A legacy of mentorship: O’Kelly McWilliams III ’90 establishes endowed professorship of business at Longwood

"These people had an impact on me that went well beyond the classroom," McWilliams said. "They helped me grow as a student, but they also helped me grow into who I am today."

That personal growth is central to the meaning McWilliams attaches to his gift. During his time at Longwood, he served on the Honor and Conduct Board and came to appreciate the university's emphasis on honor and integrity-not simply as rules to follow, but as values woven into the culture of the university.

Those principles resonated with the lessons McWilliams learned growing up in Richmond, where he was raised by his two grandmothers. The combination of those early lessons and his Longwood experience helped shape his approach to citizen leadership and, later, to his professional life.

Today, McWilliams, who earned a law degree from George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School, is a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of the global law firm of Holland & Knight. He currently serves as treasurer of the Board of Directors of VHC Health in Arlington, Virginia, and previously served as chair of the Virginia Retirement System.

When he considers what has helped to drive his career, he points to one quality above all others-decisiveness.

For McWilliams, being decisive is not simply about acting quickly. It is about having the confidence to make difficult decisions and the moral compass to know which direction to take.

That moral compass, he said, was strengthened during his years at Longwood.

His ability to make those decisions also reflects the confidence and intellectual foundation he developed through the mentorships he experienced at Longwood and throughout his career. Those qualities have become especially important in his work advising clients, where making a clear, well-reasoned decision can have a lasting impact.

That is among the reasons McWilliams felt the College of Business and Economics was a natural home for the endowed professorship.

Business leaders are regularly called upon to make decisions-sometimes with incomplete information, competing priorities and significant consequences. For McWilliams, the ability to make those decisions with both confidence and integrity is a critical part of effective leadership.

He hopes the professorship will help provide future Longwood students with the same kind of mentorship and intellectual development that he experienced as a student. The endowed professorships will enhance the academic experience by providing faculty with additional resources to bolster their scholarly expertise and by expanding Longwood's contributions to broader academic discourse. The inaugural recipients of the new endowed professorships will be announced during the 2027-28 academic year.

In that sense, the gift brings McWilliams' Longwood story full circle. The university invested in him through faculty mentorship, opportunities for leadership and a culture grounded in honor and integrity. Now, through the endowed professorship, he is investing in the people who will follow.

The gift is a lasting expression of gratitude-but also of belief in the transformative power of a Longwood education.

For McWilliams, that transformation began as a business administration major walking the halls of Hiner. It continued through the mentors who saw potential in him, the experiences that challenged him and the values that became part of how he leads.

Now, he is helping to ensure those opportunities remain available to generations of Longwood students. And perhaps, in doing so, another student will find the mentors and lessons that shape not only a career, but a life.