received endowed professorships, including seven chairs that are being awarded for the first time.

The professorships have been awarded to six faculty members in the Graduate School of Business, three members of the Humanities faculty, two in the Law School, one in the Physical Sciences, three in the School of Social Service Administration and three in the Social Sciences.

Andrew Abbott, Professor in Sociology and the College, has been named the Ralph Lewis Professor.

Abbott's work examines social theory, professions and historical sociology. He is the author of The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, published by the Press in 1988. His argument that professions exist in a complex competitive ecology has redirected studies of professions toward a focus on interdependence, conflict and cooperation. He also has pioneered the application of algorithmic sequencing methods to social data. He joined the faculty in 1991.

Arjun Appadurai, Professor in South Asian Languages & Civilizations, Anthropology and the College, was appointed the Samuel N. Harper Professor. Appadurai, Director of the University's Globalization Project, is an expert on the cultural dimensions of globalization. He is currently working on a project funded by the Open Society Institute to explore ethnic violence in the era of globalization. Appadurai was the first Director of the Chicago Humanities Institute, holding the post from 1992, when he joined the University faculty, to 1996. As Director of CHI, he held the Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professorship. He is the author of several books, including Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996), and he is associate editor of the journal Public Culture.

Sharon Berlin, Professor in SSA, has been named the Helen Ross Professor.

Berlin is an expert in social work clinical practice, women and depression, and cognitive models of social work intervention. Her work most recently has focused on developing and testing cognitive approaches for intervention with women who are depressed. A University faculty member since 1985, she was awarded the SSA's Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996.

John Cochrane, Professor in the GSB, has been appointed the Sigmund E. Edelstone Professor of Finance.

Cochrane centers his research on finance, macro-economics and monetary economics. He is a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, a research fellow with the National Opinion Research Center, a consultant for the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and associate editor of several journals. Cochrane came to Chicago as a faculty member in Economics in 1985 and joined the GSB faculty in 1994.

Philippe Desan, Professor in Romance Languages & Literatures, Committee on the History of Culture, and the College, has been appointed the Howard L. Willett Professor in the College.

Desan, who is also Master of the Humanities Collegiate Division and Associate Dean in the Humanities Division, is an expert on 16th-century literature, Renaissance philosophy and the sociology of culture and literature. He is a Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques (Knight in the Order of Academic Palms), one of the highest distinctions in France for academics and artists, and he has received France's Medaille de la ville de Bordeaux in honor of his work on the French writer Montaigne. His books include the forthcoming Montaigne dans tous ses etats. He has been on the faculty since 1984.

Steven Kaplan, Professor in the GSB, has been appointed the Leon Carroll Marshall Professor.

Kaplan, a Chicago faculty member since 1988, is an authority on corporate governance, corporate control and corporate finance with particular experience in the areas of boards of directors and management buyouts. In 1994, Business Week named him one of the top 12 business school teachers in the country. The associate editor of several journals, he is also a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Laurence Lynn Jr., Professor in SSA and the Harris School of Public Policy Studies, is the first recipient of the Sidney Stein Jr. Professorship.

Lynn is an expert in policy analysis methods and applications, public management theory and practice, and social program analysis and evaluation. His most recent project, for which he has received nearly $1 million in funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, will develop and apply models for assessing the contributions to government effectiveness of factors such as policy designs, organizational structures and managerial choices and actions. His book Public Management as Art, Science and Profession was named best book of 1996 by the Public and Nonprofit Sector Division of the Academy of Management. Former Dean of SSA, from 1983 to 1988, he joined the Chicago faculty in 1983.

The Sydney Stein Jr. Professorship was established with a grant from the LaSalle Adams Fund. Sidney Stein Jr. (Ph.B.'23), a Life Trustee of the University, was a successful career investment counselor who worked under President Roosevelt at the Bureau of the Budget and as a consultant to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. An active member of the Board of Trustees for 25 years, he received the Alumni Association's Public Service Award in 1954.

Peter McCullagh, Professor and Chairman of Statistics, has been appointed the Ralph and Mary Otis Isham Professor.

An expert in generalized linear models, McCullagh was the recipient in 1990 of the most prestigious award in his field, the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies Presidents' Medal, awarded to the best statistician under 40. McCullagh is a fellow of the Royal Society of London as well as the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He joined the Chicago faculty in 1985.

Raghuram Rajan, Professor in the GSB, has been appointed the Joseph L. Gidwitz Professor.

Rajan has concentrated his research on corporate finance and financial intermediation and regulation. He has published numerous articles on these topics, and has twice won the Smith Breeden Prizes for the best papers published in Journal of Finance, in 1992 and in 1995. He joined the GSB in 1991.

The Joseph L. Gidwitz Professorship was established by the Board of Trustees with a gift made possible by Joseph Gidwitz (Ph.B.'23) and additional funds from his children, Alan, Betsy and Ralph Gidwitz. Gidwitz was vice-chairman of Helene Curtis and an enthusiastic supporter of civic groups, education institutions and philanthropic organizations in Chicago.

J. Mark Ramseyer, Professor in the Law School, has been named the Harold J. and Marion F. Green Professor.

An expert on the economic, legal and political institutions of Japan, he is the author or co-author of several books on Japanese law and economics, including Odd Markets in Japanese History (1996) and the Japanese-language volume Ho to keizaigaku (Law and Economics) (1990). He is co-editor of the Journal of Legal Studies and Studies in Law & Economics and associate editor of the Journal of Japanese & International Economies.

James Redfield (A.B.'54, Ph.D.'61) has been named the Edward Olson Professor in the Committee on Social Thought, Classical Languages and the College. He was previously the Howard L. Willett Professor.

Redfield, a leading scholar of the classics, specializes in ancient Greek culture. His research has resulted in numerous articles as well as the book Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector, published by the Press in 1984. A Chicago faculty member since 1960, he has twice won the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, in 1965 and in 1987.

Peter Rossi, Professor in the GSB, has been appointed the first Joseph T. Lewis Professor.

Rossi, a University faculty member since 1986, works on methods for analysis of marketing decisions based on detailed databases. In particular, his work has focused on the analysis of consumer promotions using store and household scanner data. He also develops new methods for direct marketing. Rossi is associate editor of the Journal of American Statistical Association.

The Joseph T. Lewis Professorship was established by James Lewis (M.B.A.'70) in honor of his father. James Lewis is chairman of the Geometry Group in New York and a longtime volunteer for the GSB. He is currently a member of the Council on the GSB.

Robert Sampson, Professor in Sociology and the College, has been named the Lucy Flower Professor in Urban Sociology.

Sampson, whose research focuses on juvenile delinquency, is an expert on life-course and community-level approaches to the study of urban crime. His critically acclaimed Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life (1993) was based on records gathered on 1,000 boys from birth through adulthood. More recently, he has been an investigator in the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods. He joined the faculty in 1991.

Edward Shaughnessy, Professor in East Asian Languages & Civilizations and the College, is the first to be named the Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Professor in Early Chinese Studies.

Shaughnessy is one of the world's leading authorities on the study of China's high antiquity through the Han period. By analyzing the inscriptions on bronze vessels and oracle bones, which were the only written records of the period, he correlates the dates of such events as the ascension and burial of rulers and the making of alliances with other rulers and feudal chieftans. The editor of the journal Early China since 1988, Shaughnessy is co-editor of the forthcoming The Cambridge History of Ancient China.

The Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Professorship was established through a bequest made by Lorraine Johnson Creel, who, with her husband, Herrlee Creel, had a long association with the University. Herrlee Creel (A.B.'26, A.M.'27, Ph.D.'29), the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor until his retirement in 1973, introduced Chinese studies to the University and was considered one of the foremost scholars of Confucius and early Chinese philosophy, history and literature. Lorraine Creel (Ph.B.'26), who was very involved in her husband's work, was an expert on Confucius and the history of the Far East and during World War II helped break the Japanese naval code.

Michael Sosin, Professor in the SSA, has been awarded the first Emily Klein Gidwitz Professorship.

Sosin has written extensively on social welfare institutions, social policy, social administration, urban poverty and homelessness. He is the author of several books, including Private Benefits: Material Assistance in the Private Sector (1986) and Last Resorts: Emergency Assistance and Special Needs Program in Public Welfare (1983). Among his current interests are studies of managed care drug treatment programs, faith-based social service agencies, and gang violence reduction programs.

The Emily Klein Gidwitz Professorship was established through a bequest made by Joseph Gidwitz in honor of his wife. Emily Gidwitz (Ph.B.'27, M.A.'29) had a strong interest in health care, serving on the boards of two major Chicago hospitals, and demonstrated her commitment to SSA by funding a course on social welfare management shortly before her death in 1976.

Alan Sykes, Professor in the Law School, has been named the Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor.

Sykes is an expert in international trade, torts, contracts, insurance and the economic analysis of law. His current work focuses on the economics of WTO/GATT system. He is co-editor of the Journal of Law and Economics and is co-author of Product Standards for Internationally Integrated Goods Markets (1995), Legal Problems of International Economic Relations (1995) and Implementing the Uruguay Round (1997).

Roman Weil has been awarded the first V. Duane Rath Professorship in the GSB. He previously was the Sigmund E. Edelstone Professor.

Weil, a University faculty member since 1965, has focused his work on financial accounting and regulation. He is frequently an expert witness in cases involving accounting or economics principle valuation and damage assessment. Among his published works are several textbooks, including Litigation Services Handbook (2nd edition, 1995), Accounting: The Language of Business (9th edition, 1994), Financial Accounting (8th edition, 1996) and Managerial Accounting (6th edition, 1997). He currently serves on two task forces for the Financial Accounting Standards Board.

The V. Duane Rath Professorship was established by James Sanger in honor of V. Duane Rath, his longtime business partner. Sanger and Rath were partners in DRS Investment Group.

Alwyn Young, a new faculty member in the GSB, is the first recipient of the Joseph Sondheimer Professorship of International Economics and Finance in the GSB. (See story in Sept. 25 Chronicle).

The Joseph Sondheimer Professorship was established by Joseph Sondheimer (A.B.'39), retired vice chairman of Stein, Row and Farnham and an active supporter of the GSB.