A year ago, few could have imagined how far off course the economy would veer these past eight months. Our last cover story called for a new understanding of risk. In this issue, the economy takes center stage again. It’s fair to say that over the past eight months, what went wrong, why, and what can be done about it were the focus of most of our seminars, conferences, guest speakers, and faculty, particularly of finance and economics. For the NYU Stern community, there’s been nothing more riveting – or engaging.

We were fortunate to welcome another distinguished roster of guest speakers. The academic year kicked off with a chat with John Paulson (BS ’78), founder and president of leading hedge fund group Paulson & Co. As of September, he figured the economy was already in the sixth inning of a crisis double header. Jeff Immelt, chairman and CEO of GE, joined us in October for a GE Live event, talking not just to a Stern audience but simultaneously to six other business school audiences around the world. His description of how GE planned to navigate in the year ahead made it clear just how challenging it is to steer a diverse giant in such difficult times. Jim McNerney, chairman, president, and CEO of Boeing, discussed how Boeing is proceeding to fly through the turbulence.

Banking issues were the subject of our faculty research in this issue. Credit cards caught marketing professor Priya Raghubir’s attention as she researched why consumers prefer to use just about anything to pay for purchases as long it’s not cash. Economics professor Richard Sylla looked into how Alexander Hamilton handled a couple of bank crises, with some startling parallels to today. As for the banking industry, this was a period of rapid and jarring consolidation. Charlie Scharf (MBA ’91), CEO of retail financial services for JPMorgan Chase, was in the thick of it, charged with integrating WaMu into Chase after their merger.

Our faculty were highly motivated to process what was happening in the global economy and transform their insight into valuable classroom lessons. It quickly became clear to me that Stern could make a contribution beyond the classroom. Thus commenced what we initially called the White Papers Project. The 18 white papers were hand-bound and distributed to Washington policymakers in December. In March, they were published under the title Restoring Financial Stability: How to Restore a Failed System (Wiley, 2009). The collection was written by 33 finance and economics faculty and ably edited by finance professors Matt Richardson and Viral Acharya. An account of this collective achievement is here.

As the recession drags on, some economists believe that innovation will help lead us out of it. This gives extra impetus to our celebration of the 25th anniversary of the NYU Stern Berkley Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. More and more students are finding their way to the Center, participating in its programs and business plan competitions and finding inspiration, whether in entrepreneurship in general, or in social entrepreneurship in particular, as evidenced by the crowd at the Fifth Annual Satter Conference on entrepreneurship in November. Stern is unique in developing a methodology for teaching entrepreneurship, and we have economics professor William Baumol, the Berkley Center’s academic director, to thank for that.

As you may know, I shall be stepping down as dean after this academic year to return to teaching and other projects. These seven years have been a very rewarding period of growth for the School and personal growth for me. It has been my privilege to serve the School and to work with such an involved and supportive alumni body, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity. I hope I get the chance to speak with each of you in June at the Global Alumni Conference in Barcelona. You can get a glimpse into what awaits you by reading this issue’s interview with Andreu Puig Sabanes (MBA ’91), general manager of Barcelona.

Thomas F. Cooley
Dean