USD announces Belbas-Larson Awards for Excellence in Teaching
Honored in the tenured category, Lavin, Ph.D., C.F.A., is a professor of finance in the Beacom School of Business. She received her bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of South Dakota (1993) and attended graduate school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where she received a master’s of business administration (1996) and a Ph.D. in finance (1997). In addition to teaching Managerial Finance, Foundations of Finance, Investments, and Security Analysis, Lavin is also Director of the M.B.A. and M.P.A. programs at USD. She has also had several articles featured in publications such as the Journal of Business & Economics Research, and has given presentations across the United States.
“It has been a privilege serving on the faculty of my alma mater for the past 16 years, and I look forward to many future years,” said Lavin, a native of Vermillion, S.D. “I enjoy the opportunity to work with excellent colleagues who are dedicated to providing a superior learning environment. I am honored to have the opportunity to impact the future, and I believe that I can accomplish the most by igniting sparks that will motivate students to want to learn and by providing tools and opportunities for each student. One student at a time, we make a big difference.”
Lavin has received numerous awards, including the Best of Session Award from the Academy of Business Disciplines Annual Conference in Ft. Myers, F.L. in 2009, 2011, and 2012, and the Beacom School of Business Research award for the department of Accounting and Finance in 2009. She also serves on the Sioux Falls City Employee’s Pension Board, the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation Board as chair the Investment Management Committee, and the Wellmark, Inc. Board of Directors. Lavin has been a member of the USD faculty since 1997. Download a photo of Lavin.
Recognized in the tenure-track category, Horton, J.D., is an associate professor of law and the Johnson, Heidepriem & Abdallah Trial Advocacy Fellow at the University of South Dakota School of Law. He received a B.A. in Biological Sciences from Harvard University in 1977, a Juris doctor from the Case Western Reserve University School of Law in 1981, and a M.A.L.S. in American Studies from Georgetown University in 2007. Horton is also a member of the Ohio and District of Columbia bars. He teaches courses in Trial Advocacy and Techniques, Antitrust and Consumer Protection, and an undergraduate honors seminar on “The History and Philosophy of America’s Antitrust Laws”. Horton directs the Law School’s trial program and its tournament teams. In 2012-13, 31 third year students (42 percent of USD’s 3L class) competed in at least one national trial tournament, including some of America’s most prestigious and competitive national tournaments. During the summer of 2012, Horton taught Comparative Antitrust and Competition Law in China to students from USD, Montana, Gonzaga and the Chinese Youth University of Political Sciences. He also has served on USD’s Strategic Planning, Honors, and Law School Dean Search Committees. In April, he chaired the Law Review’s successful symposium on “Antitrust & Competition in America’s Heartland”. Horton additionally teaches trial techniques for the National Institute of Trial Advocacy (NITA) and the South Dakota Trial Academy.
“I am greatly honored to receive the prestigious Belbas-Larson Award,” said Horton. “I want to thank my many wonderful students and colleagues here at USD who have been so helpful to me in so many ways. This award reflects all of their phenomenal efforts to make my four years here at USD so enjoyable and productive.”
Horton is a leader in applying evolutionary theories and models to behavioral and structural antitrust analyses. He is a member of the American Antitrust Institute and the Society for Evolutionary Analysis in Law and presented papers to SEAL in 2012 and 2013. His most recent articles appeared in the Florida, McGeorge, Baltimore, Loyola Chicago, and South Dakota Law Reviews, as well as in such international publications as the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice and a new book celebrating the Fifth Anniversary of China’s Anti-Monopoly Laws. His 2011 article in the Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal was named by the Law Professors’ Blog network as one of “the Best Antitrust Articles of 2011”. Horton received the John Wesley Jackson Outstanding Faculty Award in 2011 and was previously nominated for the Belbas-Larson Award in 2012. Download a photo of Horton.
The Belbas-Larson Awards were established by a 1956 graduate of USD, Dean Belbas of Edina, Minn. and Sioux Falls, S.D., and his friends, Harold W. and Kathryn Larson of Bemidji, Minn. and Scottsdale, Ariz.