My 2014 Drucker Landmark College Day

On September 16th, I spent a tremendously meaningful day at Landmark College, in Putney, Vermont.  I wrote about the school in Chapter 4 of Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way. Its specialization is educating students with learning difficulties such as dyslexia, and some students may have ADHD or an ASD-Autism Spectrum Disorder. There is now a greater national awareness of the challenges and possibilities of teaching the growing number of students with learning difficulties.  For instance, two days after my talk, Dr. Peter Eden, the school’s President, was in Washington speaking at a U.S. House of Representatives hearing about dyslexia in higher education.

In the book, I featured Landmark (which will have its 30th anniversary next year) as an example of an innovative institution that reflected some of Drucker’s bedrock principles: building on strengths rather than weaknesses; and the importance of  innovation and entrepreneurship. I’ll probably never know if Drucker was familiar with Landmark. Two reasons he might have been are his voracious learning about the field of education; and his Vermont roots. In the 1940s, he taught at Bennington College, which is not far from Landmark.

A couple of months after my book was published, I was interviewed for Landmark’s website, and invited to spend an entire day on campus. In the evening, I did a presentation open to everyone at the school, as well as the local community, which was ultimately televised by Brattleboro Community Television. During the day, I had meals with Dr. Eden, faculty, students and members of the administration.

I gave a guest lecture in the marketing class of Jim Koskoris, and met with the business seminar students of Roxanne Hamilton, the Chair of the business department. The seminar students had read my book, worked on many of the exercises, and prepared some terrific questions. I was also given a campus tour, and was interviewed by the campus radio station, which brought back wonderful memories of my own college radio days at American University.

All of the students I talked to were impressive. Some expressed entrepreneurial or creative ambitions, and the energy and enthusiasm levels were high. There is a lot happening on campus, especially the construction of a new Science, Technology & Innovation Center, which will be ready next year. (The current buildings are the work of the noted 20th century architect Edward Durrell Stone.) In June, it was announced that the school  will receive a $1 million gift from PIMCO chief economist Paul McCulley (who coined the term “the shadow banking system,”) for the creation of the new Morgan le Fay Center for Advances in Business and Entrepreneurship Instruction. McCulley’s son Jonathan is a 2014 Landmark graduate.

I believe that Landmark will continue to gain in prominence, and I’m honored for whatever role my book and my day on campus can play.