School News-Alumni-The Fuqua School of Business-Duke University

Fuqua's alumni council is an interested and active group of approximately 55 alumni from all programs within Fuqua. Our agreed-upon mission is to "increase the value Fuqua and its alumni create for each other through networking, mentoring and stewardship." We recognize that in order to fulfill our mission, we need to represent the interests of ALL alumni and therefore have made great efforts to have the council mirror the demographics of our alumni body.

We have a lot of good news to report from our April 2005 meeting. The alumni council's conversation with Dean Breeden focused on how we might assist the school in growing the number of applications to all programs, but especially the daytime program. In addition to admissions, we heard about faculty recruiting and the updated plans for the new academic building/wing to be built on the Science Drive entrance, next to the Law School. We worked with Associate Dean Gordon Soenksen to outline a hierarchy of needs for the alumni body to see how it aligned with the needs of the development and alumni relations team. This was designed to ensure that expectations for both staff and alumni were aligned and leveraged.

Our alumni career services sub-committee reported that they have engaged a number of interested alumni as résumé readers to help alleviate the overflow to individual alumni counselors in the Career Management Center. The committee chair, Rod Santomassimo '87, and his group also gave advice to the school on refining what additional services could be provided to our alumni given the constraints on resources. On our mentoring sub-committee initiative, Robin Tenkate '03 and career management center staff member Susan Wood '95 updated us on their activities for a program that would first give current students access to interested alums willing to play an advisory role, and then evolve to the alumni group as the structure develops. There are hopes to have a test group ready for the fall class. The Development committee, led by Jonathan Wigser '94, was pleased to report 100 percent participation by the council in the annual fund and other initiatives for the school, and evaluated how they could best bring about that result in other areas of the alumni body.

As a group we had the chance to work with associate deans Ray Smith and John Gallagher, both recent returnees from Duke Corporate Education, on understanding the alumni's wishes around lifelong learning possibilities. They have been tasked with building up offerings for alumni. As such, interactive sessions were held to identify potential informational topics. A new sub-committee was formed under the leadership of Duane Lisowski '98. This has long been a topic we wanted to address but it was only recently that we had internal staff to champion it so we are all very excited and hopeful for the future.

I am absolutely confident that my successor, Matt Bailey '99, as chair, and our new vice chair, Jonathan Wigser, will lead this group of distinguished and highly motivated alumni to even greater accomplishments in the coming year. I have enjoyed my five years working on behalf of the distinguished alumni of The Fuqua School, and thank you for the opportunity. I encourage each and every alumnus/alumna to reach out to the school to share ideas on how to improve our global presence and alumni network. We each own the responsibility for keeping it active and effective. E-mail your thoughts and suggestions to Elizabeth Hogan, director of alumni relations at elizabeth.hogan@duke.edu.

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Developing and Empowering Your Team: Leadership the Navy Way

By Haynes Cooney '06
(04/05)

In February , the Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) sponsored a workshop titled "Leadership, the Navy Perspective," that took 50 Fuqua students to the United States Naval Station in Norfolk, Virginia to learn about leadership and ethics in the military. Students were encouraged to think about the relationship between junior officers and senior enlisted and the similar situation faced by new managers and experienced workers in the corporate world. The workshop is one of several hosted by the LDI throughout the year to help students develop themselves and others as leaders.

The Navy relies on constant and extensive training to prepare individuals to work together effectively under high stress and in any number of possible scenarios. Each individual is treated as though they were being groomed to be a commanding officer. Suitably, then, the group's experience in Norfolk began at the Submarine Training Facility (SUBTRAFAC), where students got to experience some of the Navy's rigorous training exercises. As small groups of students rotated through a number of training facilities, they saw how the Navy navigates, transits submarines in and out of port, limits damage and flooding, and uses weapons on the battlefield. Each rotation also emphasized that an officer's role is to enhance the development, quality and advancement of their subordinates and themselves and gain the flexibility and confidence to handle any situation imaginable.

After lunch, the group traveled to the Center for Naval Leadership (CNL) to talk about Naval Leadership with commander Cathy Davis, training site officer in charge. Commander Davis led the group through a group communication exercise and discussed some of the Navy's cutting-edge teaching methods for leadership development. She also spoke about the Navy's core values and emphasized the importance of continuous learning in both the military and corporate worlds.

For the final experience of the day, the group toured the USS Anzio, a Navy cruiser with a crew of about 400. Each crew member is a specialist and leading expert in their particular function and plays a critical role in the efficient functioning of the overall ship. The group concluded the tour by meeting with executive officer lieutenant comander Rob Beauchamp and command master chief Roger McCormack, senior officers on the ship responsible for setting the tone for the crew and managing strategic and tactical decisions for each mission. Commanders Beauchamp and McCormack spoke of their role is not only giving orders, but taking responsibility, providing for their people and empowering those around them to become future leaders.

Organized by COLE Leadership Fellow Kaleb Johannes '05 and LDI members Matt Drawz '05 and Doug Winslow '06, the trip was not only a great opportunity for students, but it also generated positive coverage for Fuqua leadership in the Navy press. In an article that appears in the March 4, 2005, issue of Navy News, commander Davis comments, "Although there are some obvious fundamental differences between Duke and CNL, both organizations face the same challenge - how do we develop leaders. I think it's still all about people management. We grow leaders by facilitating ways they can discover their own natural leadership traits. Then we help focus our students on strengthening their leadership abilities through class discussions, role-playing and case studies." Sound familiar?