In addition to his leadership of business law and ethics associations nationally and globally, Tom Dunfee was the heart of the Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  At his last formal appearance presiding at our Department dinner in May, Tom recalled how he had served as the Department’s chair at various times in each of the last four decades.  In 1976, when Tom first joined Wharton’s faculty as a visiting associate professor, he was one of only seven standing departmental faculty (all lawyers).  At the end of his last term as chair in 2008, our Department had grown to eighteen standing faculty with at least a dozen more affiliated, adjunct, and visiting faculty (now including in our ranks philosophers and other business ethicists).  Much of this growth owes directly to Tom’s leadership.  And most of us remaining in his Department here at Wharton owe our careers to Tom Dunfee.  More importantly, we will remember and cherish his wise and humane influence on our lives along personal as well as professional dimensions.  It has been very sad to say goodbye to him forever, and many of us at Wharton are still in a state of shock at the abruptness of this loss – hence our delayed reactions in the realm of e-mail posts. 

Tom was an institution-builder, and one of the best ways that we can remember his strong and loving influence will be to carry on his example, as best we can.  He believed passionately in the importance of teaching law and ethics in business schools – a tradition reaching back to the founding of the Wharton School.  On the cover of a book reviewing Wharton’s history (Steven L. Sass, The Pragmatic Imagination:  A History of the Wharton School, 1881-1981), Tom Dunfee’s youthful picture appears at the base of a pyramid of other leading Wharton teachers and scholars.  It was more appropriate than the cover-artist could have known, because Tom Dunfee continued to build a strong foundation here at Wharton which he has left as one of his greatest gifts.  He was a wonderful mentor, teacher, researcher, administrator, colleague, and friend.  One of the best ways for us to honor his life and memory will be to roll up our sleeves and get back to work – and to try to approximate his personal and professional excellence, however short we will fall of the standards that he has set. 

The world is a little poorer and worse with the loss of Tom Dunfee, and yet the imprint of his life has left it a great deal richer and better.  For those of us who will remember his legacy and example – and who may attempt to follow in some of his very large (though, if you knew him at the beach, irregular) footsteps – his memory will inspire us to work a little harder, dig a little deeper, and believe in ourselves a little more strongly – in order to encourage business institutions and their leaders to make the world a morally better as well as a wealthier place.  We sometimes joke at Wharton that we should have renamed ourselves the “Normative Studies Department,” and Tom appreciated as well as anyone the essential importance of both law and ethics in business education and scholarship.  He knew that without the civilizing normative influences of law and ethics, business can be tempted toward the dark side.  We have lost one of the best and most well-loved knights who dedicated his life to fighting in the normative struggles of contemporary civilization.  Let those of us who have been fortunate enough to have been influenced by his example pick up from where he has fallen and find the courage and strength to recommit ourselves to advancing our respective visions of business law and business ethics.  It is what Tom would have wanted us to do.

If you have a memory, photograph or story about Tom that you would like to share, please send them to Lauretta Tomasco - tomascol@wharton.upenn.edu, and she will post them on our webpage.

Eric W. Orts
Guardsmark Professor
Legal Studies and Business Ethics Department
The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania