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Stefan J. Padfield

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Director of the NCPPR's Free Enterprise Project. Prior experience includes 15+ years as a law professor, two federal judicial clerkships, private practice at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, LLP, and 6 years enlisted active duty (US Army). Immigrant (naturalized).

I received this position posting today via e-mail (emphasis added):

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The University of Maryland School of Law invites applications for a tenure-track faculty position to teach in the area of business law, potentially including an appropriate combination of the following courses: Business Associations, Corporate Finance, Secured Transactions, along with other core classes in the business curriculum.  We will consider both entry level and lateral candidates.  The University of Maryland has a strong commitment to diversity.  We welcome applications from persons of color, women, and other members of historically disadvantaged groups.  Contact: Professor Leigh Goodmark, University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, 500 W. Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21201.  Email: lgoodmark@law.umaryland.edu.  Phone: (410) 706-3549.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.

Minorities, women, veterans and individuals with disabilities are encouraged to apply.

I am not sure if we have any readers with doctorates in accounting, but, if so, see the hiring announcement from Eastern Illinois University below. I have included this announcement because they are also considering applicants with a J.D. and a CPA or LLM (or other masters) in tax.

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Eastern Illinois University invites applicants for two 9-month tenure track positions at the Assistant level in Accountancy. The positions begin in Fall 2016 and hiring will ultimately depend on the availability of funding. Evidence of strong instructional effectiveness is essential as are strong communication and interpersonal skills.  Demonstrated commitment to diversity and experience with promoting inclusive excellence is required.  The successful candidate will also be expected to provide evidence (or potential) to engage in related research and service activities.  Professional certification, business experience, and experience or willingness to teach in an online format are desirable.

For one position, a PhD or DBA in Accountancy, or a JD with CPA or specialized masters’ in tax, is preferred, although ABDs close to completion will be considered. Candidate should possess expertise and teaching experience in Tax and a secondary area such as managerial, governmental & not-for-profit, accounting information systems, or audit.

For the…

The following position posting was provided to us via e-mail:

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW (CAMDEN CAMPUS) invites applications from entry-level and lateral candidates for one or more tenure-track or tenured faculty positions. Possible areas of particular interest include, but are not limited to, corporate law, corporate governance, commercial law, securities regulation, and other areas of business law. We will consider candidates with an interest in building upon our newly devised Certificate Program in Corporate/Business Law. All applicants should have a distinguished academic background and either great promise or a record of excellence in both scholarship and teaching. We encourage applications from women, people of color, persons with disabilities, and others whose background, experience, and viewpoints would contribute to the diversity of our faculty. Contact: Professor Arthur Laby, Chair, Faculty Appointments Committee; Rutgers University School of Law; 217 North Fifth Street; Camden, NJ; 08102; alaby@rutgers.edu. Rutgers University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all in every aspect of its operations.

Mozaffar Khan, George Serafeim, and Aaron Yoon of Harvard Business School have posted an interesting working paper entitled Corporate Sustainability: First Evidence on Materiality. The abstract follows:

An increasing number of companies make sustainability investments, and an increasing number of investors integrate sustainability performance data in their capital allocation decisions. To date however, the prior academic literature has not distinguished between investments in material versus immaterial sustainability issues. We develop a novel dataset by hand-mapping data on sustainability investments classified as material for each industry into firm-specific performance data on a variety of sustainability investments. This allows us to present new evidence on the value implications of sustainability investments. Using calendar-time portfolio stock return regressions we find that firms with good performance on material sustainability issues significantly outperform firms with poor performance on these issues, suggesting that investments in sustainability issues are shareholder-value enhancing. Further, firms with good performance on sustainability issues not classified as material do not underperform firms with poor performance on these same issues, suggesting investments in sustainability issues are at a minimum not value-destroying. Finally, firms with good performance on material issues and concurrently poor performance on immaterial issues perform the best. These results speak

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For a university discussion group this summer, I read William Deresiewicz’s book Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life (2014).

Deresiewicz, a former Yale English professor, caused quite a stir in higher education circles with his Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League article in the New Republic (and other articles in various outlets), which promoted Excellent Sheep pre-publication.

Deresiewicz’s attack on the ivy league can be summarized as follows:

  • Encourages a system that leads to resume-padding instead of authentic learning and service
  • Too much focus on future financial success and not enough focus on life’s big questions
  • Not enough socioeconomic diversity
  • Faculty preoccupied with research and do not spend enough time on teaching/service
  • Risk-taking is not encouraged; error for margin for students is too small
  • Coursework not rigorous enough
  • Students are kept doing busy-work rather than allowed to explore
  • Encourages a system that can lead to depression, isolation, etc. 

Deresiewicz taught at Yale for 10 years and was supposedly denied tenure in 2008. When I found out that Deresiewicz’s was denied tenure, I was tempted to write off his book as sour grapes, but I think it best…

UGA

The University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business has posted information about a legal studies lecturer position they are seeking to fill this fall.

I know UGA’s legal studies faculty, and they have a bright, collegial group. Also, UGA’s current president, Jere Morehead, previously taught legal studies courses in UGA’s Terry College of Business.

More information about the position, provided by UGA, is available after the break.

Aspen

Earlier this week, I listened to The Aspen Institute’s Does Maximizing Shareholder Value Endanger America’s Great Companies, featuring Lynn Stout (Cornell Law), Tom Donaldson (Penn-Wharton), Howard Schultz (Starbucks), and Shelly Lazarus (director of Merck & GE).

The panel discussion is over a year old, but still relevant. Among other things, I found the exchange between a Georgetown professor in the audience and Howard Schultz of Starbucks to be interesting (starting at 46 minutes).

Georgetown Professor: [Asks a roughly 2-minute long question about creating and choosing appropriate metrics for measuring social responsibility.]

Howard Schultz: “I certainly understand that you are a professor and you want a metric, but this is not the real world. We don’t sit in a room and measure metrics. Let me tell you a very brief story…[tells a story about Starbucks’ company meeting of parents of employees in China]…you can’t put a metric on that; there is no metric….it is a narrative…” 

Personally, I think Schultz was a bit too quick to dismiss the need for social metrics, and, in practice, I am sure Starbucks has some social metrics that it uses. Without any social metrics, however, even the best intentioned management can deceive itself…