The University of Baltimore's new dean of the Robert G. Merrick School of Business has little in common with the fraternity of mostly older white men who head America's accredited business schools.
At 43, Anne M. McCarthy, who assumed her position last week, is younger than many of her peers. Most recently an associate professor at Colorado State University, she has never held the position of department chairman or associate dean, once traditional steppingstones to the dean's office.
And she takes more interest in scrappy start-up businesses than in the corporate behemoths that drive research at many prominent business schools. Ask about her teaching philosophy and she's liable to quote Confucius.
"I hear, I forget; I see, I remember; I do, I understand," McCarthy said, recalling the ancient philosopher's words. "By doing, we really begin to understand."
If she doesn't look or sound the part of a traditional business dean, the school's faculty doesn't seem to be worried. With enrollment down significantly from its peak and money tight, some complain privately that the school has suffered in recent years under slow-moving leadership and a faculty that sometimes resists change. It's time for new ideas, they say.
"There was a lot of pent-up demand and some great people on the faculty who were really looking for some leadership and inclusiveness," said Charles E. Siegmann, a Mercantile Bankshares Corp. executive and longtime member of the business school's advisory board.
" ... I think we've always been on the edge of a breakthrough on being recognized as one of the leading universities in the area, but we never quite have gotten there. I think Anne may bring that kind of leadership, along with the new president, and push us over the edge to get our star shining a little brighter."
Raising school's profile
Boosting undergraduate enrollment, which fell 57 percent from 1991 to 2001, and raising the school's profile in the business community will be among McCarthy's mandates.
The Merrick School of Business has shrunk as a result of stricter admissions standards, changing demographics and competition from its bigger and better-known competitors - primarily the University of Maryland, College Park. It is no longer the dominant school within the University of Baltimore, which serves mostly adult students who work and students who have transferred from local community colleges.
To help reverse the trend, McCarthy and Robert L. Bogomolny, the university's incoming president and a former pharmaceutical executive, have pledged to run the school more like a business.
Some faculty members have met the new emphasis on accountability with trepidation, but there is a sense that things need to change in order to move forward.
"I'm really optimistic," said David Stevens, director of the Jacob France Institute for Global Business, an arm of the school's applied research program.
Praised by present and former colleagues as a rising academic star and a networking savant, McCarthy beat out more experienced candidates for the job by displaying an intensity that her competitors lacked.
Zoltan Acs, professor of economics and a member of the dean's search committee, said she has the skill of a salesperson and an aura of leadership.
"It's like when you meet a general, you always know it," he said. "They have a presence about them, and they have a way that they pay attention to every detail, but never lose track of the big picture. They sort of create an atmosphere."
McCarthy's interest in business and entrepreneurship is a family trait. Home was Chicago's South Side, a collection of ethnic neighborhoods and working-class families. Grandparents, uncles and aunts were never more than a few blocks away, and Polish was often spoken over the dinner table.
Her grandfather, Charles Derwinski, started a small savings and loan in Roseland, nursing it through lean years during the Great Depression. McCarthy likened him to a real-life George Bailey, referring to the big-hearted family banker played by James Stewart in the movie classic It's a Wonderful Life.
When her grandfather died in 1947, the business was temporarily taken over by her grandmother, who presided over the association's board and simultaneously supported five children. That resolve later made an impression on McCarthy.
"I am who I am today because my grandmother was a very independent person and she was very smart. I think she would have been a great business person," she said.
Eventually, the bank fell into the hands of an uncle, Ed Derwinski, who ran it until he decided to seek political office. After a successful run for the state House in 1956, the prominent Chicago Republican graduated to Congress and later became part of the first President George Bush's inner circle. Meanwhile, McCarthy's late father, Casimir, ran the savings and loan until it was bought by a larger association years later.
"We treated that savings and loan like a family business," McCarthy said.
Interested in politics, McCarthy applied to George Washington University, known for its strong political science program. But the Derwinski family's instinct for business prevailed over politics, and she opted for a major in economics instead.
Became entrepreneur
After graduation, McCarthy followed in her grandfather's footsteps and pursued the high-risk life of an entrepreneur, moving to Connecticut and helping to launch a business renovating and leasing historic buildings. In her off hours, she worked toward a master's in business administration at the University of Connecticut.
"So I really understand to a great extent the working students we serve [at the Merrick school]," McCarthy said of her dual pursuits.
Though the renovation business disbanded in the mid-1980s, McCarthy's interest in entrepreneurship never waned. It became the focus of her doctoral dissertation at Purdue University and inspired her work at Colorado State University, where she started and directed the Center for Entrepreneurial and Family Enterprises.
The center - elements of which McCarthy hopes to duplicate in Baltimore - provides assistance to local entrepreneurs and puts students in touch with business leaders through a speakers program, among other things.
Over the years, McCarthy has earned a reputation for innovation and leadership in academic circles. Colleagues describe her as "someone who can start things." But she does it with good humor and without stepping on toes, they say.
"She has that wonderful combination of clarity of vision and high standards, but with the ability to incorporate the viewpoint of others," said Andre Delbecq, former dean of Santa Clara University. Delbecq served with McCarthy on the board of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society, an academic association she now heads.
Seeking alternative viewpoints could prove to be a key to winning over faculty members at Merrick. Some professors say they are looking for a leader who will listen. And they want the school to establish a stronger identity that would differentiate it from competitors.
"What is needed is for the university to sort of stand up for what it is," said a faculty member who requested anonymity. " ... That mission has to be articulated and clarified."
Sounding like an entrepreneur plotting strategy, McCarthy said giving the school a stronger identity, or "brand," is among her early priorities. She hopes to do it by seeking partners in the business community and marshaling faculty members to seek their answers.
"I truly believe in what I would call the servant leadership model. Leaders aren't the people who set the vision, and we're not the ones who make people do anything. We're, in fact, the ones who kind of ask tough questions and get people to begin to have some answers" of their own.