Faculty Chairs

To be the best, you must learn from the best. To achieve this mission the Johnson gift has endowed two professorships at Washington and Lee: one in the Williams School of Commerce, Economics, and Politics focusing on entrepreneurship and leadership, and another in the College of Arts and Sciences exploring how individuals and ideas shape the course of history.

"I'm the guy with the keys to the candy store," said Dr. Jeffrey Shay, Washington and Lee's first Johnson Professor of Entrepreneurship and Leadership. "Students are typically given an assignment analyzing other people's products," he says. "In entrepreneurship, I'm letting you pursue something you have dreams of doing."

Dr. Shay comes to us from the University of Montana where he served as the head of the Department of Management and Marketing and as The Poe Family Professor of Entrepreneurship. Shay also worked as the CEO of the Montana Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs and Director of the John Ruffatto Business Plan Competition.

Shay says he is most excited about working with students in an intimate class setting and introducing them to the opportunities that a background in entrepreneurship can offer. "My goal is to teach students to think differently, to make them more motivated to excel, and to teach them to be able to read between the lines."

Shay lives in Virginia and hopes to teach spinning classes through the Campus Recreation department at W&L.

Washington and Lee is still in the process of hiring the second endowed Johnson professor.

New Faculty