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Centennial Honors College

Maakestad Teaches One More Honors Course Before Retirement

In Spring Semester 2009, his last at Western Illinois University, Professor of Management William Maakestad taught G H 301: "Corporate Crime and Violence: Should the Boss Go to Jail?".  This interdisciplinary course examined the “business policies and legal principles that directly affect the health and safety of workers.”  Studying several important cases, the class interviewed the authors of two texts: A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr and The Buffalo Creek Disaster by Gerald M. Stern, as well as completed significant group projects and class presentations.

Although this course is new, Professor Maakestad, retiring after 31 years, is no stranger to the study of corporate crime or to honors students.  When he was a new faculty member and honors was organized in the individual colleges, he first served as a guest speaker in a College of Business Honors seminar.  Because of his keen interest in honors, he went on to not only teach his own honors classes but also serve as honors coordinator in his area while performing his other departmental duties.  Awarded grant monies from both the WIU and the American Bar Foundation, he originated an honors course in which students had the opportunity to interview judges who tried and sentenced white-collar criminals and speak with the prosecutor in the Ford Pinto safety case. 

Praising the ability of honors students in completing group projects, Professor Maakestad observes that “the collective imaginative power in some of these projects has been nothing short of amazing!”

Although now retired, he and his wife Professor Jean Maakestad Wolf (who has also worked with honors students in Curriculum and Instruction and does important work in early childhood curriculum development) will soon be traveling to Nigeria where he will lead off a seminar for legal professionals examining how white-collar crime is addressed in America.

He will also be busy later this summer helping to organize, as a founding member, the 8th Annual Al Sears Jazz Festival.  A musician in his own right, he will continue to appear with fellow performers in Macomb.

The Centennial Honors College thanks all of its outstanding faculty and wishes Professor Maakestad the best in his retirement!

For more information on the Centennial Honors College, click here.
 

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