"One Man in His Time..."

THE DEAN MEANT BUSINESS

by Courtney C. Brown '26. Columbia University Graduate School of Business, 1983. 285 pp.

The title is apt: CCB always meant business, all his life but especially when faced with dilemmas, conflicts of interest, or crises large and small. And he has written two books in one as he interweaves reminiscences of two complex and very successful lives, one spent in the corporate world, the other in academia.

He learned to write well, starting with a daily market-letter for The WallStreet Journal, and he is skillful in detailing the complexities and frustrations involved in making the change from top-drawer executive to dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Business an institution which at the time of his appointment was an academic orphan on the campus, and second-rate. He tells the story well, so much so that I found myself bringing to mind my own memories of small crises and decisions, with many identifications with the author.

Brown's first chapter "A New Life at Fifty" is vivid with nostalgia for the years of his boyhood through his graduation from Dartmouth in 1926. Read the first three chapters at one sitting; you will refer back to them as you read on. Sequences dealing with crises met and overcome, with "important doors that opened" as he persisted, describe the boy and man his relations with his mother (who died when he was four), his up-and-down father, the grandmother who brought him up, and his brother. And as he writes

about his translation from business executive to dean he observes how in a very substantial manner most of the diverse activities in the fifty years before had been unpremeditated preparation for the job: "In a pioneer community in Texas, I had early lessons in assertiveness and initiative ... in a military academy [Staunton], I had learned group loyalty, discipline, governance; a respect for values of liberal arts learning was acquired at Dartmouth. Wall Street taught me precision and attention to detail." He lived "from rags to riches"-twice.

Alumni will enjoy Chapter 3 it is all Dartmouth, from "playboy" (his own term) to scholar. A really important crisis (again) was being summoned via the "24 Hour Notice" by Dean E. Gordon Bill to the shocking news that he had received 3 E's and 2 D's as his semester grades. The shock technique made him mad and gave him a determination to "show him" or leave Dartmouth. He graduated creditably.

I won't spoil the fun by describing how he moved from "that rigorous and demanding life near the top of the American corporate structure" to take on the leadership of "a rather modest business school."

There are at least three audiences for this saga: alumni interested in the notable successes of a fellow-alumnus; students of corporate bureaucracy and also war-time Washington; and administrators of universities and, especially, business schools. He acknowledges that it was difficult to recover and write this story especially the after-fifty part. For me, it was a joy to read.

C. N. Allen '24

Professor Emeritus Chauncey Allen (agraduate of Columbia as well as Dartmouth) had a share of doing businesswith deans during his 41 years as amember of the College's Department ofPsychology.