Named Professorships

The following endowed chair approvals came before the Cornell Board of Trustees at its May meeting.

College of Arts and Sciences

Valerie J. Bunce, professor of government and chair of the department of government at Cornell, was elected the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor of International Studies, effective July 1.

The professorship was established in 1967 by Aaron L. Binenkorb, Class of 1925, a filmmaker.

Bunce received a doctorate in political science from the University of Michigan in 1976 and is a specialist on both democratization and inter-ethnic conflict, with particular emphasis on east-central Europe and the former Soviet Union.

In 2001-02 she served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and in 2000-01 as vice president of the American Political Science Association, chair of the government department and recurrent distinguished visiting professor at Central European University (Budapest). Bunce is the author of two books and more than 50 articles published in academic journals.

She received National Endowment for the Humanities awards to direct summer seminars for college teachers in 1994, 1995 and 2001.

Isabel V. Hull has been named the John Stambaugh Professor of History, an appointment of indefinite tenure, effective July 1.

The professorship was established in 1919 by John Stambaugh, Class of 1884, to support the teaching of human history in any field.

Hull, a professor of history, joined the Cornell faculty in 1979. Her area of academic expertise is German history, 1648-present, and the political, legal and institutional history of sexuality and gender.

A winner of the Clark Teaching Award at Cornell in 1988, Hull has been a key participant in the Women's Studies Program, which she chaired in 1989-90. She has served on many college and universitywide committees, including the general committee of the graduate school and the dean's advisory committee on appointments.

Among numerous other scholarly distinctions and honors, Hull received a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation fellowship in 1992.

Hull is the author of several important works in her field, including The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II, 1888-1918 (1982) and Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700-1815 (1996). The latter publication won two highly prestigious and competitive honors: The Berkshire Conference Prize, for best book by a woman published in 1996; and the Leo Gershoy Award of the American Historical Association for the best work in English on 17th or 18th century European history. In addition, Hull has served on the editorial board of the American Historical Review and the Journal of Contemporary History, among other services to her field.

College of Engineering

Ronald R. Kline, professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) and of science and technology studies with indefinite tenure, has been elected the first holder of a new chair, the Sue G. and Harry E. Bovay Jr. Professor in the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering, effective July 1.

The professorship was endowed in 2000 with a gift from alumnus Harry Bovay, civil and environmental engineering, Cornell Class of 1936, and his wife, Sue. It will become part of a campuswide initiative that is teaching ethics throughout the disciplines, funded through a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The Bovays have established a similar chair at Texas A&M University.

Kline's research interests are the history of technology and engineering. He also does research on bringing science and technology studies to bear on engineering ethics and is writing a book on the history of information theory. At Cornell, where he has lectured on engineering ethics since 1989, he taught a spring semester undergraduate course this year on ethical issues in engineering, and in the fall he plans a course on technology in society.

He joined the Cornell faculty in 1987 as an assistant professor in the history of technology in the College of Engineering. In 2001 Kline was named a full professor in ECE, as well as in the Department of Science and Technology Studies. He obtained his B.S. in electrical engineering from Kansas State University in 1969. His M.A. (1979) and his Ph.D. (1983) were earned in the history of science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In the early 1990s, an endowment from the Bovays established at Cornell the Bovay Program for the Study of the History and Ethics of Professional Engineering. The program supports the integration of the history and ethics of the engineering profession into undergraduate engineering courses.

Johnson Graduate School of Management

Jerome E. Hass, professor with indefinite tenure, has been elected the James B. Rubin Professor of Finance for a five-year term, effective July 1. The professorship was established by James B. Rubin '75, co-chairman and chief investment officer of Resurgence Asset Management, LLC, a leading global private equity investment firm specializing in business restructuring.

Hass, a professor of finance and business strategy at the Johnson School, has interests in corporate and capital-market finance, business strategy, and the economics of energy and regulation. He is co-author of An Introduction to Managerial Finance and Financing the Energy Industry and has written numerous articles on topics ranging from capital budgeting to merger and acquisition decisions.

He has been a visiting professor at universities in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Russia, Switzerland, the Ukraine and Turkey. Hass developed the Cornell Management Game, a computer-based business strategy simulation used in several university and executive education programs. He helped develop the Johnson School Executive MBA program's investment banking immersion and leadership skills programs.

Hass was chief of the division of economic studies at the Federal Power Commission in 1976-77 and has been a consultant to the Executive Office of the President of the United States, the Department of Energy, the State of Alaska, the New York State Public Service Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and numerous corporations. Since 1983 he has been a consultant and expert witness to the National Economic Research Associates on a range of issues, including the cost of pharmaceutical products, the cost of capital and appropriate capital structures for oil pipelines and natural gas systems. He has testified on corporate finance issues in court, to regulatory agencies and both houses of Congress. Hass earned his Ph.D. at Carnegie Mellon University in 1969. He joined the Johnson School in 1967. He has been the Krause Faculty Fellow in Real Estate Finance at Cornell since 2000.

Stuart L. Hart has been elected to the Samuel C. Johnson Chair in Sustainable Global Enterprise, effective July 1. The professorship was established by Samuel C. Johnson '50 and is supported by the Johnson family. Its purpose is to enhance students' understanding of global sustainability and prepare them to be leaders of ethical, equitable and economically and environmentally sustainable enterprises. Johnson is a Cornell presidential councillor, trustee emeritus and chairman of the Johnson School's Advisory Council as well as chairman emeritus of S.C. Johnson and Son Inc.

Hart comes to the Johnson School from the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he is the Hans Zulliger Distinguished Professor of Sustainability and Management and director of the Center for Sustainable Enterprise.

Hart is interested in the implications of environmentalism and sustainable development for corporate and competitive strategy. He has received numerous honors for his work in the area of sustainable enterprise, including the McKinsey award for Best Article in the Harvard Business Review for 1997 (for his article "Beyond Greening: Strategies for a Sustainable World") and the 2001 Moskowitz Prize for outstanding research in the field of socially responsible investment. He was named a Faculty Pioneer by the World Resources Institute in 1999 for his work in integrating environmental and social issues into management education. He has published more than 50 papers in scholarly journals and written, co-written or edited four books.

Hart has consulted or served as management educator for a range of organizations, among them, Abbott Laboratories, BP Amoco, DuPont, Hewlett Packard, the Nature Conservancy and U.S.-Asia Environmental Partnership.

Before joining the business faculty at North Carolina in 1997, Hart taught corporate strategy at the University of Michigan Business School and was the founding director of the Corporate Environmental Management Program (CEMP), a joint initiative between Michigan's Business School and School of Natural Resources and Environment. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1983.

Mark W. Nelson, professor with indefinite tenure, has been elected the Eleanora and George Landew Professor of Management, effective July 1. The professorship was established in January 2003 by George Landew '52, MBA '57, to honor his late wife, Eleanora B. Teves Landew. George Landew was formerly the principal organization consultant at Chevron U.S.A. Inc., a subsidiary of Chevron Corp., where he retired after 30 years of service. Originally from Hawaii, Eleanora Landew retired from Price Waterhouse after 20 years of service there.

Nelson's teaching focus is financial accounting and auditing. He has won both the Johnson School's Class of 1992 Award for Teaching Excellence and the Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award. Much of his current research examines manager and auditor decisions with respect to aggressive accounting and earnings management. More broadly, his research looks at psychological and economic factors that influence how people interpret and apply accounting, auditing and tax regulations, and conduct trade in financial markets. Nelson also has published in many scholarly journals. He was associate editor of Accounting Review for two terms and serves on the editorial boards of several key accounting journals.

He is the winner of two KPMG Peat Marwick Research Opportunities in Auditing awards as well as KPMG Peat Marwick research and faculty fellowships, and a Clifford Whitcomb faculty fellowship, among other honors. Nelson holds a Ph.D. from Ohio State University, is a certified public accountant and has taught at the Johnson School since 1990.