At its September meeting, the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees approved the following endowed professorship:
Robert A. Hillman, professor of law and associate dean for Academic Affairs in the Law School, as the Edwin H. Woodruff Professor of Law.
The Edwin H. Woodruff Professorship of Law was established in 1946 with gifts from friends and from the estate of Edwin H. Woodruff, former dean of the Cornell Law School.
Hillman came to Cornell as a professor with indefinite tenure in 1982, after having been tenured at the University of Iowa College of Law. He is a 1972 graduate of the Cornell Law School. He became the associate dean in 1990. He is an excellent socratic teacher and is a widely published scholar in the field of contracts and commercial law. He has made a particularly important contribution in evaluating and synthesizing the various theories of contract law. In the area of commercial law he has identified and discussed the equitable principles that supplement the commercial code, specifically in Common Law and Equity Under the Uniform Commercial Code (with J. McDonnell and S. Nickles, 1986). Hillman will be the fifth holder of the chair, succeeding Ernest F. Roberts Jr., who retired June 30.