INTRODUCING... THE KEN LAY CHAIR IN ECONOMICS.

Back in 1991, nearly a decade before the Enron scandal broke, Kenneth Lay donated $1.1 million to his (and my) alma mater, the University of Missouri, to endow a chair in economics in his name. After many years and a legal battle (in which he tried to get the money back to pay his legal fees), the university has finally found a professor to fill the Kenneth Lay Chair in Economics.

Professor Emeritus Haskell Hinnant was one of the faculty members to speak out [against the chair] , but now thinks that Lay’s stigma is fading with time and the greater issue is MU’s difficulty filling the position.

“It’s a little embarrassing that they weren’t able to fill it with an outside person,” Hinnant said. “But the university has other embarrassments, too.”

I'd say.

--Ann Friedman