Williams Will Retool For Teaching Position

After serving as dean of the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business for the past 12 years, Doyle Zane Williams said he will take a year to “retool” before returning to the classroom to teach accounting in the fall of 2006.

“I will have one year in which I will retool and get myself up to speed in technology,” said Williams, who officially announced the move on Nov. 1. “We have programs for our students that I’m going to take.”

Williams, 64, said four main factors influenced his decision to step down as dean on June 30:

• The Walton College’s six-year capital fundraising campaign will conclude on that day. It has already brought in $20 million more than the $100 million goal.

• Williams said six years ago that he wanted the Walton College’s undergraduate business school to rank in the top 25 nationally. It tied for No. 25 this year in the rankings from U.S. News & World Report.

• The Walton College comes up for reaccreditation in two years. If Williams steps down this coming June, it will give his replacement a year to get his bearings before the accreditation team comes to town.

• Williams will turn 65 this month.

Williams was appointed dean and holder of the Sam M. Walton Leadership Chair in 1993.

Under Williams’ leadership, the Walton College has been one of the fastest-rising business schools in the nation. That growth was spurred by a $50 million gift in 1998 from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation — the largest gift at the time to a business school. In 2001, the college officially changed its name to the Sam M. Walton College of Business.

Williams said the greatest legacy he left the university was the efficient way the faculty and staff of the business college used the $50 million donation to improve the school’s reputation and rankings. That helped influence the Walton Family to give $300 million to the UA in 2002. The donation, the largest ever to a public university, is being split between the Honors College and the Graduate School.

“By 2010, I believe it’s possible for this college to be in the top 20 in undergraduate business schools,” he said.

Williams said he will teach full-time in the accounting department when he returns to the classroom in 2006. As dean, Williams was the ninth highest-paid state employee in Northwest Arkansas this year, earning $215,582, which includes $71,508 in outside income. Williams said he’ll have to take a pay cut when he goes back to teaching, but he didn’t say how much less he’ll be earning.

Williams said a search committee will be formed soon to find his replacement.

“This is really not the beginning of the end for the Walton College,” he said. “It’s the end of the beginning. The future is really bright for the Walton College.”

Williams said he will serve for one more year on the board of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. He is chairman of that national organization this year.

Named for Western novelist Zane Gray, Williams grew up in Ajax, La., where he picked cotton on the family farm.

At the age of 20, Williams received his bachelor’s of science degree in business administration and accounting from Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, La. He then earned two more accounting degrees from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, a master’s and a Ph.D.

In 1965, Williams took a job as an assistant professor of accounting at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. While there, he met and later married Maynette Derr, a professor of home economics. The couple had one child and adopted a second.

Williams worked for Texas Tech off and on until 1978, leaving for two two-year stints during that time — one with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants in New York City and one as a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii.

By 1973, he was “area coordinator” of the accounting department at Texas Tech, and the department was gaining national attention.

In 1978, Williams was hired away by the University of Southern California in Los Angeles to help start a school of accounting.

Four years after its inception, the USC School of Accounting was ranked in the top five nationally by other accounting department administrators. When U.S. News began ranking colleges, the magazine also put the USC school in the top five.

Williams said he appreciates the opportunity he has had to “make a difference in the lives of young people and help them fulfill their potential.”