Double Duty: Filling the Role of Dean and CEO

When Business School student Michael Hren and 80 members of his first-year section found problems with their Management Communications class, they decided to send criticism where they thought it would prove most effective-straight to the top.

The letter ultimately led to changes in the course, but Hren's section was also given a reminder of just how far removed the top--in the form of B-School Dean John H. McArthur--can be.

"You'd think we damn near burned down the school," says Hren. "We were sent a letter that slapped our hands, basically telling us, "Don't skip the chain of command and send a letter to the "CEO.'"

At most graduate schools, a dean oversees the institution's academic and administrative life. At the B-School, however, the figure of a concerned leader deeply involved in the daily life of the school yielded to a persona better suited to the business world than academia: to both students and faculty, McArthur is not simply the school's dean--he is its chief executive officer.

During his tenure McArthur has overseen dramatic transformation at the Business School. At the time of his appointment in 1980 the B-School's stature, both at Harvard and elsewhere, had come under fire. Critics included President Derek C. Bok, who issued a report questioning the school's academic structure and its treatment of ethical issues.

The school has now gained renewed respect, bolstered by a $240 million endowment and new programs in fields such as entrepreneurial studies and ethics. McArthur's role in engineering this change and maintaining it on a day-to-day basis has been perceived differently by students and faculty.

McArthur has been praised by B-School professors and administrators as an innovator and consensus builder, eager to promote creativity among professors without forcing his own academic agenda.

But students have characterized the dean as inaccessible and detached from student life, concerned with promoting the B-School and leaving much of its actual management to other administrators.

"In the traditional model of dean you would find something to do with students--but that's not what [McArthur's] here for," says first-year student Barry Johnson. "He's not accessible by any stretch. McArthur's not a howdy-doody, hand-shaking, walking-around-the-campus kind of dean."

Both faculty and students agree in their characterization of McArthur as the model corporate figure whose role--the CEO--is delineated daily within the school's case studies. For better or for worse, he does what is necessary to run the great MBA factory across the river--promoting growth through his executives and middle managers, but rarely fraternizing with the workers.

"McArthur is just not part of life here," says one second-year student. "I guess he's accessible if you put in enough effort but he doesn't affect life here."

McArthur declined to be interviewed for this article, and he has repeatedly refused to speak to The Crimson.

Breakfasts with each of the nine second-year class sections are arranged by the dean each year, say second-year students; but even then McArthur's diffidence and reluctance to speak in public sometimes counteracts his cursory efforts to establish direct communication with students.

"We had breakfast one day with the dean, but he doesn't mingle well," says second-year student Edward Schmults. "He sat in the corner talking with some administrative guy the entire time."

Where students find McArthur distant, however, B-School faculty laud him as responsive to faculty concerns and as a champion of innovation within the graduate school's often static curriculum.

Professors cite McArthur's pivotal role in establishing an entrepreneurial studies program as an example of his willingness to explore new areas of business education even in the face of dissent. It was McArthur's effort to recruit a leading scholar in the field and secure necessary funding, says Associate Professor of Business Administration William A. Sahlman, which launched the program despite opposition from faculty members who considered the field unscholarly.

Serafim-Rock Professor of Business Administration Howard H. Stevenson, a leading scholar of entrepreneurship, left the B-School in 1977, retiring while under consideration for tenure. But McArthur took the initiative to solicit funding for a new endowed chair and then offered Stevenson the position.

With McArthur's support, say Stevenson and Sahlman, the program has come to hold its own amidst more established departments. By next year, at least seven professors will teach entrepreneurial studies courses, and Sahlman estimates that half of all second-year students will take a course in the field.

"The group was effectively formed when McArthur asked Stevenson to the University," says Sahlman. "There are people who still think entepreneurial studies is not worthwhile, not a rigorous area of concern. We disagreed, McArthur disagreed, and McArthur enabled us to do what we've done."

In cases such as this one, B-School professors say, McArthur doesn't simply dictate new concepts to be developed by faculty; rather, he encourages professors to pursue their own projects.

"John really believes in the decentralization of intellectual capital--he bets on the jockey," says Stevenson. "It's not top-down management."

External Affairs

But B-School students say they rarely enjoy such direct encouragement from McArthur. Faculty and students alike have acknowledged that external relations comprise a large portion of McArthur's responsibilities; and as a result, his realm is often the boardroom rather than the classroom.

Much of McArthur's time must be devoted to external affairs--promoting faculty research, making sure that corporations are satisfied with the year's crop of MBAs, and soliciting funds. In this capacity, McArthur serves as a high-profile publicist, professors say, often using the B-School's press and videos to present information about the school in a novel way.

"John has viewed the school as a business that's in the business of developing and disseminating intellectual capital," says Stevenson. "If the goal is to have an impact on the way people think about business, then you really have to say that disseminating it broadly is an important element of that task--and John has promoted us well."

Students and staff alike acknowledge that such a role is necessary in order to maintain good relations between the B-School and the corporate world. Nevertheless, as the dean's commitment to bolstering alumni and corporate relations increases, the time left for everyday school life begins to dwindle.

And at Harvard, whose alumni base and student population is larger than all other business schools, there is a great tendency for a dean to focus on outside issues, says Dickinson Professor of Accounting Robert S. Kaplan, who until 1983 served as dean of Carnegie-Mellon Graduate School of Industrial Administration. In addition, he says, business contacts must be fostered to generate source materials for the over five million copies of case studies the school distributes annually.

"As external relations take on more importance, you have less time to do inside work," says. "John works more through the senior associate deans; they're more in charge of operations with students. John's relationship with students would be going through the senior associate deans."

But this lack of accessibility doesn't frustrate the future MBA's--they expect it. Many say they have found other B-School officials to whom they can more effectively voice concerns. Even leaders of student groups seeking reform in such areas as minority faculty hiring say they often steer clear of McArthur.

"I've had no interaction [with the Dean], but I haven't sought it," says second-year student Carol R. Schwartz, the president of the Women's Student Association. "We've spoken with [Professor of Business Administration William E.] Sasser and with a few other members of the faculty."

Belinda C. Stubblefield, a second-year student and president of the Afro-American Student Union, says that while McArthur has been open to discussing such issues as the lack of Black professors and case study protagonists, most of her discussions have been with Sasser.

"Dean McArthur realizes that what we do is important for the school," says Stubblefield. However, she explains that "the CEO is McArthur, but the COO [the chief operating officer] is Sasser. McArthur is more of the big-picture thinker, setting strategy--Sasser is more of the implementer."

Sasser, who heads the MBA program, declined to comment.

Most certain about McArthur's role is that it is not likely to change anytime soon. Efficiency is the key to success in the business world, and although McArthur may not be a campus presence, he is an efficient CEO. Even if his company is meant to be a part of academia.