James Calvin and John Hunter have long shared a vision for engaging with and developing aspiring business leaders and entrepreneurs in reaching their full potential, particularly early- to mid-career professionals from underserved communities. Over the years, their collaboration at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School helped shape academic programs, mentoring groups, scholarships, and the new Hunter Family Professorship in Leadership and Community of which Calvin is the inaugural recipient.
The two men celebrated their remarkable partnership and the new professorship at an installation ceremony on October 15, surrounded by colleagues, friends, alumni, and family.
“The dedication of an endowed professorship is a significant occasion in the life of any school,” said Carey Dean Alex Triantis. “These professorships recognize exceptional faculty and are an enduring investment in the future of the school—supporting scholarship, teaching, student experiences, and broader community impact for generations to come. It is one of the highest honors we can bestow upon our faculty.”
As the Hunter Family Professor of Leadership and Community, Calvin will continue his research and teaching of leadership development and creating meaningful impact in economically underserved communities across the nation and the world.
The start of something transformational
Calvin and Hunter’s long friendship started in the mid-1990s when Professor Calvin was new to the faculty at the Johns Hopkins School of Continuing Studies, a precursor to the Carey Business School, and took over its up-and-coming Leadership Development Program in 1998. Hunter was senior vice president of customer services for home shopping giant QVC.
With his academic background in leadership development, organizational change, cross-cultural management, community economic development, and experiential learning, Calvin was keen to expand the Leadership Development Program. He invited Hunter, who had spoken to LDP classes at the program’s outset, to participate in lectures, host student interns on site visits at QVC, and assist with national case competitions.
As Professor Calvin became one of Carey’s longest-serving faculty members, Hunter remained an active member of the Dean’s Advisory Board and continued to contribute to the Carey Business School. In 2022, they helped reinvigorate and reimagine the Leadership Development Program 2.0 as a nationally recognized certificate program for helping students advance their leadership skills. They were also instrumental in establishing Carey’s Summer Business Academy, a scholarship-supported program that helps expose undergraduate students to business education.
Giving back
At the installation ceremony, surrounded by his wife Delores and his children and grandchildren, Hunter cited his grandparents for instilling in him a drive to help others. “I guess this notion of giving back was sort of ingrained from a very early age before I even knew about who I was as a business executive,” he said. He noted his hardworking grandparents, who emigrated from the Caribbean, continuously welcomed fellow immigrants into their home, while shrewdly investing in their family’s future.
“Dr. Calvin, I can't think of anyone better suited to be the first to lead the way as to what you need to do to make this thing work,” Hunter said.
“I'm a bit overwhelmed,” Calvin told the crowd in accepting the new professorship. “And I am truly honored, humbled, and thankful for the recognition that I am receiving.”
Of his friend, John Hunter, Calvin said. “You have never wavered in your guidance and vision to invest in people and to encourage their talent and growth as so many continue to ascend in organizations and in their communities.”
Carey LDP and MBA graduate, Oral Muir, now the vice president for Partnerships, Experiences, and Distribution at Hilton, joined the installation ceremony to introduce Calvin as the new Hunter Family Professor of Leadership and Community. “There's so much you've taught me that I want to make sure so many other people benefit from. And I think all of us can keep multiplying that effect and ultimately, you keep lighting the path for others, and we'll keep doing the same,” he said.
Speaking of Professor Calvin, Muir added, “The real ledger of that impact is written in the lives of the people you've touched, all of us, the organizations you influenced, and then how we've worked to change communities and businesses that we're a part of. I know this because I had the profound privilege of reading that ledger firsthand.”
