By Athena Soriero '06

Dr. Paul W. MacAvoy, Sacred Heart University Trustee and former Dean and Williams Brothers Professor at the Yale School of Management, will share his expert assessment of what goes wrong on corporate boards leading to the collapse of major corporations, as part of Sacred Heart University's 14th College of Business (COB)—Research, Teaching and Executive Forum.

The lecture, “The Recurrent Crisis in the Corporate Governance” will take place Monday, April 11, 2005 in the Board Room of the William H. Pitt Health & Recreation Center at Sacred Heart University (5151 Park Avenue, Fairfield, Conn.). The forum will begin with a lunch reception at Noon, immediately proceeded by the presentation at 12:45 PM. A question and answer session will follow. The afternoon will come to a close with a book signing for Dr. MacAvoy's, “The Recurrent Crisis in Corporate Governance.” The event is free and open to the public. Place a reservation by Noon on Wednesday, April 6 with Rosemary Dobosz at doboszr@sacredheart.edu or 203-371-7953.

“The Recurrent Crisis in Corporate Governance,” is one of nineteen books Dr. MacAvoy has written. His lecture will highlight the key points that are discussed with great detail in the book.

In his lecture, Dr. MacAvoy breaks down his expert assessment of corporate failures. “I begin with a legal and economic examination of corporate governance during the last three decades, including the practice of boards taking on responsibilities without access to information within the corporation. I then show the correlation of the collapse of nine major corporations, including Enron, Global Crossing, and K-Mart, make a case for separating the CEO and chair positions, and provide suggestions on how boards can become more effective stewards of the shareholders' and publics trust,” he said.

Dr. MacAvoy makes the influence and impact of board decisions quite clear, crediting them for most corporate shortcomings. “In addition to the ethics scandals that have plagued new and established companies over the last three years, a number of over diversified, over-staffed companies experienced failures that might have been avoided with proper oversight on the part of the board.”

Dr. MacAvoy is a specialist in industrial organization and corporate strategy. He served as the economic adviser to President Gerald R. Ford and has sat on the boards of Alumax Corporation, American Cyanamid Company, and Chase Manhattan Bank Corporation. AT&T and the IRS are just two of the many well known companies Dr. MacAvoy has consulted and advised on topics ranging from pricing strategies to antitrust issues. He also was the founding editor of the Bell Journal of Economics and Management Science as well as serving on the editorial boards of several journals.

Along with his field work Dr. MacAvoy has also held positions as a Professor-at-Large for Brown University, Dean of the University of Rochester's William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration, and most recently, Dean of the Yale School of Management.

Sacred Heart University's College of Business conducts various forums at least twice each semester. Organized by Dr. E. Daniel Shim, Director of Research and sponsored by the College of Business, the forums are avenues for discussions on contemporary business issues, research findings and teaching pedagogy. Previous forum speakers include Dr. Jeffery Sonnenfeld, Associate Dean of Yale University and Dr. Marcos Massoud, Endowed Chair of Claremont McKenna College, California.

For more information on SHU's COB Forums, contact Dr. E. Daniel Shim, Director of Research at shime@sacredheart.edu or 203-371-7873.

Contact: Funda Alp (alpf@sacredheart.edu)

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