(FORTUNE Magazine) – Raise the dividend and batten down the boardroom! Alan ''Ace'' Greenberg, CEO of Bear Stearns; Sam Heyman, CEO of GAF Corp.; Carl Icahn; and T. Boone Pickens are all swimming together. But wait a minute. This is not a feeding frenzy. Boone is telling jokes and calling Carl ''my mentor.'' Ace is nodding off in the front row. Sam is slapping people on the back, full of sympathy for Boone, his broken deals, and his bad press. What's going on here? Where are we?

We're in Greenwich Village, New York City, at the Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Center on Corporate Governance at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. On this occasion, it was packed to overflowing with folks eager to hear Pickens promote the rights of shareholders and keep the world safe for raiders. Established last fall when Heyman gave Yeshiva a $1 million grant, the center initiates lectures and research on such topics as shareholder rights and the proxy system. The work of the Heyman Center appears to be part of a trend. Columbia University recently began a study of the role of institutional investors. Groups at Fordham and the University of Michigan have begun examining the responsibilities of corporations to their shareholders. Though each study has its own focus, all are concerned with shareholder rights, sometimes taken to mean raiders' rights. Says Pickens: ''Every law school in the country should have such a center.'' And you thought it was safe to go back in the water.