Partnerships: Learning from Billy and Robert

“Old Wilmington residents taught me about working together to accomplish a goal.”

Tom Kennedy

Like many of us, brothers Billy and Robert (pseudonyms for actual people) knew all about the struggle to make a life. I remember them from my early days in Braidwood and Wilmington because we would see them going here and there around town. But unlike us, Billy was blind, and Robert had no legs. Their mode of transportation? A wagon. Robert sat in the wagon and steered while Billy pushed. Together, they taught me a lesson about partnerships.

A major part of my work in higher education centered around strategies that enabled organizations to leverage their resources. Partnerships between colleges and other organizations, usually quite different in their nature, comprised a major focus during my last 40 years before retirement.

In the case of Billy and Robert, their deficits were compensated by their respective abilities: to see and to walk. By leveraging their individual strengths, they could function effectively and independently; without partnering, they might have been totally dependent.    

The early lesson I learned from the brothers, coupled with my experience as an athlete and coach, became the basis for understanding the merits of collaboration and teamwork in order to accomplish goals. Group efforts, properly aligned, generally yielded superior results that could not have been achieved individually.

The College of St. Francis

It was during my time at the College of St. Francis that I had the chance to experiment with serious college/corporation partnering.  When I transitioned to the St. Francis Director of Graduate Studies position in 1983, my responsibilities included overseeing the multi-state delivery, maintenance, and expansion of the College’s Graduate program in Health Services Administration.

This off-campus graduate program replicated the delivery model of the bachelor’s degree Completion Program that had been initiated in 1973 under the guidance of Academic VP Fr. David Clarke and Sr. Mary Vincent Kirk. Graduate Studies employed part time local faculty to teach in cities across the country in underutilized evening classroom facilities in hospitals. 

Talk about a win-win relationship!

• The adult students gained knowledge and achieved their college degrees.
• Many students were employees in the hospital and were being trained at little cost to their employer.
• The hospital collected revenue for rental space.
• Local adjunct faculty were gratified to teach eager adult learners while they earned money to compensate their otherwise full-time jobs.
• St. Francis extended its mission while generating needed tuition revenue.

Within a short period of time, I could envision a similar strategy that might be applied to the corporate sector. When Federal Express expressed interest in providing college academic offerings to its employees, we explored how the College might respond to their need. 

Each entity had its own set of core competencies: St. Francis was in the business of educating people and had authorization to award academic credit and degrees. Fed Ex was an expert in package delivery. St. Francis desired more students and tuition; Fed Ex needed employee training and educational opportunities for their employees. 

After interviewing Fed Ex employees, I hired adjunct St. Francis faculty to teach credit-bearing business courses at the main office in Chicago and later started a few courses at selected out-of-state facilities. Again, the same academic delivery methodology was followed.

This early experience at the University of St. Francis later laid the foundation for future endeavors at Regis University in Denver. 

Regis College/University

In 1986, President David Clarke asked me to come to Denver, Colorado to employ similar entrepreneurial ventures for Regis College, (This is the same Fr. Clarke who had initiated the off-campus program at St. Francis in 1973) I had practically no knowledge of the College or the Denver area, but the support of a risk-taking president gave me confidence that non-traditional partnerships might be established.

I immediately found that a fellow Regis innovator, John Brennan, had begun exploratory discussions with the Adolph Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. John and I then developed the first Coors-Regis Partnership whereby a Regis academic counselor would be officed at the Golden plant. The goal was to provide higher education advising to Coors’ employees. Regis business courses would be offered during off hours at Coors’ facilities.

Mary Lou Nugent, a former St. Francis employee, became the first director of the partnership. In addition to serving as a resource for Regis courses, Mary Lou helped employees to find appropriate courses at the local community colleges. She acted as their broker who served in the best interest of the employee, not just for Regis.

We now established a “New Ventures” unit at the College and employed a small staff to work with me. Our goal was to develop new partnerships that would also generate needed financial revenues for Regis while extending its mission to educationally deprived adults.

Mary Lou was so successful that the new model was replicated at two more corporations, AT&T and Storage Tek in Colorado. In 1990, the program was recognized by the Peter Drucker Foundation as an outstanding model for higher education-corporate partnerships.

Although these corporate arrangements were doing well, there was yet other Regis possibilities that we gradually recognized. The impetus for Regis joint relationships was only beginning for our small New Ventures team.

Part 2 will continue in the next article to be published soon.