Filling the DEI Gap for Academia and Industry

• A collaborative of diversity officers at business schools was launched in the southeastern U.S. during the racial unrest in the mid-2010s.
• Now expanded to a national organization, the group offers members benefits such as papers, cases, webinars, conferences, and opportunities to connect with peers.
• Because representatives come from businesses as well as business schools, individuals from both groups have opportunities to network around DEI issues.

 
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are hardly new concepts, but over the past several years, they have become priorities on business school campuses. As schools strive to put new policies in place and allocate resources for DEI efforts, administrators often face challenges navigating best practices and avoiding common pitfalls. One resource they can turn to for collective wisdom is the Business School DEI Collaborative. While the collaborative has been formed only recently, it has been years in the making.

The group has its roots in the events of the mid-2010s, when several African Americans in the U.S. were killed by police officers who rarely suffered any consequences. In response, the Black Lives Matter movement was founded and quickly gained momentum. Organizations from academia to industry scrambled to keep up with a shifting social climate that demanded equity and justice for traditionally underrepresented populations.

In the U.S., many business schools were addressing the situation by creating new administrative positions focused on ensuring diversity. In 2015, Angela Guidry was appointed as the first full-time director of DEI in the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. As she took up her new post, she kept in mind the words of her mentor, who had told her, “Initiatives go away.” She knew that her role could be eliminated as easily as it had been created if she did not quickly begin to make an impact.

An Organization Takes Shape

Drawing on her background in marketing, Guidry began conducting informal market research, reaching out to peers in similar positions to see what they were doing that worked. These included Randy Groomes of the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia in Athens, Daryl Smith of the Trulaske College of Business at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Barbara Lofton of the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, and Annie McGowan of the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University in College Station.

As the list of connections grew and the calls among them became more frequent, the group decided that an in-person meeting was their next logical step. They decided to invite to the event all 14 of the schools in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), an athletic conference for universities in the south central and southeastern regions of the U.S. This led to the first annual SEC Business School Diversity Conference, which was held on the campus of the University of Missouri. The gathering caught the attention of multinational professional services network EY, which began offering financial support to the fledgling organization.

The first meeting also attracted attention from students at the University of Missouri who were in the national news because of their response to a series of racist and homophobic incidents that had occurred on campus. A group called Concerned Student 1950—named after the year that Black students first were admitted to the university—had embarked on a series of protests. In addition, a graduate student had gone on a hunger strike as he called for the resignation of the university’s president, and the football team had threatened to boycott games.

“Meeting with those students ignited something in all of us, really driving home the importance of what we were doing and what we could do on our own campuses,” says Guidry. “We knew right then that we needed to start meeting every year so that we could grow our network and our reach.”

The Business School DEI Collaborative was formed in 2022 with a mission of advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in higher education.

The collaborative continued to hold annual meetings—and to grow. In 2020, all 14 deans of business schools in the SEC signed a statement acknowledging the value that the collaborative brought to their universities. The following year, 33 business schools and 12 businesses and nonprofits were represented at the annual meeting.

Leaders of the organization wanted to expand across the country, but they faced two obstacles. First, as long as “SEC” was in their name, they would neither attract nor represent the full spectrum of business schools that wanted to address DEI issues. Second, many business schools had not yet appointed full-time DEI directors or even identified informal DEI champions on their campuses, so members of the collaborative could not reach out to specific individuals at those schools.

“We needed a new vision and a team of new people who were as passionate as we were about creating a positive culture of DEI in the business school,” says Guidry. “We needed to decide how we were going to deliver real value to members so they would help spread the word to other schools and organizations.”

An Expanded Mission

A new name was the first order of business. The Business School DEI Collaborative was formed in 2022 with a mission of advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in higher education. It plans to achieve its goals through hosting programs that focus on best practices, granting awards, and serving as a resource for educators and businesspeople who are interested in increasing opportunities for historically underrepresented groups.

Membership in the Business School DEI Collaborative is open to any business school in the U.S., and Guidry’s goal is to bring in all of them. “It’s important that everyone understands the value that diversity brings to any organization—not just diversity of race, ethnicity, and gender, but also diversity of culture, thought, and experience,” she says. The collaborative recently received its first inquiry from a university in the U.K., and organizational leaders are looking forward to insights they can provide and gain from international members.

Because companies and businesspeople also are invited to join the collaborative, members of industry and academia will have many opportunities to network together around DEI issues. Such collaborations will help universities prepare students for the corporate world, says Groomes, the director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Terry College. Graduates already will have “an understanding of and appreciation for the value that a DEI-inspired culture brings to an organization,” he explains.

While the group plans to seek continued funding from organizations that supported its earlier incarnation—including EY, Sage Publishing, The PhD Project, and AACSB—it also will charge an annual fee. The introductory fee of 999 USD provides member schools with one registration for the yearly conference and unlimited access to resources such as webinars, cases, white papers, and a web-based help desk.

Because companies and businesspeople also are invited to join the collaborative, members of industry and academia will have many opportunities to network together around DEI issues.

“We will be a hub for best practices, articles, cases, webinars, and podcasts that provide insight and wisdom to our members,” says Guidry. In addition, the annual conferences will provide members with a chance to swap insights and “recharge their batteries,” she says.

But she knows that tight budgets mean that not all schools will be able to attend planned events. That’s why she thinks the group’s greatest benefit will be that it gives members year-round access to the insights and experiences of their peers.

“Members can pick up the phone and get answers to any questions they have about even the most pressing DEI issues. Someone in our organization has dealt with it before or has an idea about what should be done,” she says. “One of our core values is that we are here to share. Helping you doesn’t hurt me. That’s so important, because the DEI offices of business schools are rarely large operations—in fact, they’re usually staffed by just one person. That person needs the kind of network and the kind of family that we provide.”

A Focus on Change

Others involved with the collaborative echo Guidry’s comments. Board chairperson Danielle Beu Ammeter, an instructional associate professor of management and associate dean for undergraduate programs at the University of Mississippi in University, says, “You can’t underestimate the value of connecting with people who share the same challenges you do and who have navigated many of the issues that you’re facing.” She also believes that “the collaborative is considerably more cost-efficient than hiring even one more DEI staffer.”

“Twenty-seven years ago, when we founded The PhD Project, there was nothing like this,” adds board member Bernard J. Milano, the retired former president of the KPMG Foundation and The PhD Project. “I’m thrilled to see business schools stepping up like this.”

As society expands its understanding of the meaning of diversity, and as organizations work to create opportunities for historically underrepresented groups, organizations like the Business School DEI Collaborative could have a real impact. Says Guidry, “We want to help effect meaningful change.”