Tyson Janney: Remembering a Risk Taker, In Memoriam
Tyson Janney passed away on October 13, 2019. We are grateful to share a piece of his story.
Born on August 30, 1931, Tyson Janney was a member of the very first class of Darden students. A native of Virginia, Janney had attended Woodberry Forest School, Washington and Lee, and ultimately the Darden School of Business. That first class of students called themselves the “fearless firsts”. In 1955 group of 38 men, of diverse ages and backgrounds crowded into Monroe Hall not knowing what the future had in store for them. They had no idea of the challenging work that lay ahead.
As the only MBA program in the South, Darden students were largely unfamiliar with the idea of business school and the case method being pioneered. Many of the men were Korean War veterans and were returning to school as a result of the G.I. Bill. Tyson Janney and the 37 other men chose to take a chance on a startup in hopes of a better future. The school was developed and money was raised to address the brain drain of Southern men leaving to go to business schools such as Harvard and Wharton and ultimately staying up North, but there was no way to know what the results would be.
In many ways, these men were truly taking a leap of faith. At the time, MBA degrees didn’t have the credibility they carry today. For many of the students in Janney’s class, joining meant sacrificing having relationships or trying to juggle the demands of Darden on top of having a family. For this, Janney says that the “wives deserve special credit,” for the feat they accomplished raising a family while their husbands were in school. Though women played a huge role in the success of their husbands and partners while they were in school, Janney notes that the students at Darden were shorthanded and missed out on a huge asset by not having women in the classroom to offer their insights, intelligence, and perspectives. Mr. Janney felt a similar way with regard to the absence of international students. Not having an international perspective left them largely void of cultural exchange.
“The lack of female insight and inherent intelligence shortchanged us in a number of ways.”
The academic experience for these initial Darden students was for many an experience in perseverance. The case method and course rigor were so challenging that it presented an insurmountable learning curve for several of the group. Within the first week of class, two students had already left, and others gradually followed. Janney recalls that the material was not the challenge for everyone. For some students the demands of presenting in front of the class and professors was too much to overcome. Janney recalls one of the smartest students in his cohort dropping out because he hated giving speeches. For those who managed to stay, Janney describes their experience as, becoming accustomed to an “unrelenting workload”. Despite the many obstacle’s students faced in the classroom, Janney noted that his professors wanted him to succeed in every way imaginable and were there to support students, but also coach those who were struggling on how to improve or what their alternative options were. Janney says that a resource that would have helped the fearless firsts overcome the steep learning curve is the counsel a second-year cohort would have been able to provide.
The counsel Janney and his peers lacked was something they looked forward to giving to the students who followed them. Additionally, they pioneered and developed the resources they felt they needed to be successful both during school and post-graduation. Janney himself started a speaking club in the professional schools and established early connections with U. Va. alumni to find work. The on-campus recruitment process is an overwhelming but seemingly universal stage experienced by all budding business professionals today. However, when Janney was a student, there was no career center and no visiting recruiters to find young talent within the Darden school. The attention never came because so few even knew the program existed.
Once recruiters did start coming to U. Va., Janney recalls them noting that they had better success at Darden than at Harvard or Wharton because U. Va. students were team players and had learned to work together in a collaborative environment as opposed to a cutthroat one. The team spirit extended out of the classroom as well. In their free time, Janney and his friends from within Darden would go to football games. It was their response to a feeling that they didn’t appreciate the school enough in all that it had to offer.
“I would like to think that we were more team players and were more supportive, where it’s not the cutthroat environment that it is at some other schools.”
Seizing the moment for what it was, Tyson Janney went on to receive his MBA from Darden, a member of the very first graduating class. Of the original 38 students, only 9 are still alive today. However, their legacy and endurance in the face of the unknown lives on. Their courage paved the way for the over 75 classes of Darden students that have since followed. When you look around Darden’s campus on North Grounds today, you can see a tangible representation of the values of the fearless firsts. A documentation of principles they held dear; the class donated as a gift the honor code engravings seen around grounds.