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Faculty honored for outstanding contributions in teaching, research, and service. 

With the new school year right around the corner, Santa Clara University took one more opportunity to look back on the 2017–18 academic year. On September 11, President Michael Engh, S.J. and Provost Dennis C. Jacobs celebrated the achievements of Santa Clara’s faculty with an award ceremony on campus. Here are this year’s Leavey School of Business winners.

Award for Sustained Excellence in Scholarship

Yongtae Kim, Accounting

Yongtae Kim received the University’s highest award for scholarly achievement for his dedicated and prolific scholarship on important issues in accounting and finance.

His research ranges from earnings management and voluntary disclosure to corporate social responsibility, equity offerings, auditing, and venture capital. In particular, his work regarding opportunistic financial reporting behavior has contributed to both academic literature and practice, helping regulators better understand the motives of firms engaging in earnings management. 

Kim has presented around the world—from Canada to China, the Czech Republic to Hong Kong—while authoring more than 25 articles. He was a two-time Moskowitz Research Prize honorable mention, as well as a two-time Hong Kong Government General Research Grant and four-time PwC research grant recipient. Kim’s scholarship is not just impactful, but aligns with the mission of Santa Clara: displaying that socially responsible firms also behave in a responsible manner, delivering more transparent and reliable financial information to investors.

Award for Recent Achievement in Scholarship

George Cai, Information Systems and Analytics

Through his scholarly and creative work, George Cai has offered a major contribution to the fields of operations management, marketing interface, and supply chain finance during the past five years.

Since joining SCU in 2012, Cai has published more than 12 refereed journal papers—five in top tier journals. His growing reputation has led to invitations to be both an associate editor for a premier field publication in 2013 and a senior editor for another top level journal in 2015.

Cai has won multiple scholarly awards, such as the Shanghai Outstanding Paper Award in social sciences and the Outstanding Associate Editor Award of Decision Sciences Journal. He was ranked No. 4 on the list of the most prominent retailing authors worldwide between 2009 and 2015 by Emerald Publishing. His external research grants have totaled more than $1 million, a very rare achievement for business faculty.

Presidential Special Recognition Award

The Committee on Lecturers and Adjuncts

The Committee on Lecturers and Adjuncts has influenced University policies and practices on behalf of lecturers and adjunct faculty at Santa Clara for many years. Members of this group have been instrumental in helping University leadership understand and develop responses to the important concerns of SCU lecturers and adjunct faculty. This committee includes Barbara Kelly, Margaret McLean, Karen Peterson-Iyer, Tracy Ruscetti, Christelle Sabatier, John Farnsworth, Jes Kuczenski, Diane Dreher, Kitty Murphy, and Don Davis.

These individuals were also responsible for many significant changes: 

• Replacing the “six year rule”
• Limiting the length of full-time employment by lecturers
• Participating in the creation of guidelines for the evaluation of lecturers
• Working with Faculty Development to create resources for new and continuing lecturers, including an online lecturer resource guide
• Hosting lunches, information sessions, and meet-and-greet events for all levels of lecturers and adjuncts
• Encouraging the administration to accelerate the timeline for AYAL reappointment
• Working through SCU’s collaborative governance process to establish a task force on lecturer best practices

Faculty promoted to professor:

• George Cai, Information Systems and Analytics

Faculty who received tenure:

• Christian Helmers, Economics
• Seoyoung Kim, Finance
• Tao Li, Information Systems and Analytics
• Savannah Shi, Marketing

Twenty-five years of continuous service:

• Bob Hendershott, Finance

Excerpted from Top Teaching Scholars for 2018, originally published by Santa Clara University on September 11, 2018.