Josh Hall is a hard man to keep up with.

As Milan Puskar Dean of the Chambers College at WVU, Hall is responsible for over 170 faculty and staff and over 3,700 students. That often leads to long workdays.

Every day, however, Hall carves out time – often when no one else is awake – to walk.

“I try to shoot for 50 miles a week,” Hall said. “During Covid, we had so many phone and Zoom calls I was regularly exceeding 60 miles per week because I wanted to be productive while I was listening to all that information.”

For Hall, walking is an opportunity to think through problems, clarify their solutions, and observe the passage of time in Morgantown. With the start of a new year, walking is also an opportunity to reflect on what he’s done and what he has yet to do.

Nearly four years into his deanship, these are Hall’s reflections – on walking, working and the future of the Chambers College.

How far do you walk in a normal week?

A: When the weather’s good, I walk from my house all the way through the downtown campus, up behind the Mountainlair, down by our old building – what’s now Field Hall – around the back of Woodburn, and then all the way back home. That’s about one hour, and most days I also walk to and from work. Then I’ll often go for an evening walk with my spouse.

That’s a lot of walking. How did you cultivate a lifestyle on the move?

A: We align our time with our values. I try to create good habits. I have a 16-point task list that I try to do every day: go for a walk, write to five alumni, write to five admitted students. It’s a constant reminder of how I should allocate my time. I use very basic concepts, but their power comes from persistent application.

In the first two years of my deanship, I was very fortunate to have access to a leadership coach through WVU. He said, ‘Ambiguity breeds distrust, so what you need to have is clarity.’ When it’s time to clear my thoughts about whatever the issue of the day is – and there’s always an issue – walking is how I do it.

You must need that clarity often, considering how much your job entails.

A: I never saw myself as an administrator. I had everything I ever wanted - I got to teach my students and do my research. Now, what I understand is that I can create conditions for other people to do their jobs better, in accordance with our mission. I get a lot of satisfaction from that.

Would I be successful at a private research university? No, because I don't value the same things they do. We have a great mission as a land-grant business school – we’re committed to educating and transforming our students in ways that support the prosperity of our state and our world.

It’s interesting that you use the word “value.” It has a double meaning.

A: I want to create as much value as possible. You don’t do that by picking the best apples in the orchard and shining them up.

To give you an example, I had a student once whose grade was barely over 2.0, but who was very well-spoken. I brought in a guest speaker and asked this student if she wanted to join us for dinner. We went to a nice restaurant, and she asked the guest speaker great questions, followed up, and listened.

I said to her, ‘You should go into advancement. You’re interested in people, you ask fantastic questions, and that speaker had a rapport with you.’ Now that student is a development officer for an art museum, which was another one of her passions.

That’s a great example. Do you apply a similar philosophy to our faculty and staff?

A: How do organizations get better? By getting better people, or by building up the people they already have. You don’t do that by having people run away from their strengths.

Rebel Smith, our associate dean for undergraduate and graduate programs, is a great example of that. Her position didn’t exist – it was two positions, and we always thought they had to be filled by people who came up through the faculty ranks. Rebel was clearly the best person for 85% of each role. So we combined the positions and gave the duties that were not her strengths to someone else. Rebel is able to focus on what she does best, and the result is our student experience has improved considerably.

We hunt for good people and put them in position to succeed, and we try to do that for our students. Everything we’ve done over the last several years has been to allow our students to get the most out of their tuition dollars: new minors, accelerated bachelor’s to master's degrees, the 3+3 program. When prospective students visit us, they can feel that we’re working to help them succeed – that’s why our numbers keep rising.

What do you consider your biggest accomplishments as dean?

A: This is a difficult question to answer. We have this fantastic building that was the vision of Bob Reynolds and Dean Reyes – but to me, that isn’t the accomplishment. The accomplishment is how we’re using the building to create opportunities for students.

The number of students who can come here and get an affordable, transformative education is astounding. Often, that transformative experience isn’t about academic content per se. It’s about them getting a better sense of themselves as people.

A big motivator for me is thinking about how we’re perceived by the standards of our mission. We’re supported by many people: our students, our alumni and friends, the taxpayers of this state, the federal government. We have a vision for bettering ourselves while bettering the state that our stakeholders can see the benefits of. I’m very proud of the way our faculty and staff work every day to fulfill that mission.

So what does the future hold for the WVU business community?

A: The Chambers College is very well poised to succeed in the future because of the way we continue to build our experiential education, both in and out of the classroom.

Data Driven WV alone has over 120 volunteers. We now have a marketing consulting group (304 Marketing), and we’re continuing to build up our fellowships – the Lewis Fellows, the Hutson Fellows and the Van Scoy Fellows, to name a few.

Beyond the Chambers College, think about WVU’s research apprenticeship program, and the community development and experiential learning that come out of the College of Applied Human Sciences and the Davis College.

One day, I’d like to walk away knowing that we hit 100% placement at commencement. Imagine telling prospective students and their parents, ‘Last year, every graduate walked off the stage knowing exactly where they were going.’

Last question: if you could give one lesson in leadership, what would it be?

A: If you treat things with the seriousness and thoughtfulness that they deserve, then people will respect the decisions you make. You have to do what’s best for the students.