June 9, 2015: Andy Abrams, Dean of the Charleston School of Law, spoke to our club on June 9. Abrams was named Dean in 2008. Prior to joining the faculty at the Charleston School of Law, he held various positions at the College of Charleston, including Senior Vice President of Strategic Planning and Administration, Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs, Associate Provost ,Senior Vice President for Institutional Research and Planning, Chair of the Department of Accounting and Legal Studies and Acting Dean of Graduate Studies, and Executive Athletic Director. He received his undergraduate B.A. degree from Furman University and has a J.D. from the University of South Carolina.
Abrams opened his talk indicating that a friend of his and rotary member expressed that he hoped he would be more interesting than his last visit so Abrams decided to not discuss the School of Law but rather gave a discussion on the importance of perspective and attitude in leadership and life in general. He peppered his discussion with many quotes, particularly from Yogi Berra, to illustrate his point.
He began by talking about how sometimes we get so overloaded in trying to make decisions that we fail to act at all. As Yogi Berra said “Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical”.
He went on to indicate that what makes a good manager are good players. For leaders, hire good people, give them the resources and get out of the way.
In decision making, we need to know where we want to end up. Future plans drive what you do today. Again, as Yogi Berra indicates, “You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there”.
We have to make the best decision we can and then act- “ When you get to a fork in the road, take it” (Berra) and as Andy’s father told him “just do something”.
He concluded with Berra’s quote “it gets late early out there” it goes by in the blink of an eye.
When asked about the future of the Charleston School of Law, he indicated that they are open for business with about 120 incoming students and 300 returning.
— Don Baus, Keyway Committee Chair