William Rosenberg Leadership Award of the IFA Educational Foundation

February 2005 : Franchising World

The William Rosenberg Leadership Award is presented to an individual for outstanding contributions and leadership to advancing the mission of the IFA Educational Foundation through research, teaching, fundraising, or activities or service. The award may be given to recognize past accomplishments or to support planned projects to be developed.

By John Reynolds

The job description for Kathryn Morgan, this year’s recipient of the Foundation’s William Rosenberg Leadership Award, is a very long one. Since Kathryn’s involvement with the IFA and the Foundation in the early 1980s, there is no research project, no educational program, no scholarship, no fundraising effort, no meeting or conference call, or planning session that has not had the steady hand of Kathryn Morgan.

“The guidance and continuity that Kathryn Morgan has provided to the foundation over the years cannot be measured—it is invaluable,” said Steve Greenbaum, CFE, chairman of the IFA Educational Foundation.

Previous award recipients include the family of Arthur Karp (2000), in honor of the co-founder of the Great American Cookie Co., who served as the first chairman of the foundation and as IFA chairman; William (Bill) Cherkasky (2001), who served as president of the foundation from 1995 to 1998 and president of IFA from1981 to 1995; Gene Getchell (2002), who served for many years as chairman of IFA’s Education Committee and also as IFA chairman; and Lewis G. Rudnick (2003), who has served as legal counsel to the foundation since 1987.

Morgan’s involvement with and service to the IFA Educational Foundation began with meetings in the early 1980s in Washington, D.C. and Lincoln, Neb. At the time, she was assistant dean of the law school at Creighton University, Omaha. She accepted a position there in 1980 on condition that she be allowed to develop a franchising course in addition to her administrative duties for the law school. It was one of the first full-semester franchising courses to be offered by a college or university in the United States. She has continued her academic role, teaching franchising courses in the M.B.A. program at American University, Brigham Young University law school, as well as guest-lecturing at George Washington University and Georgetown University.

In the early 1980s, Morgan began work with IFA’s Education Committee and the new Educational Foundation. She worked with committees on how to interest university faculty in the subject of franchising and how to encourage universities to offer franchising courses. In that connection, she has worked closely with the International Society of Franchising and its members from the earliest years.

In recent years, Morgan has spearheaded the effort to encourage academic research and has coordinated the annual Arthur Karp Research Award, which is awarded by the foundation for the “Best Applied Franchising Research Paper.”

In the 1980s, the foundation’s trustees decided to investigate the possibility of a long-discussed certification program for franchise executives. Morgan worked with a team of IFA members to investigate certification programs, including meetings with representatives of the Wharton School of Business who had developed the Certified Public Accountant program. In the early days of the CFE program, she planned the curriculum, evaluated course proposals, edited teaching materials, worked with course presenters, taught CFE-approved courses, and argued for increased resources for a professional development program.

As the foundation began to take on larger research projects, Morgan was involved in the planning and execution of such studies as the Item 20 Turn-overStudy and the three-year Profile of Franchising series. More recently, she has worked closely with the foundation’s Research Committee, staff, and PricewaterhouseCoopers on the Economic Impact of Franchising Study—the first study to quantify the economic contribution of franchised businesses to the U.S. economy.

Over the last 20 years, Morgan has served the foundation in many roles: as vice chair and member of the board of trustees, as a member of the Institute of Certified Franchise Executives Board of Governors, as an instructor for the CFE program, as a teacher and emissary to the academic community, and as director of education and research for the foundation. She has contributed a substantial body of work over many years that has been of enormous benefit to the franchising community.

In addition to her work as franchise lawyer, professor, and the foundation’s director of research and education, she is a musician and collector of Gregorian Chant manuscripts.

John Reynolds is president of the IFA Educational Foundation. He can be reached at
john@franchise.org.