Robert W. Haigh, a Harvard Business School (www.hbs.edu) graduate, successful executive and former Darden School of Business (www.darden.edu) dean was found dead December 26.
 Former Darden Dean Robert W. Haigh was found dead in a field on Pantops. This photo of Haigh was taken around the time he was dean of Darden, from 1980 to 1982. |
Haigh, 80, lived in assisted living at Westminster-Canterbury Retirement Village (www.westminstercanterbury.org) off Route 250 at Pantops. According to the facility’s staff, Haigh told friends he wanted to go shopping and left the community on foot on Saturday afternoon. He was reported missing that night—staff worried that Haigh would not have access to medicine prescribed for his Parkinson’s disease. Police were notified and family members searched over the holiday weekend until Haigh’s body was found in a field off Route 250, just across from Westminster-Canterbury. Haigh’s remains have been sent to Richmond for an autopsy; no foul play is suspected in the death, police say.
Appointed the third dean of Darden in 1980, Haigh is credited with raising the school’s international profile, expanding doctoral programs and stepping up fundraising. He also appointed the committee that would eventually plan Darden’s current campus. Haigh’s term as dean was cut short in 1982 due to his Parkinson’s symptoms.
Prior to serving as dean, Haigh was a professor of business administration at Darden, and prior to that, he was director of the Wharton Applied Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (www.opimweb.wharton.upenn.edu/ideas/researchcenter.cfm). He had a successful career as a business executive at some of the United States’ most prominent companies, including serving as a vice president at Standard Oil Company and as a board member at Xerox. Haigh was a Baker scholar at Harvard Business School, where he received his M.B.A. in 1950.
Staff at Westminster-Canter-bury said Haigh, who lived there for three years, remained capable in his retirement years and was a great mind. Kristina Pare, marketing director at the facility, says, “This is not something that we’ve ever experienced here at Westminster-Canterbury…Our hearts go out to his family, his friends and all of us here who have lost a great person and a great resident.”