The Office for Women and Minorities in Business
Allison Babb `02
Issue date: 5/14/01 Section: People
- Page 1 of 2 next >
The Office for Women and Minorities in Business was established in August 1999 to work in partnership with corporations, alumni, students, faculty, and staff to increase the availability and visibility of women and minority executive talent around the world. It is the Office’s intention to transform the Johnson School into a model for diversifying the MBA student population and for training all MBA students to become leaders who effectively manage today's diverse customer bases and work environments. In order to better understand the goals and initiatives of the office, I spent some time talking with Angela Noble, Director. Following are excerpts from that conversation as well information posted on the Office’s newly launched Website.
In discussions with prospective MBA students, Angela is often asked what distinguishes Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management from other top MBA programs. As an alumna and now a member of the staff at JGSM, she responds by saying that it is the Johnson School’s strong sense of community that sets us apart; a sense of community that is carefully nurtured from students’ very first interactions with the school and lasts throughout their careers, long after leaving Sage Hall. For community to be real, everyone must feel supported, challenged, and included.
Cornell University has a rich tradition of fostering inclusion. At Cornell we practiced diversity long before the word gained popularity. At a time when higher education was a privilege reserved for the sons of the elite, Ezra Cornell-a farmer and entrepreneur-declared: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." This statement, incorporated in the official seal of the university, has been the guiding principle for Cornell throughout its 132-year history. The university's co-founder and first president, Andrew Dickson White, articulated the same sentiment and applied it specifically to women and minorities. In a letter to an abolitionist in 1862, shortly before he founded the University with Ezra Cornell, White wrote of the need for a center of higher learning for all people "regardless of sex or color." Cornell was thus among the first major universities in the United States to admit women—it became coeducational in 1870, just two years after it opened—and Sage Hall, the current home of the Johnson School, is where those first women students lived. The nation's first African-American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, was founded at Cornell in 1906.
In discussions with prospective MBA students, Angela is often asked what distinguishes Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management from other top MBA programs. As an alumna and now a member of the staff at JGSM, she responds by saying that it is the Johnson School’s strong sense of community that sets us apart; a sense of community that is carefully nurtured from students’ very first interactions with the school and lasts throughout their careers, long after leaving Sage Hall. For community to be real, everyone must feel supported, challenged, and included.
Cornell University has a rich tradition of fostering inclusion. At Cornell we practiced diversity long before the word gained popularity. At a time when higher education was a privilege reserved for the sons of the elite, Ezra Cornell-a farmer and entrepreneur-declared: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." This statement, incorporated in the official seal of the university, has been the guiding principle for Cornell throughout its 132-year history. The university's co-founder and first president, Andrew Dickson White, articulated the same sentiment and applied it specifically to women and minorities. In a letter to an abolitionist in 1862, shortly before he founded the University with Ezra Cornell, White wrote of the need for a center of higher learning for all people "regardless of sex or color." Cornell was thus among the first major universities in the United States to admit women—it became coeducational in 1870, just two years after it opened—and Sage Hall, the current home of the Johnson School, is where those first women students lived. The nation's first African-American fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha, was founded at Cornell in 1906.