Albers Faculty Honored with Endowed Professorships
Posted by Joseph Phillips on Sunday, November 26, 2017 at 2:43 PM PST
Two Albers faculty members were recognized for their outstanding achievements with appointments to endowed professorships. At an installation ceremony on November 17th, Dr. Jot Yau, Professor of Finance, was recognized as the fifth holder of the George Albers Professorship in Business. Dr. Tina Zamora, Associate Professor of Accounting, was introduced as the third holder of the David E. Tinius Endowed Professorship in Accounting.
Jot Yau joined our faculty in 2001. He serves as the chair of the Department of Finance and previously chaired the Department of Economics and Finance and served as MSF program director. Earlier, he held the Robert D. O’Brien Endowed Chair of Business Administration and the Dr. Khalil Dibee Endowed Chair in Finance. Jot has published numerous articles and scholarly pieces. This includes three books -- Socially Responsible Investment in a Global Environment (Edward Elgar), Dim Sum Bonds: The Offshore Renminbi (RMB)Denominated Bonds (Wiley), and as an editor of Advances in International Investments: Traditional and Alternative Approaches (World Scientific). He has also served as Special Editor of The Journal of Alternative Investments and as associate editor of that journal. Currently, he is on the editorial board of the International Review of Accounting, Banking and Finance. Jot has served on the curriculum committee of the CFA Institute and the exam and curriculum committee of the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association. He co-founded Strategic Options Investment Advisors Ltd., a Hong Kong-based investment advisory and served as its principal investment advisor and commodity trading advisor. Jot has also served as the treasurer of the Northwest Hedge Fund Society and as a member of the board of directors of Group Health Credit Union (GHCU). His PhD in finance is from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, he has an MBA from the University of Toledo, and his undergraduate degree is from the University of Hong Kong. As you can see, he is a very worthy recipient of the Albers Professorship, with outstanding accomplishments in teaching, research, and service to the school and profession!
Tina Zamora is Associate Professor of Accounting and joined our faculty in 2010. Tina teaches primarily in the areas of managerial accounting and corporate governance. Tina’s research examines how financial and fairness incentives and corporate governance impact organizational and individual decisions. Her work has been published in such influential journals as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Business Ethics, Auditing: A Journal of Theory and Practice, Journal of Management Accounting Research, and Issues in Accounting Education. She has served as an Associate Editor for Issues in Accounting Education, and is currently on the Editorial Board of Auditing: A Journal of Theory and Practice. Prior to entering academia, she worked for KPMG for several years as a Senior Tax Specialist. She has her PhD in accounting from UW and two master’s degrees and her undergraduate degree from the University of Oregon. Here at SU, she has been selected as a Faculty Fellow for both the Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture and the Center for Environmental Justice and Sustainability. Among her many service activities are heading up the Department of Accounting's Assurance of Learning efforts, serving on the university Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Advisory Working Group, and assisting with the PMBA Curriculum Implementation. She has also co-led several successful study tours to the EU. Given all her success in teaching, research, and service, she is a very worthy recipient of the Tinius Professorship!
Endowed chairs and professorships are a particularly important resource for a business school to have. They are a valuable tool for attracting and retaining outstanding faculty such as Tina and Jot. If Seattle University and the Albers School are to attain our aspirations for academic excellence, we can only do so with a strong portfolio of endowed chairs and professorships.
We have the good fortune to have five endowed Chairs, and the current holders are:
The Lawrence K. Johnson Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship: Dr. Lisa Zhao, Professor of Entrepreneurship
The Frank Shrontz Endowed Chair in Professional Ethics: Dr. Jeffrey Smith, Professor of Business Ethics
The Khalil Dibee Endowed Chair in Finance: Dr. Peter Brous, Professor of Finance
The Robert D. O’Brien Endowed Chair in Business: Dr. Eva Lasprogata, Associate Professor of Business Law
Currently, we are recruiting to fill the Thomas F. Gleed Endowed Chair in Business Administration, a position given to a visiting faculty member that helps to strengthen the intellectual climate of the Albers School.
We have five professorships, including the George Albers Professorship and the Tinius Professorship received by Jot and Tina, respectively. The others are the Robert Bosanko Endowed Professorship in International Economics and Finance, currently held by Dr. Bonnie Buchanan, Associate Professor of Finance, as well as the Genevieve Albers Professorship, held by Dr. Marc Cohen, Associate Professor of Business Ethics, and the Eva Albers Professorship, held by Dr. Quan Le, Associate Professor of Economics.
The three Albers Professorships are funded by the Genevieve Albers Endowment, which was left to the Albers School to support our programs. The Albers family was a generous supporter of Seattle University, and to honor that support our school was named the Albers School in the early 1970’s. In 2001, we received a generous endowment from the estate of Genevieve Albers, the daughter of George and Eva Albers, which among other things created the Albers Professorships. It was George Albers who founded a successful food processing business that was sold to Carnation, and then bought by Nestle. The Albers brand was sold by Nestle to Continental Mills which uses the brand today for corn meal and grits.
The Tinius Professorship was named after Dave Tinius, a member of our accounting faculty from 1971 to 2015. Dave served as department chair for 18 years between 1977 and 2003. Many of the distinguishing features of our accounting program happened under his leadership of the department. This includes our Beta Alpha Psi chapter, the Accounting Awards Banquet, the department advisory board, the Master of Professional Accounting program, and the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance Program. We are fortunate to have this professorship to remind us of Dave’s critical role in building up our outstanding accounting program! The endowment was created with contributions from the many accounting alumni and professionals who admired the career of Dave Tinius!
Congratulations to Jot Yau and Tina Zamaro for these recognitions of their outstanding work, and many thanks to our donors who have made this recognition possible!