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CONSORTIUM NEWS THOMAS W. GILLIGAN APPOINTED DEAN OF THE MCCOMBS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS Dr. Thomas W. Gilligan, the E. Morgan Stanley Chair in Business Administration and professor of finance and business economics at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles, has been appointed dean of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. “There is no question that the McCombs School of Business has the potential to be one of the truly top business schools in the world, and Thomas Gilligan has the ability and skills to take us in that direction,” said Dr. Michael Granof, a professor in the McCombs School of Business and the head of the dean selection committee. “Tom Gilligan is a visionary leader,” said William Powers Jr., president of The University of Texas at Austin. “In cooperation with our outstanding faculty, he will take the McCombs School to a new level of distinction.” Gilligan said his family is excited to join The University of Texas at Austin community. “I am honored and invigorated by the prospect of leading the McCombs School of Business to even more accomplishments and greater prominence,” Gilligan said.
Gilligan, who received his Bachelor of Arts degree with honors from the University of Oklahoma in Norman and doctor’s degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis, has held positions at the University of Southern California as vice dean for undergraduate and doctoral education and chair of the Department of Finance and Business Economics. He also has been a visiting professor at the J.L. Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in Stanford, Calif. Gilligan’s areas of interest are microeconomics, applied price theory, industrial organization, antitrust economics and public choice. Prior to his first academic position as an assistant professor of economics at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, in 1984-1987, Gilligan served four years as a Russian linguist in the United States Air Force. From 1982-1983, he was a staff economist on President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers.
PRESIDENT BUSH APPOINTS ROSS PROFESSOR Dana Muir, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Business Law at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, has been appointed by President George W. Bush to the Advisory Committee to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC). Her term expires in February 2011. The PBGC is a federal corporation created under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA). It currently guarantees payment of basic pension benefits earned by 44 million American workers and retirees participating in more than 30,000 private-sector-defined benefit pension plans—those that promise to pay a specified monthly benefit at retirement, commonly based on salary and years on the job. The PBGC Advisory Committee carries out several specific responsibilities outlined by ERISA, 6
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including advising on PBGC investment policies and procedures, the trusteeship of terminated plans and other matters. Each member of the PBGC Advisory Committee represents the interests of either the general public, employers or employees. Muir was appointed to represent the general public. Muir specializes in employment, compensation and benefits law. She is editor in chief of the annual supplement to the journal Employee Benefits Law, was a delegate to the first and second White House/Congressional National Summit on Retirement Savings and has served as a member of the Department of Labor’s Advisory Council on Employee Welfare and Pension Benefit Plans.