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Two Alumni Sworn In to W&L’s Board of Trustees

Washington and Lee University swore in R. Allen Haight and Bennett L. Ross to the University’s Board of Trustees on May 8, at the board’s spring meeting in Lexington.

R. Allen Haight graduated from W&L in 1984, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.S. in business administration and European history. He worked for KPMG in New York before attending the Darden School at the University of Virginia, receiving an M.B.A. in 1989. That year, Allen moved to London, England, and joined Permira, a European private-equity firm. He was a partner at the time of his 2008 retirement.

He is a former member of W&L’s Williams School Board of Advisors. Haight, of Old Greenwich, Conn., and his wife, Franziska, have three children, Madeleine, Richard and Charlotte.

Bennett L. Ross is a partner with the law firm of Wiley Rein L.L.P. in Washington, chairing the firm’s telephony practice. He graduated from W&L in 1983, magna cum laude, with a B.S. in commerce.  As a student, he served on the Student Recruiting Committee and as president of the Executive Committee, and belonged to Pi Kappa Phi fraternity.

After graduation, Ross worked as an admissions counselor at W&L, helping to select the last all-male and first coed classes. In 1988, he received a J.D. from Vanderbilt University, where he was elected to Order of the Coif and served as editor in chief of the Vanderbilt Law Review. He was a partner with the law firm of Bass Berry & Sims, in Nashville, Tenn., practicing general litigation. In 1995, Ross began a 12-year career with BellSouth Corp., including as general counsel of Georgia operations and general counsel of the D.C. office.

Ross has been a W&L class agent and served on the steering committee of the On the Shoulders of Giants capital campaign and on the steering committee for his 25th reunion.  He chairs the W&L Alumni Admissions Program Committee in D.C. and is vice chairman of the Founders Committee of the W&L Institute for Honor.  Ross, of Cabin John, Md., and his wife, Alyson, have two children, Jacob and Samuel.