The room was full of positivity at the Business School’s second forum on diversity and equity Thursday afternoon.
About 50 people sat in the Summerfield lecture hall, passing around boxes of Hot Box Cookies.
The meeting was a follow-up to the Business School’s first forum on Nov. 30 where students and faculty discussed what aspects of diversity and inclusion the School did well or could improve upon. Dean Neeli Bendapudi said the Business School will host a diversity forum every semester.
“We’ll keep talking about it until we all say ‘Oh, it’s perfect, we don’t need to talk about it anymore,’” she said.
Talk alone, Dean Bendapudi said, isn’t enough. The Business School has faculty and staff diversity and inclusivity training sessions this month and is hosting events like The Power of Sport: A Conversation on Business, Race and Sport on Feb. 18.
There was a lot to celebrate.
A white, male freshman complimented how one of his 100-level Business School classes included a presentation on current diversity events on campus. He said he may otherwise have not been aware since it doesn’t necessarily affect him.
A professor said she immediately applied lessons from a SafeZone training both in- and outside the classroom. She introduces herself with her gender pronouns – something that makes it easier for people who are transgender or gender non-binary to introduce themselves – to her classes and talked about it with friends at a girls’ night out.
But there were still issues to work on.
Dean Bendapudi said the School’s retention rate and post-graduation employment is high, but that the School needs to improve its pipeline to recruit more minority students.
A white professor said she teaches diversity issues in her classes, but doesn’t like having to speak on behalf of diverse identities.
Another professor pointed out how most people in the room were white – which doesn’t represent how diverse the business world is.
Dean Bendapudi was eager to do the work.
The love from “Dean Neeli” was palpable. She blew kisses at one student and when another broke into happy tears – “The Business School changed my life,” Kwasi Porter-Hill said – she hugged him, said she loved him and rubbed his back.
Camille Douglas – the senior from Overland Park who Dean Bendapudi blew kisses at – said the good mood at the forum was thanks to how proactive Bendapudi and the Business School is about diversity.
“She really tries to get in front of issues and I think people see that and people are very responsive to that,” Douglas said.
Porter-Hill, a senior from Los Angeles, California, was glad the School was holding itself accountable.
“The fact that we had this event in itself is amazing,” he said.
The dean gave everyone her personal cell phone number and encouraged them to reach out. At Douglas’s request, she promised to schedule a follow-up forum for the end of the semester.
“What happens in the Business School, I want you to hold me accountable,” Bendapudi said.