Darden’s Highest Alumni Honor

Reunion Weekend at the Darden School of Business proved to be a special weekend for Wally Stettinius ’59. He and his classmates were inducted into the Abbott Society, a society whose members have held alumni status for 50 years or more. In addition, Stettinius was named the winner of the Charles C. Abbott Award, Darden’s most prestigious alumni award.

“Winning the Abbott Award is very humbling, very surprising, and I felt like I didn’t deserve it,” said Stettinius after Saturday morning’s ceremony in the Abbott Auditorium. “Like Groucho Marx used to say I’m a little skeptical of a club that will have me as a member,” Stettinius joked.

Stettinius came to Darden after serving as a captain in the U.S. Marine Corps. After graduation, he went on to become president and CEO of Cadmus Communications Corporation, the world’s leading service provider to scientific, technical, and medical publishers.

In addition to his professional career, Stettinius was extremely active and supportive of the Darden School, the University of Virginia, and several not for profit organizations including the Valentine Richmond History Center, the Richmond Memorial Hospital Foundation, and the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls.

Today, Stettinius remains very active, teaching at Darden and at Virginia Commonwealth University. He said graduate business school today is quite different from the Darden of 1959.

“Everyone is so much smarter today,” he said. “And as far as the curriculum is concerned, most of what is taught today was not taught in 1959.”

Stettinius discussed his friends in the Class of 1959 in his Abbott Award acceptance speech. After the ceremony, he said he was pleased that so many classmates attended Reunion Weekend.

“We were a small group,” he said. “We were close and we stayed in touch over the years. It’s nice to be with them today.”

Founded in 1955, the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business works to improve society by developing principled leaders in the world of practical affairs.

For more information, contact: communication@darden.virginia.edu