A forum for issues of corporate reform

Since its inception in 2000, the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics has emerged as a leader in a field of growing national importance.

The Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance has provided a forum for the discussion of reformist ideas, sponsored significant conferences on the topic of corporate governance and offered training to corporate directors in the wake of a string of scandals that have rocked major American companies.

"Our goal is to create sensible governance reform," Charles Elson, Edgar S. Woolard Jr. Chair and director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance, says. "I believe we have seen positive practical changes as a result of the activities we have developed."

A major initiative of the Weinberg Center has been to work closely with the Delaware Court of Chancery and Supreme Court, both of which have key roles in shaping national corporate law. About 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies and about 50 percent of the firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange are incorporated in the state.

"We plan to continue our work with the Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court, which has been most successful," Elson says.

One initiative has been the opportunity to feature key Delaware jurists alongside corporate executives, leading academics and national journalists in a series of panel discussions. Those panels are held each semester as part of an undergraduate course, "Advanced Corporate Governance," which is taught by Elson.

"We have been able to bring the world to them, and them to the world, with great impact on behalf of both groups," Elson says of the students in the course. "In my view, Delaware has benefited greatly from that interplay."

An example of such interplay was one particular session in the fall of 2003, dealing with the impact of recent proposals by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on shareholder empowerment. The class that day featured a large panel, including state judges and SEC commissioners.

"That was the best panel we've had," Elson says. "We had the most articulate and influential people on the subject in one room. They had all talked about each other in the press but had never been in the same place at the same time. All the people who could possibly affect an event were in one room, discussing issues in a dispassionate way, free of the hyperbole of media exchanges. That's exactly what the center was formed to do."

While the Weinberg Center will continue to serve as an important forum for the discussion of corporate governance issues, its future is in research, Elson says. The $2 million endowment from the John L. and Sue Ann Weinberg Foundation, which was announced in December 2002, will be used to make that happen, he says.

"The generous gift from the Weinbergs will be very helpful in funding corporate governance research," Elson says, adding that the center is seeking other funds to supplement the gift, so that "we can really cement this project and take it to the
next level."

--Neil Thomas, AS '76