Directors, Smith Professors, & Faculty

Photo of Steven Frankel

Steven Frankel, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Smith Scholars Program

Professor Steven Frankel received his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 1997. Upon graduation, Professor Frankel joined the faculty at the American University of Paris, where he received the Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2001. In 2003, Professor Frankel moved to Xavier where he teaches for the Department of Philosophy and Philosophy, Politics, and the Public (PPP) and the Smith Scholars Program. At Xavier, he established an international exchange program and a study program with the University of Paris. He also established a summer study program with the Jesuits at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem. In 2017, the Xavier student body selected Professor Frankel as the Bishop Fenwick Teacher of the Year. In 2018, Professor Frankel helped establish an honors program in political economy, the Smith Scholars. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Stephen S. Smith Center in the Williams College of Business, where he is the Smith Professor of Political Economy. In 2022, the College of Arts and Sciences awarded Frankel the Roger A. Fortin Award for Outstanding Teaching and Scholarship in the Humanities.

Professor Frankel's scholarly work focuses on the relationship between philosophy and religion. His work has appeared in over a dozen journals including the Review of Metaphysics, Interpretation, Archiv fur Geshichte der Philosophie, The Review of Politics, International Philosophical Quarterly, Teaching Philosophy, and the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy. His work has also appeared in various collections including Spinoza and Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge University Press), Reorientation: Leo Strauss in the 1930s (Palgrave Macmillan), and Liquider Mai 68? (Presses de la Renaissance, Paris). His books include French Studies: Literature, Culture, and Politics (with John Ray, Editions Honore Champion, Paris, 2014) and Civil Religion in Modern Political Philosophy (with Martin Yaffe, Penn State University Press, 2020). His most recent book with John Ray is entitled Equality and Excellence (SUNY Press, 2023). He is currently writing a book, Commerce and Character, on Ralph Lerner’s interpretation of the American Revolution (University Press of Kansas, forthcoming).

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Photo of Rachael Behr LaRose

Rachael Behr LaRose, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Thought Leadership and Research

Dr. Rachael Behr LaRose was born and raised in northern Indiana, and received her undergraduate education from Hillsdale College. At Hillsdale, she studied economics and political theory, with a minor in French. She then went on to graduate school at George Mason University, where she received her Ph.D. in economics, with special focus on political economy and economic sociology. She was also a Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

In her role at the Smith Center, Dr. LaRose's focus is on expanding the Center's research focus. She is responsible for the primary administration and oversight of the Smith Center’s events, programs, and initiatives which promote events related to thought leadership, intellectual contributions, and faculty/student research activities on topics and policies with a direct societal impact aligned with the Center’s mission. Such initiatives aim to enhance the visibility of the Smith Center in the Greater Cincinnati and Tri-State areas with respect to freedom-based solutions to social and economic issues.

Besides working as Associate Director in the Smith Center, Dr. LaRose has an appointment in the Department of Economics. At Xavier University, Dr. LaRose teaches Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Principles, Natural Resource Economics, and Markets and Morality. Dr. LaRose especially loves emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of classroom studies, whether it be inflation or natural resources. Dr. LaRose researches questions of an interdisciplinary nature about markets and morality. Her work has been published by Cambridge, Journal of Institutional Economics, The Review of Austrian Economics, Studies in Comparative International Development, Public Choice, The Independent Review, and Routledge, and is currently under review at several journals. She is currently working on several projects on the economic consequences of COVID-19 policies, including the political incentives of mask mandates and situating pandemic entrepreneurship within the entrepreneurship literature.

Smith Professors

Photo of R. Stafford Johnson

R. Stafford Johnson, Ph.D.

Professor, Finance Department

R. Stafford Johnson is a Smith Professor and Professor of Finance at the Williams College of Business. Since receiving his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Kentucky in 1975, he has taught at Central Michigan University, Southern Illinois University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of Connecticut. He also was the Director for Research, Center for Public Affairs, University of Kentucky and Research Economist for the Center for Energy Research. At Xavier, he was department chair from 1988-1998, fund professor of the Xavier Student Investment Bond and Equity Funds from 2004 to 2010, and the Director of the Fifth-Third Trading Center from 2010-2011. In 2011 and 2015, he served as the Interim Dean of the Williams College of Business. He was founding Director of the Smith Center. His current research focuses on option pricing, fixed-income and debt management, efficient gambling markets, monetary theory, and international economics. He is the author of five monographs and seven books: Equity Markets and Analysis, Derivative Markets and Analysis, Options and Futures, Introduction to Derivatives, two editions of Bond Evaluation, Selection, and Management, and Debt Markets and Analysis. He has also authored or co-authored over 50 academic articles. Professor Johnson teaches undergraduate and MBA classes in investments, derivatives, financial markets, history of economic thought, and global finance. He was twice the recipient of the Delta Sigma Pi Teacher of the Year Award and recipient of the Williams College of Business MBA Teacher of Year Award.

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Photo of Kathleen McGarvey Hidy

Kathleen McGarvey Hidy, J.D.

Associate Professor, Business Law

Kathleen Hidy is an Associate Professor of Legal Studies in the Department of Accounting and Business Law. Professor Hidy graduated magna cum laude from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Arts in the Program of Liberal Studies, Notre Dame’s Great Books program. She received the Nutting Award at graduation. Professor Hidy earned her Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School. After graduating from Columbia University, Professor Hidy spent twenty years practicing law as a corporate litigator, representing both private sector and public sector entities. She has held two federal court clerkships. In 1991, Professor Hidy began teaching in the Williams College of Business as an adjunct professor. She has also taught at Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law and at the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas.

Professor Hidy became a full-time academic in the Williams College of Business in 2011. She teaches in both the undergraduate business and M.B.A. programs in the Williams College of Business. Her courses focus on the ethical, legal and regulatory environment in which business organizations operate in the United States. Professor Hidy has received the Williams College of Business M.B.A. Teacher of the Year Award and the Ignatian Educator of Distinction Award for the Jesuits Midwest Province. Professor Hidy’s research interests focus on technology and its impact on freedom of speech, property rights, and employment law. She has presented her research at national conferences. Professor Hidy’s research has been published in multiple law journals including Columbia Business Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, and Marquette Law Review.

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