For William and Mary apply

由 **fatboymartin** » 2006-03-17 08:33

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Back on Campus

Finding yourself at loose ends in retirement? You can always try adopting a business school.

By ROGER MAY
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
January 23, 2006

For an institution that boasts of "bringing business into the business school," the College of William & Mary's Mason School of Business would seem to have a bit of a problem: Its location, in Williamsburg, Va., is not exactly famed as a crossroads of commerce.

The city is far better known for its quaint tourist destination, Colonial Williamsburg, just across the street from the William & Mary campus.

The Mason School, nevertheless, has developed a unique and powerful asset drawn from its environs: a team of former and current business executives who are devoted to supporting the school's M.B.A. program.

Executive Partners, composed of 83 all-volunteer members, two-thirds of whom are retired or semiretired, lend their experience and expertise to Mason's 131 full-time M.B.A. students in a host of ways. Among other things, they lecture and participate in discussion panels, they coach and mentor, and they place numerous contacts from a lifetime in business at the disposal of both students and faculty.

Selling Point

The partners play such an important role in the school that Mason highlights them in its recruiting efforts as it seeks to differentiate itself from larger rivals.

"Once one realizes that most of our students aspire to career tracks and career success similar to what our executive partners have achieved, one can see the attractiveness of the group to prospective students," says Lawrence B. Pulley, Mason's dean.

The group was created in 1998 to take advantage of the large number of executives who were retiring to the Williamsburg area, primarily to three upscale gated communities within a few miles of William & Mary. "We would get calls from some of these people who were interested in getting involved with the business school, and we had the idea that they could be a resource for us," Dr. Pulley says.

As attempts were made to organize the volunteers into a group, the original intention was to recruit only retirees. But those involved in the search widened their net to include people with a record of accomplishment in their field. "We didn't want to get just anybody. We wanted to get senior executives and owners of businesses," says Joseph R. Pinotti, a retired chemical-company executive and one of the group's founders.

'PSYCHIC INCOME' Executive Partners members (from left) Robert McKnew, Charles Dixon, Edward Shugrue, Lynne Walker, Thomas Zeni and Vincent Byrne

The group got off to a modest start. Its first 20 members signed up primarily to be advisers to the school's field-studies program. After that, membership grew rapidly as the group, originally known as the Senior Executive Resource Corps, found new ways to provide support for the school, and as the faculty saw the benefits of having a ready supply of experienced executives to add an extra dimension to their teaching. The partners soon adopted their new name and took a more businesslike approach to supplying the right mix of executives to meet the changing needs of the school.

"Typically, we ask the faculty once a year for what they want and whether they have enough people with the backgrounds they need," says Edward J. Shugrue, a former International Business Machines Corp. vice president who is currently executive director of the group. For a time, the need was for experts in finance or marketing. More recently, the group has been seeking executives with entrepreneurship experience.

Eager to Help

Executive Partners has never advertised for new members. There hasn't been a problem finding enough men and women willing to donate their time, though members receive little individual recognition and no perks, other than a campus parking permit. Retired executives, in particular, have been eager to keep involved in some meaningful business-related activity and to work with students launching careers.

For all the volunteers, "the big motivation is not about their egos; it's nothing more than personal satisfaction," says James M. Olver, assistant dean for M.B.A. programs at the Mason School. "It's all psychic income, that's for sure."

Recruiting is done informally, mostly through networking and referrals. No matter how impressive a candidate's credentials, though, he or she must go through a formal application and interview process.

"It does surprise people sometimes when we ask for a résumé," says Lynne Walker, a member of the membership committee and one of seven women in Executive Partners.

A prospect who is retired is expected to be active still in business affairs, to be up-to-date in his or her particular field, and to have contacts that could be of use for the school and its students. The membership committee also looks for executives who work well with others and can adapt to the subordinate role they will play in the classroom.

"We're there to support the faculty and not to take over, not to be the big elephant in the room," notes Charles G. Dixon, a former consultant and a member of Executive Partners since 2001.

Volunteers are asked to serve at least four years and to participate in at least one school activity, such as advising on a field study, guest lecturing, coaching and mentoring, or judging student case competitions. About 60% of volunteers are involved in three activities or more.

"You can do the minimum or you can spend your life here," says Robert D. McKnew, a former Bank of America managing director who is in charge of faculty support for the volunteer group.

The time the volunteers spend varies depending on the activity, but Mr. Shugrue figures that, on average, executive partners spend eight to 10 hours a week on the school's campus during the academic year.

They are likely to spend additional time at home preparing for a lecture or one of their activities. And they are always available to meet with or talk to the students, who can find out about the executives' backgrounds and areas of expertise through an online database maintained by Mason. On a recent Sunday, for example, Mr. Shugrue received an email from a student interested in a career in human resources. That night, he met with the student and spent more than five hours talking with him about the field and his own experience in human resources at IBM.

Students, not surprisingly, applaud the partnership. Albert H. Huntington IV, who will graduate in May, recalls his first day at the Mason School. He was immediately assigned a retired consulting-firm president as his coach. The two have met at least once a month since. "When I need him, I just give him a call," Mr. Huntington says. "He has been a sounding board for anything that might come along."

Jessica Taylor, who just completed her first semester, works with two members of Executive Partners and intends to seek out a third. Her interest is in the nonprofit sector. "I usually call when I'm having a crisis," says Mrs. Taylor, who adds that her coaches have "been terrific in giving me some real-world advice."

Could Executive Partners and its relationship with Mason be replicated elsewhere? Dean Pulley says the school "is thinking about how other schools might benefit from our experiences," and says Mason may make some presentations at business-school gatherings in the future. Mr. Shugrue says one potential obstacle to transplanting the program is finding the same level of commitment that the William & Mary volunteers give.

"If you don't have a group of volunteers who are willing to put in the time and effort that we do, it will never work," he says. "We are very fortunate to have that here in Williamsburg."

Annual Review

Executive Partners' membership is constantly changing as some volunteers decide they have done enough after a few years or they move out of the area or even return to full-time employment. Every October, the group leadership reviews its members' participation and asks those who haven't been active to drop out if they can't commit to future involvement. This year's review led to a reduction from 96 members earlier in the year to the present 83, a number that Mr. Shugrue believes is "about right" for the current needs of the school.

The Mason School is well aware of its dependency on its volunteers. Dr. Pulley says the school's program that teaches such management skills as building relationships and problem solving couldn't be offered without the executive partners who are paired with each student as a personal coach. And Mason's field-consultancy program, he adds, would be "a very different sort of beast and not nearly as successful" without the partners who help obtain semester-long projects from among their current clients and who then serve as advisers to the student teams that tackle the projects.

There is some concern at Mason about how long a completely self-run group of volunteers can be expected to do the job it has taken on. "Sustainability of the Executive Partners program is critical for us," says Dr. Pulley. "We monitor this, but right now we haven't seen the red flags."

--Mr. May is a writer in Morris Township, N.J.

Write to Roger May at encore@wsj.com3.

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