"At 10 o'clock in the morning, you can almostalways find [McArthur] over at Shad talking tostudents, or to someone," Bower says. "He doesn'tsit in his office."

Schlesinger remembers his doctoral studentdays, when McArthur was head of the committeewhich evaluated one of Schlesinger's first oralexams.

"I failed the exam and McArthur wrote tome...to tell me I had [failed]," Schlesingerrecalls. "What he suggested was that instead ofretaking the exam I meet with him once a month.Can you imagine that, you fail an exam and afaculty member invites you to meet with themregularly?"

The head of the degree program forcedSchlesinger to take the exam over anyway, but thecontact with McArthur continued.

Colleagues say McArthur's down-to-earth stylehas helped the dean accomplish his goals.

"He's not a formal guy...He has a very warmengagement with people," Aguilar says. "It makespeople like and respect him very much and put inthe extra effort needed to get things done."

Community Commitments

McArthur's influence spreads beyond BusinessSchool grounds.

As chair of the board of the Brigham andWomen's Hospital, he was instrumental inengineering its merger with Massachusetts GeneralHopital (MGH) in the fall of 1993.

After initial talks between Harvard's fiveteaching hospitals had failed, McArthur wasted notime trying to put a deal together.

Meeting in secret--the way McArthur prefers todo business--MGH and the Brigham struck a deal toform a health care provider known as PartnersHealthCare Inc. Since then, McArthur has becomechair of the partnership.

But McArthur doesn't limit his freneticactivity to Partners HealthCare or the BusinessSchool.

The dean has repeatedly expressed his concernabout the declining state of American publiceducation. That may be why he has become active inthe local community in Allston-Brighton, where heinitiated a series of programs to use the BusinessSchool to help local public schools, includinggranting local students privileges to Shad.

Looking Ahead

McArthur says he has no second thoughts aboutleaving the Business School.