College of Business: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

James Gentry

Professor Emeritus of Finance

Biographical Sketch

James A. Gentry is a professor emeritus of finance and University Distinguished Teacher Scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He holds an A. B. from Indiana State University, and an M.B.A. and D.B.A. from Indiana University. Prior to becoming a professor, he was a navigator in the Strategic Air Command and a stockbroker with Dean Witter & Co. He joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in 1966. From 1975-1979, he served as Associate Dean of the College of Business. He has been the author of numerous articles and chapters in books. His primary research interests are using cash flow measures to predict bankruptcy, bond ratings, loan risks, growth in firm value, and rates of return on equities.

Currently, Professor Gentry teaches Cases in Strategic Financial Management, a course that focuses on assessing the financial health of a firm, cash flow analysis, and valuation of an enterprise and its investments. Over the years, Professor Gentry has received an exceptional number of awards recognizing his gifts as a teacher. He was selected the Outstanding Professor of Finance for the period 1981-1985 and in 1989 and 1990. In May 1985, he was awarded the Burlington Northern Foundation Faculty Achievement Award. In 1995, Gentry received the first Educator’s Award from the University of Illinois Alumni Association for his extraordinary effort to recognize students’ personal abilities and to help them improve. He also received the Outstanding Teacher in Continuing Education Award in 1983 and 1986. In 1988 and 1997, Gentry was the recipient of the College Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He has also been active in the study of teaching and learning in business education. He has co-authored three studies that examine the learning strategies and behavior of business school students. Currently, he and three colleagues are at work on a major research project that focuses on learning from exemplary teachers. In May 2001, Gentry was recognized as a University Distinguished Teacher Scholar, the highest honor presented for teaching at the University of Illinois.

In 2000 Professor Gentry and colleagues received a CIBER grant to study whether accounting income or free cash flow to equity provides better estimates of the rates of return on capital appreciation for American and Japanese stocks. Although Gentry retired in May 2002, he is the co-author of a working paper on learning about intrinsic valuation with the help of an integrated valuation model. Finally, he is co-authoring a credit analysis book with Frank K. Reilly.

During his career Professor Gentry has been a visiting professor at Louvain, Belgium; Melbourne, Australia; Tokyo International University; Bangalore, India; the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa; the University of Virginia; the University of Warsaw, Poland; and Curtin University in Perth, Australia. In 1994 he was a Fulbright Scholar in Japan, where he studied Japanese corporate governance; and in the fall semester of 2003, Professor Gentry was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Business Administration at the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy.

He is past president of the Midwest Finance Association, and in 2001 he received the first Distinguished Service Award from the association. He has also served as Vice President of Program for the 1986 Financial Management Association meetings, past President of the Illinois State Universities Retirement System (SURS) (1987-1992), Chairman of the SURS Investment Committee (1992-1995), and President of the University of Illinois Athletic Board (1990-1994).