In December 1991, as the world watched in amazement, the Soviet Union disintegrated into 15 separate countries. Even before the communist alliance took its last official breath, faculty from the College of Business and Economics were in Bulgaria, helping to lay the groundwork for its transformation from a communist to a capitalist economy.

A decade later, the University of Sofia has recognized a B&E professor for his pivotal role in that transformation.

Ken Koford, professor of economics, has been awarded an honorary doctorate in economic science, for his help in resurrecting and modernizing the Bulgarian university's program in business administration, which had been suspended since 1949.

George Chobanov, dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business at Sofia, awarded Koford the degree and medal and thanked him for his work over the past 10 years.

During the ceremony, held at the university, Koford said, "I thank you for this honor. It has been a true pleasure to come to Bulgaria and learn about this beautiful country and its beautiful people, including my wife, Blagovesta."

Koford met his Bulgarian bride, a computer network specialist at the University of Sofia, during his many trips there, and they were married in Bulgaria in May 2000. They now live in Newark, Del.

The College of Business and Economics has had a strong presence in Bulgaria, where Koford and Jeff Miller, also a professor of economics, have worked closely with the University of Sofia since shortly before the fall of the Iron Curtain. In addition, Profs. Charles Link and Burton Abrams and Associate Profs. Eleanor Craig, David Black and Evangelos Falaris have taught and lectured there.

When the University of Sofia reinstated its Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in 1990, Koford says, there was no one to teach market economics. He and his colleagues received a U.S. Agency for International Development grant to teach in Bulgaria and began organizing a market economics curriculum and recruiting faculty.

Eventually, 12 faculty members from UD and other American schools visited Sofia to teach market economics to their Bulgarian colleagues, students and the public. But, Koford says, there still was no research being done or graduate program in business administration.

Koford went back to Bulgaria in 1992 and 1994, and in 1997, he stayed for a year under a Fulbright scholarship. During that year, he organized the university's first business research seminar, with the intention of creating a graduate program in business administration. In 2000, he returned to attend the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration's fourth annual research conference and to witness what he says is a higher level of research and graduate work in that department than ever before.

Koford received his doctorate in economics from the University of California in Los Angeles in 1977 and joined the UD faculty in 1979. Last year, he became director of the Legal Studies Program.

He has received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, National Science Foundation, the University and the National Council for Eastern European and Eurasian Research to continue his work in Bulgaria. Koford is editor of the Eastern Economic Journal.

--Barbara Garrison