Here’s some not-so surprising news: Harvard Business School is taking the “bold” step of hiring an Associate Director for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, apparently because some of the best and brightest human specimens on the planet may not feel that they, well, belong.
According to The Crimson, this new position will be responsible for coordinating “between students, faculty, and staff to improve the environment surrounding equity and inclusion at the school.” If that’s not specific enough for you, Harvard Business School’s Ellen Mahoney says the new hire “will be creating new metrics that capture students’ experience at the school to understand diversity and belonging.”
“When you look at inclusion and belonging, we all have our sense for what that means. Part of what we are trying to figure out is what that means for the various communities that come here,” Mahoney said.
At an institution whose total cost of attendance hovers at around $70,000 per year, one might expect something a bit more … concrete. Alas …
The new position will allow the administration to engage with the existing diversity and inclusion student organizations, such as the Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Council and the Women’s Student Association, according to Student Association Co-President Triston J. Francis, co-president of the Student Association. …
As the school searches for the new director, Steven Rogers, a senior lecturer at the Business School, has led efforts to increase the diversity of protagonists in business school cases. His course, “Black Business Leaders and Entrepreneurship,” includes 14 case studies with black protagonists. Rogers, however, said that he thinks the recent increase in cases featuring black protagonists has been insufficient and that he is “not happy with where we are today.”
“I believe there are eight or ten cases versus two, which in my opinion, for a place like Harvard Business School, which has the ability to do whatever it wants to do as quickly as it wants to do because it has the resources and the means, I believe that that is glacial change,” Rogers said.
“There has been improvement, but the improvement has been glacial and I am a little disappointed. Because we are HBS, we are Harvard, we can do whatever we want to do,” he added.
“Do whatever we want to do.” Like throwing six figures at a position to help Ivy Leaguers feel that they “belong?”
MORE: The never-ending ‘need’ for college ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’ efforts
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