HU dean finds chess, business make a smart match

Sid Howard Credle, center, the dean of Hampton University’s business school, uses chess as a way to teach students, such as sophomore Nneka Uzoh, about strategy. (John H. Sheally II/The virginian-pilot)

By MATTHEW BOWERS
The Virginian-Pilot

HAMPTON - Sid Howard Credle, dean of Hampton University's business school, pulled chess boards and boxes of playing pieces from a classroom cabinet.

"You know how to set them up? You remember?" he asked the half-dozen or so students in sweatshirts and jeans. "White will go first. And you'll use the Bird's Opening."

Pawn to F4. An attack from the side, rather than down the middle. Chatter faded, replaced by the clicks of moving pieces and groans from gambits gone wrong. Ten minutes into the class, Credle doffed his suit jacket and cracked a window.

Chess is more than fun to first-year students in Hampton's five-year MBA program. It's part of the curriculum. A third of the course Critical Analysis and Strategy is devoted to learning and playing it.

After experimenting with chess in business administration classes for more than a decade, Credle formally incorporated it in 2000 into the new MBA program, whose graduates finish with both bachelor's and master's degrees.

The game is a way to teach critical thinking and strategic skills in a dynamic environment.

Just as in, well, the business world.

"Think and move" is the slogan for the program's 230 students.

Credle said most of his graduates - even with required internships - will compete for jobs against applicants who have been working full time for years.

"We can't give them experience," Credle said. "But we can give them a system of looking ahead: chess. One move ahead, two moves ahead, three moves ahead."

About one in 10 students knows how to play before taking the course. They learn the basics one evening a week from Credle, a past national champion in one of the lower ratings, who takes over from the regular professor. They play each other for fun and in a class tournament, and must play 20 strangers on the Internet.

"It's somewhat brutal," Credle said of the competition. "But so is corporate America."

Last Tuesday, he sat across from Natasha Moore, a freshman from New Jersey. Moments later, she had two of his pieces, he had one of hers - but he also had a piece on the attack.

"See what I did?" he asked. "I traded two pieces for speed."

Moore later said she likes the strategy part - if not the clock that's sometimes used to limit how much time she has to make a move.

"It teaches you how to think outside the box, to think one step ahead," she said.

The lessons already are taking effect, she added: She has begun planning her time better, and procrastinates less on other schoolwork.

Tisa Rabun, a 2004 program graduate, credited her chess lessons for good reviews she gets for problem-solving in her corporate marketing job in Hartford, Conn.

"The first thing is, it gets you out of your comfort zone," Rabun said. "Everyone likes games.... Competition drives a lot of people."

And it's integral to the class. Laughter - usually self-deprecating, over ill-advised moves - mixes with trash talk.

"Bam!" Credle exclaimed as he took opponents' pieces. He dismissed a backpedaling opponent with mock praise: "He had a good game for a little while."

Linda Lopeke, an Ontario, Canada-based business consultant, applauded the Hampton class. She has used chess for 25 years to train corporate employees and students in strategic thinking.

"It's not like work," she said. "It's much easier for someone to take correctional advice if it's presented in a way that's not identifiable with their immediate job."

Credle said he plans to experiment with other games: Chinese checkers, double-deck pinochle, even Monopoly. For Hampton's MBA students, the competition won't get any easier.

A Japanese martial art called Kendo awaits them in their fourth year.

For that, they'll be dragging out bamboo swords.