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HONORARY GRAND MARSHAL Robert L. Virgil, D.B.A., Washington University trustee, professor emeritus of accounting and former dean of the John M. Olin School of Business, has served the University with distinction for more than 40 years. He now chairs the University's Sesquicentennial Commission, leading the efforts to celebrate the school's 150th anniversary. He is a limited partner in the St. Louis-based national investment firm Edward Jones. He was born August 26, 1934, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. After graduating from Beloit College in 1956, Dr. Virgil earned master's and doctoral degrees in business administration from Washington University. In 1961, he joined the faculty of the business school as an instructor and was named a full professor in 1972. Dr. Virgil was a visiting professor at Dartmouth's Amos Tuck School of Business Administration in 1975-76, following a year as Washington University's vice chancellor of student affairs. After returning to Washington University, he became acting dean of the business school in 1977 and then dean in 1979, serving until 1993, when he joined Edward Jones as general partner. As dean of the John M. Olin School of Business, Dr. Virgil helped the school to grow from a small, relatively unknown business school housed in cramped quarters in Prince Hall to a leading, nationally recognized school. Under Dr. Virgil's leadership, the construction of the business school's current home, John E. Simon Hall, was completed. The school significantly strengthened its faculty and student quality, energized its alumni, started new academic and research programs, instituted a new curriculum, established a healthy endowment, and became the John M. Olin School. In 1992, Dr. Virgil was also named executive vice chancellor for university relations, where he was responsible for the divisions of alumni and development programs, human resources, and public affairs. He has served on many key committees at the University over decades, including chairing the Faculty Senate Council, the Committee on Recruitment of Under-represented Faculty, the committee to review career services for Arts & Sciences students, and as a member of the Committee to Prepare for the 21st Century. He also chaired search committees for the deans of the law and architecture schools. Dr. Virgil's teaching experience spans both managerial and financial accounting. He was named teacher of the year on nine different occasions. In 2001, he was awarded the William Greenleaf Eliot "Search Award" the highest award bestowed by the University's Eliot Society. In 1996, Dr. Virgil and his wife, Gerry, received the Dean's Medal from the John M. Olin School of Business. This year, friends and alumni of the University are establishing an endowed professorship in management in their names. At Edward Jones, Dr. Virgil is responsible for management development, assisting in developing the firm's leaders for tomorrow. During his tenure there, Edward Jones has grown to more than 9,300 investment representatives and has expanded globally into Canada and the United Kingdom. Active in many civic, educational and professional associations, Dr. Virgil has served the community in notable ways, including as director and chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; chair of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an effort founded at Washington University to attract minorities to MBA study; trustee of Beloit College; co-chair of a citizens committee to recommend improvements in the governance and financing of the St. Louis Metropolitan Sewer District; trustee and chair of the Mary Institute and Country Day School Board of Trustees; director and chair of two St. Louis children's organizations, The Magic House and Girls, Inc.; and chair of the advisory council for business administration at Harris-Stowe State College. He has been a director of Maritz, Inc., CPI Corp., General American Life Insurance Co., and other companies. Dr. Virgil currently chairs Citizens for the St. Louis Symphony Ballot Proposal, the Friends Committee for the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, and the Danforth Circle Committee in the Eliot Society. He will become president of the Eliot Society next year. He and Gerry have four grown children and eight grandchildren. |
