Lake Forest Graduate School of Management
Business and education come together at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, headquartered in a corner of Lake Forest College’s campus. Founded in 1946 through the cooperation of LFC and three Lake County companies, this not-for-profit executive MBA school has been an independent institution since the ’70s. More than 300 organizations are represented by the 630 students enrolled in its two- and four-year programs on three campuses.
Keeping this high-powered institution on track is the job of Raymond E. Britt Jr., who claims his presidency happened largely by accident.
“I was teaching here when I saw a letter about Moose leaving,” Britt related. Moose Dunne was president of the school for 34 years, until July 1991 and now is is president emeritus, and he still teaches at the school.
Britt continued, “I kind of envied Moose, his position, and with a little encouragement from the academic dean here I said, `Why not?’ almost jokingly.” His smile beamed as he added, “I’m an engineer by education, a businessman by vocation, a priest by ordination and president of this institution by an act of God.”
In addition to his MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy and bachelor’s in engineering from Yale, Britt, 55, has a certificate from Seabury Western Theoglogical Seminary. As an Episcopal priest, he still serves in a unpaid basis at Trinity Episcopal Church in Highland Park.
“This job mixes my business background and my pastoral side of having worked with people, making an impact on their lives,” he said. The best thing about being president, according to Britt, is “having the opportunity to learn how stimulating it is to teach adults. What do you teach them?”
Britt is one of those presidents who still teaches, two courses a term. “It’s the only way to stay in touch with students,” he insisted. The school’s students must be employed middle managers on their way up.
The toughest thing for Britt to get used to is that he never worked for 28 bosses before. “The board of trustees is a very challenging group-top executives, all bright, accomplished and demanding. They are the people implementing the changes in business today, and they are proactive with this school,” he said.
There are no typical days, but he needs to be at the school every evening and Saturday because that’s when classes meet. On Sundays, he serves as a priest. “And, I make sure I make time to be with my family,” he said. The family includes wife Jean, executive director of Parkside Lodge in Mundelein; four grown children; a granddaughter; and two cats. The Britts live in Glencoe.
College of Lake County
Since 1969 the College of Lake County has grown to become a powerhouse of public higher education in the region. Its 24 years have yielded impressive statistics: from 2,000 students and 115 employees when it opened to 15,644 students and a faculty/staff totaling more than 1,000 today, plus a count of 15,758 alumni who have earned two-year degrees and certificates. CLC delivers its educational services through more than 40 sites throughout the county.
Busily comfortable in his modest office on CLC’s sprawling main campus in Grayslake, President Daniel J. LaVista responded to a question about his “honeymoon” period after five years on the job. “You mean it’s not over?” he quipped, adding that “during the first year, I worked carefully to get a feel for what was out there.” Out there was an entire county with immediate educational needs being met daily but which were changing just as fast. CLC’s mission was to continually meet those needs.
La Vista, 49, has proved equal to the task. He rose to his presidency through teaching and student advising to a department chairmanship, then a deanship and a vice presidency. When he came to CLC in 1987, he had already served for five years in three administrative community college posts in Ohio.
“I view this college as being on a linear continuum with different people serving different needs as it grows and prospers through the times,” he said. “As the third president here, I have found my job heavily focused on enhancing our public relations, marketing and particularly on revitalization of our private foundation.”
CLC’s foundation provides a means for addressing educational needs beyond the public institution’s ability to attract its fair share of diminishing state support. Perhaps dearest to LaVista’s heart is the $10.5 million instructional/performing arts center planned under his watch. The CLC president’s doctorate in speech and dramatic arts from Syracuse University admittedly reveals much about his style.
“I am working on a speech in which I compare this job to that of a theatrical director,” he said. “The spirit of the theater is compromise through trial and error in working with people. A director can also learn technical skills like budgeting and union negotiating. And, when the production is mounted, the director has others believing it was their work, not his,” LaVista concluded.
The community college cooperates with Barat College, De Paul University and Northeastern Illinois University in a bachelor’s-degree program that can be completed on CLC’s campus.
Both of LaVista’s children have taken classes at CLC. His son is a senior at Cornell University, and his daughter has taken CLC classes although still a Libertyville High School senior. “We allow any high school student who is ready to start college early,” he said.
Wife Rosemary divides her time between family and work as director of development at Lake Forest Hospital. The family lives in Libertyville.
Shimer College
“We’re involved in education, not job training,” said Don Moon, the soft-spoken president of Shimer College in Waukegan. The 139-year-old school centers its curriculum for its 106 students on the Socratic approach to gaining knowledge through studying the Great Books.
Shimer’s faculty, currently numbering 18, shares the multidimensional charge to its students by teaching classes outside their primary disciplines. The campus embraces eight buildings tightly scattered on Waukegan’s northeast side, including dormitories.
“We hope to increase enrollments 10 to 15 percent annually over the next seven to eight years, eventually having 300 to 350 students,” Moon explained. He noted the college has seen increases of 20 and 25 percent in the previous two years thanks to a nationwide marketing campaign to attract more students. He has led the college for the last 14 years, initially taking over to help rescue it from bankruptcy.
Moon said he was the only faculty member in the late ’70s who had a “mathematical bent and engineering background,” which served well in evaluating the college’s fiscal situation and formulating plans for renewal. Today Shimer is in good shape, having full accreditation and a $246,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1990).
Moon’s master’s degree in nuclear reactor engineering from New York University is balanced in typical Shimer fashion by his master of divinity degree from Nashotah House Seminary.
An ordained Episcopal priest, Moon, 56, serves regularly as a pastoral assistant at Christ Episcopal Church in Waukegan. His pastoral skills prove helpful in gently leading the governance of Shimer.
“The best thing about this job is teaching,” Moon said. “I love it, and I love the students. We always glean something new from the original sources studied. If I couldn’t teach, I am not sure I would want just an administrative job,” he added.
Moon divides his time at Shimer between teaching and leading about 50-50. “The hardest thing is finding the time to accomplish everything.”
As a Waukegan resident, Moon lives near Shimer’s campus. Family times are a happy responsibility, including his real estate agent wife, Jody, seven grown children and six grandchildren. Four of the children graduated from Shimer.
“I never started off with the intention of teaching or being a college president or being a priest,” Moon explained. “Science was important to me, and theology likewise became important. One leads to the other.”
Trinity College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Trinity College and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School share a 100-acre campus in Bannockburn and are headed by the same president, Kenneth M. Meyer, himself an alumnus of the college (1954). He became president of the divinity school in 1974 and of the college in 1983.
The 820-student, four-year college is the only Evangelical Free Church college in the country, and the 1,300-student divinity school “is the largest seminary in the world,” Meyer said. He added that in January, Miami Christian College in Florida became an official satellite, making it a true trinity that he leads. Miami Christian’s campus serves 300 students.
With these multiple responsibilities, the good-humored Meyer still manages to don his minister’s robes, preaching in 30 to 40 churches around the world annually. His highest degree is doctor of ministry from Luther Rice Seminary.
When he took over leadership of the college, Meyer said, it was a case of “the seminary bailing out the college.” Hard times had piled up about $3 million in debt, and the turnaround under Meyer wiped that out in about five years.
“We have built up the endowment to about $4.1 million for the college and $8.5 million for the seminary,” he said, adding that it “goes against the grain of the church’s view” to stress endowments because “we don’t want schools to walk away from the church.”
Meyer, 60, acknowledged that he did not seek the job he holds. “I was serving a large Rockford church and had been retired as board chairman of the seminary when I saw their need for a president and they asked me to serve,” he recalled.
“I see my job as, No. 1, to cast a vision and share the vision throughout these institutions; No. 2, provide leadership; No. 3, oversee the administration; and also raise the necessary funds.”
Like other college presidents, Meyer finds it difficult to find enough time. His Christmas break, which took him to Naples, Fla., included some presidential chores at Miami Christian College.
Meyer and wife Carol, who helps with hosting major donor families for the school, have been married 40 years and live in Lincolnshire. They have three grown children and six grandchildren. Two of their sons are alumni of the Trinity seminary and work as clergymen in Minnesota. Son-in-law David Magnuson is vice president of business services at the seminary.
University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School
North Chicago is home to a vital Lake County educational institution being led by an equally vital personality. The University of Health Sciences/Chicago Medical School boasts state-of-the-art training for medical and health-related professions at its 345,000-square-foot complex on Green Bay Road. Herman M. Finch, chief executive officer, has served as its leader since 1980, but his associations go back much further.
In 1948 he accompanied a friend to a fundraising banquet for the Chicago Medical School. “I wrote a check then and have been involved ever since,” Finch said. “I was invited to join and by 1966 was persuaded to take the chairmanship, where I’ve been ever since.”
In 1966 the school had 270 students compared with the present enrollment of 620 in medicine and 297 in allied health programs. He pointed out that there were 8,900 applicants for 150 places this year in the medical school alone. In addition to training doctors, the institution trains nurses, physical therapists and physician assistants, a new program. It also conducts postgraduate research programs focusing upon protein structure and function, molecular biology and neuroscience.
“Leading here, one learns to respect problems on both sides,” Finch explained. “We (board and CEO) never interfere with the quality of medical education, enrichment of the curriculum or research aims of the faculty.”
He said his most challenging task is to maintain “the spririt that exists here. We are like a family working together. My door is always open. A professor can come in with a student to gain comfort for a difficult problem.”
For Finch, his 45 years associated with the institution have been “utter commitment to the success of this school.” In 1978 he closed his consulting business in industrial relations to devote full time to the school. A personal tribute to Finch came from the institution when it awarded him an honorary doctorate in science in 1969.
Family duties are also important to Finch. He and wife Frances, who is active in various charities, have four grown children and three grandchildren. The Finches live in Highland Park.
