Wharton exits were expected

When former Wharton Dean Patrick Harker left Penn, eight others followed, forcing the business school to rebuild much of its upper administration.

But don't be surprised by the exodus: It was to be expected, experts say.

Three administrators - Monica Taylor, executive director of external affairs and the Wharton Fund, Patricia Plummer Wilson, Wharton chief of staff and director of faculty administration and Scott Douglass, vice president for finance and treasurer for the University -- followed Harker to the University of Delaware, where Harker has assumed the presidency.

Those departures were announced at about the same time as Harker's.

The proximity of these departures, however, is not at all unusual: It is "fairly routine" for high staff turnover to follow a major figure's departure, said Irene Nagel of Russell Reynolds Associates, an executive search firm that works in higher education.

During his transition to Delaware, Harker offered Taylor, Wilson and Douglass the opportunity to be a part of his UD management team.

"It was natural that several people with whom I worked very closely at Wharton expressed their interest in being a part of my team at UD," Harker wrote in an e-mail.

Nagel added that, "If you have an individual who is exceptional and extraordinary, it is normal that you will want toer with that individual at the new institution."

On the flip side, when officials assume high posts, they tend to surround themselves with the staff of their choice.

Thomas Robertson appointed Mike Gibbons - who used to work as a finance professor - as deputy dean of Wharton.

Similarly, when Penn President Amy Gutmann came to the University in 2004, she brought her own chief of staff from Princeton University.

"Whenever a new dean comes in, the new dean . builds a team," Gutmann said of these departures and newly filled administrative posts. "They usually appoint their deputy."

Harker also wrote in an e-mail that, while the administrators who left will be missed, Wharton, with its many talented people, would not suffer.

"We are pleased to have highly experienced and excellent leaders joining our staff," Gibbons said.

And the remaining five departures that did not head to Delaware?

Nagel said that sometimes, an employee's pull of loyalty to an institution can be lost if an administrator they worked with leaves, making it an opportune time to change jobs.

Alternatively, they may feel an institution's priorities will change with a new leader.

"When you're talking about Wharton, there's got to be a very good reason for someone to go somewhere else," she said.

And so far, there appears to be good reasons: Both appointments represented major opportunities for those faculty.

Former Dean of Undergraduate Education Barbara Kahn and former Deputy Dean David Schmittlein left to take on the role of dean at the University of Miami School of Business and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management, respectively.

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