Fred Naffziger, professor of business law, recently received the Distinguished Research Award at Indiana University South Bend. Naffziger, who has been a faculty member since 1973, focuses on corporate and labor law in his research and studies.

Administrators and other faculty members nominate their peers for the award. The winners are recognized for their research. As a nationally known scholar on labor law and corporate law, Naffziger was cited for the high quality of his research and writing.

He will present a lecture next fall.

In 2003, Naffziger was interviewed and quoted in numerous newspapers and broadcasts after his article on bankruptcy and the Catholic Church was published in America, a national Catholic weekly from New York, as the issue was being raised in the Boston Archdiocese.

Naffziger concluded that bankruptcy and the Catholic Church would have a far ranging affect on other entities such as church sponsored schools and charities. “There is a whole labyrinth (of affiliations) that people are unaware of.”

In addition to his years at IU South Bend, he also served for a time as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, University of Texas-Arlington, and he taught in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in an Indiana University project for the Arabian American

Oil Company.

During part of his time at IU South Bend he served as the director of the Graduate Business Program.

He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Illinois (BA 1967 and JD 1970) and attended The Hague Academy of International Law in The Netherlands.

Naffiger holds Illinois and Texas law licenses. He is an arbitrator in the commercial, labor and securities fields. He is an arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, National Association of Securities Dealers, New York Stock Exchange, and the National Futures Association.

He has spoken at more than 100 legal conferences in the United States and has lectured on legal topics in England, Italy, Bermuda, Canada, and Mexico. He has held editorial positions with several legal journals. He is a past president of the Tri-State Academy of Legal Studies in Business.

Naffiger has served as a hearing officer for the Illinois Pollution Control Board and as a mediator for the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board. He has been a U.S. State Department Scholar-Diplomat.

His books include: “The Law of American Business Organizations,” “Business Law Text and Cases,” “A Basic Guide to Federal Labor Law,” and “Legal Perspectives on American Business Associations.”

In addition to these co-authored books, he has written chapters in books on the topics of employment discrimination, ethical issues in hostile corporate takeovers, and legal risks in international business.