Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/61367
It's Not Easy I shelf-life of a business school dean is not very long. In fact, conventional wisdom holds that business school deanships usually last about four or five years, an estimate supported by occasional surveys and my own observations. In 1981, for example, I attend- ed AACSB's New Deans Seminar in Austin, Texas, where 59 participants were enrolled. In the years since that seminar, I have often checked the AACSB Membership Directory to tally the number of my classmates who are still at the helm. Five years after attending our Texas boot camp, only 25 individuals, or a little more than 40 per- cent of our class, were still in office. By 1991, only eleven deans—fewer than one in five—were around long enough to pick up their ten-year pins. A decade later, in 2001, only two of the original group of rookies A quick study of my own deanly peers confirms that the enjoyed the good fortune of being the dean of business for 18 years at East Tennessee StateUniversity in Johnson City, Tennessee. After a while, however, I realized that I was the exception, not the rule.Most deans are gone long before 18 years—often in less than five. Why? by Allan D. Spritzer illustrations by Linda Helton Directory and found that only two of my 1981 New Deans Seminar classmates—Dave Billings of The University of Alabama, Huntsville, and Bud Barnes of Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington—continue to rack up more years of service as business deans. In my most recent conversations with them, I learned that these two veterans are still enjoying the challenges and benefits of being dean. How can Dave and Bud and others have were still "The Dean." Two years before, even I had passed on the baton of the deanship to my successor to seize the opportunity to become an endowed chair holder at ETSU. I recently checked the online AACSB Membership such long and successful careers as deans while others are gone before they can even begin to enjoy the fruits of their deanships? Is there a natural course that is followed by deans, a life cycle that may be long or short depending on their per- sonal, institutional, and environmental circumstances? And if so, what are their secrets of success and longevity? To extend their years in the posi- tion, novice and According to one who has "been there," the key to extending the career life cycle of a business school 36 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2004