Students in the Terry College will now have the opportunity to experience business outside the classroom, thanks to a new fellows program started by a University alumnus.

Douglas Ivester, a 1969 accounting graduate and president of Deer Run Investments LLC in Atlanta, has started the Deer Run Fellows Program for the Terry College, which will begin this spring. Ivester is most well known for his role as chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Co. from 1997 to 2000.

“The program will give students business knowledge as well as life knowledge,” said Robert Sumichrast, dean of the Terry College.

The program will accept eight students each semester who will participate in a one-credit course involving five sessions in leadership, ethics, balancing work and outside responsibilities, local business opportunities and community involvement.

Through the program, students will have the chance to engage in formal and informal discussions with business leaders. The course will culminate in a trip to Ivester’s 18,000-acre Deer Run Plantation in south Georgia.

“They’ll be learning about business while also being able to ride horses, go skeet shooting and see what a working plantation is like in south Georgia,” Sumichrast said. “It’ll be a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.”

Terry faculty are responsible for nominating qualified students for the program. Sumichrast said more than 100 students were nominated this semester, and the final selection for the program will take place in November.

Sumichrast said the eight who are chosen will have all expenses paid while they are at Ivester’s plantation, but are responsible for their transportation to the south Georgia location.

Dale Gauthreaux, director of the Institute for Leadership Advancement in Terry, helped design the program’s selection process and curriculum. He said the program is looking for students who have demonstrated academic excellence and a commitment to learning.

“The curriculum is an opportunity to take learning outside the classroom, and to use the specific context of Deer Run Plantation as a learning laboratory,” he said.

Gauthreaux said even though the program is on a plantation setting, it shouldn’t be thought of as simply an agricultural opportunity.

“Students will be able to see broad business principles in a particular context,” he said. “They will be able to experience all disciplines of Terry in operation on the plantation.”

Ivester is no stranger to the business world.

He was lauded as the ideal successor to Robert Goizueta, who served as Coca-Cola’s chairman until his death in 1997.

But just over two years into Ivester’s tenure as chairman and CEO, he announced he would be retiring.

According to a December 1999 Wall Street Journal report, Ivester said the company would “best be served by fresh leadership that will bring its own energy to bear.” Ivester received a $1.5 million retirement check and a pension plan that pays him $115,000 monthly for the rest of his life, according to a March 2000 Associated Press report.

Ivester committed last week to become the Terry College’s first Executive-at-Large – a new, unpaid position for the college, similar to the Executive-in-Residence position.

Terry has five Executives-in-Residence whose responsibilities can include mentoring students, assisting in developing new Terry curricula and instructing or guest speaking at Terry courses. Earl Leonard, an executive-in-residence for Terry, said Ivester brings the duties of the Executive-in-Residence position to his plantation.

“We were hoping that Doug Ivester would become an Executive-in-Residence, but he wasn’t interested in becoming a resident anywhere else other than Deer Run,” Leonard said. “He made it so that students that are part of the program can come to Deer Run and participate in seminars, work sessions and business conversation.”

Sumichrast said he thinks this will be a unique opportunity for Terry students, one that will help them both inside and outside of the classroom.

“This will be a broadening experience for students,” he said. “I think it will allow them to see dimensions of their lives that they didn’t know of before.”